ABSTRACT
The student schemes illustrated in this book are a contribution to a debate which is taking place at a global level (Davis 2006) about upgrading illegal settlements as opposed to demolishing them and resettling the occupiers. Contributors to the debate aim to treat the people who live in illegal settlements, in extreme but ubiquitous environments, as clients rather than as victims or passive recipients of welfare. There is always a choice and the authors of the schemes in this book have chosen technologies and spatial strategies which emerge, amongst other things, from their study of Indian urban precedent.
