Street-led city-wide slum upgrading

This lecture proposes a fundamental shift in addressing the problems of slums, and suggests an approach that focuses on streets as the engine for urban transformation. The strategy brought forward by Claudio Acioly uses streets as the natural conduits that connect slums spatially and physically with the city and treats streets not only as physical entity for mobility and accessibility – through which water and sewerage pipes, power lines, and drainage systems are laid – but as the common good and the public domain where social, cultural and economic activities are articulated, reinforced and facilitated.Acioly’s lecture argues that streets trigger economic activity, attracting shops, services and increased residents’ identity with their place of residence, bringing an enhanced sense of security and orderly development. The introduction of public lighting and mixed use along a street’s route is likely to bring more usage and social interactions amongst residents with positive impacts on the sense of public safety. But equally important is the naming of streets and numbering of houses establishing unequivocally the physical addresses and locations, enabling residents to gain an address and postal code, the first steps in gaining citizenship rights.