

Kids in India Are Sparking Urban Planning Changes by Mapping Slums - lermontov
http://www.citylab.com/tech/2015/02/kids-are-sparking-urban-planning-changes-by-mapping-their-slums/385636/

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nerd_stuff
This book by James Scott has a very interesting perspective on the mapping of
unmapped cities. The TL;DR is that an unmapped or unmappable city can't be
managed from afar. In an unmapped city you must go there to manage it, in a
mapped city you can sit at a desk a thousand miles away and know who's paid
their taxes, etc. Paradoxically the act of mapping helps both outside help and
outside exploitation.

[http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-
Condition/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-
Condition/dp/0300078153/)

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iwwr
This also engenders a "Sim City" kind of urban planning that keeps commercial
spaces or jobs very far away from homes and makes it impractical to not own a
car (simply necessary for survival).

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slayed0
It looks like they're building legends on these maps. I wonder if the legends
are standardized. It'd be cool if whoever is reviewing these, or someone
involved in the process, could scan them in and make a public repository.

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filiwickers
There is an effort to make this process a bit easier using OpenStreetMap &
Field Papers ([http://fieldpapers.org/](http://fieldpapers.org/)).

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acpmasquerade
Inspiring.

First the idea of mapping slums and making stakeholders aware (even though
they are already) whenever they sit to plan. Secondly the idea of using
children who will foresee the future they want to live into.

"The value of child-led mapping, however, is not restricted to dreaming of a
modern cricket pitch or other public utilities (although that's evidently
important)."

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js4win
Proud of these kids. It would be great if a local representative could help
with uploading some of the data. I believe there can be a lot of restoration
aid provided from many of us in helping with this process.

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Shish2k
Meanwhile, kids in Britain are sparking urban planning changes by slapping
mums :(

(Not entirely joking; I wonder if it's media bias, or are kids in less-well-
off countries like this _really_ so much more motivated to create and improve,
where ours slack off and vandalise?)

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icebraining
It should be noted that the UK has 5% of the population of India, so by sheer
size of the population alone, they should have 20x the number of motivated
kids, all else being equal.

~~~
akshat_h
Also, I think India has a younger population so that 20x may be higher, though
I don't know by how much.

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minot
[https://www.google.com/search?q=india+population+by+age](https://www.google.com/search?q=india+population+by+age)

41.1% is younger than eighteen

47.9% is younger than twenty one

This is as of 2001 so I'd imagine the population is a little older now...

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6911544.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6911544.stm)
via
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India)
> by 2030, India's dependency ratio should be just over 0.4

off topic but if the age disparity pays dividends in a few decades, will it
not cause headaches in a few more decades unless we're able to automate most
jobs by then?

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pcr0
Those are some really well organised maps, kudos to them.

