Slums, Change and Modernity
Intoduction
This essay is about the ongoing urban change in Addis Ababa. It is about the importance of learning from the positive features of slums and transferring them into urban redevelopment schemes. The essay does not seek to preserve the physical fabric of slums. It rather highlights the responsiveness of slums to the dwellers’ way of life and their livelihood. It cautions against the skewed influence of architectural modernism that focuses on material aspects at the cost of cultural needs. It calls for exploring the notion of ‘another modernism’ in redeveloping slums. ‘Another modernism’ that do not take culture as its excuse to preserve slums, rather that accepts the need for redeveloping slums while responding to the socio-economic requirements of the majority low-income people.