Why a city should embrace its slums

An interview with David Smith, first published on Tarlabaşı Istanbul

“The city does not exist that has no poor people”

Increasingly governments and municipalities are forcing its poor people out of the city centre and to the very outskirts, where they have little to no access to the low-skilled jobs that are often their only choice, and that need to be performed in any city.  David Smith discusses the impact of gentrification, radical redevelopment, the obligation cities owe to poor people as citizens and how experience in Western countries has shown that the experiment to house poor people in tower blocks on the outskirts of cities has failed.