Forget eco-homes and look to the Mumbai slums, Kevin McCloud urges British Government

Britain should focus less on building environmentally friendly housing and more on providing “happy” places to live, according to Grand Designs host Kevin McCloud.

By Anita Singh, Showbusiness EditorPublished: 6:00AM GMT 05 Jan 2010

The presenter suggests that, for all the millions of pounds spent on designing eco-towns — the Government’s answer to Britain’s housing shortage — ministers could learn about creating happy communities from the slums of Mumbai.
A recent trip to the Indian city provided him with unlikely inspiration for making communal living a success.

"I've come back with a sense of renewed hope about how we can do that," McCloud said. "If I have one message for developers and the Government, it's to focus less on eco-housing and green buildings - because, frankly, we know how to do that. Let's start focusing on the social stuff, on how we can make people happier."
His words are likely to dismay the Government, which is pressing ahead with the plans to build 10 sustainable “eco-towns” by 2020.
They are also likely to raise questions about McCloud’s own proposal to build a 200-home eco-development near Swindon, despite the fierce opposition of neighbours. He has been attempting to push through the £19 million project since 2007, but local residents claim it will destroy a green space used by children and dog walkers and which is a haven for wildlife.
The apparent change of heart follows McCloud’s visit to Mumbai’s Dharavi slum, the rubbish-strewn shanty-town which provided the backdrop to last year’s Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. It is home to between 600,000 and one million people who are crammed into a 520-acre site. Disease is rife and it is estimated that there is one lavatory for every 1,400 residents.
McCloud was there to film Slumming It, part of Channel 4’s forthcoming Indian Winter season. He told Radio Times that Dharavi could teach Britain a great deal about “social sustainability”. “There is a tremendously elastic attitude to what is theirs, what they own and how they work in and use space,” he said of the slum residents, who live side by side in corrugated iron shacks.
“A room has several functions. You can take a space and extend it out to a balcony and into the public realm. Because women don’t have huge kitchens, they rinse their pots in the street. That has to be the most civilised, sociable way of doing the washing-up – outside in the sun, chatting to your neighbours.”
“It’s all about people sharing things. It’s about making sure people are happy where they are living and content to stay there, rather than treat their home as an isolated box that is part of their pension plan or investment portfolio.”
"We should stop looking at property as pornography or an investment, and instead think of it as our home, and that home being next to another home, and those together being part of a community."
The presenter lived with a 21-strong family during his stay, all of whom had "perfect teeth and hair" despite their surroundings.
Describing the communal laundry area, he said: "Professional washers stand knee-deep in grey water all day whacking clothes against the slabs. That water comes from a little creek that runs under the railway line. There are dead rats, rubbish and toxic waste floating in it. Yet those clothes get beautifully pressed and everyone's smartly dressed. That is the amazing paradox of the slum."
Last year, the Prince of Wales hailed Dharavi as a model for urban planning, claiming it had an "underlying intuitive grammar of design"