Slum Bicycles

I'm a bit of a bike nerd so I'll try to keep this brief or I might end up writing a masters thesis haha. I used to work at a bike shop and one of my fellow employees took part in an event called the Tour D'Afrique. The Tour D'Afrique is trip down the length of Africa (Cairo to Cape Town) by bicycle. What I find very interesting is the choices people make when choosing what kind of bike and what specific components they'll use during the trip.

The terrain is extremely varied, some sections paved and others can hardly be called roads. The trip takes about three months of cycling almost every day and then theres the dust storms and kids throwing rocks to deal with. My point is the bikes take a lot of abuse and I think this might make the riders choices transferable to a bike built for a slum dweller.

Reduction of complicated systems seems to be the first step. This means modern developments like suspension and hydraulic brakes are out, despite the fact that they would be usefull in rough terrain. Also modern building materials like carbon fibre and titanium would be out of the question because of cost and how difficult they are to repair if damaged. That leaves two common bike building materials, aluminium and steel. Of the two steel is probably the better choice because it is cheaper, can take more abuse and is more easily repaired. There is one more material which has emerged as a bit of a novelty in cycling but might have great potential in some developing countries: bamboo. Bamboo could be an interesting alternative because it would require much less infrastructure to manufacture frames and could develop into a cottage industry for slum residents. (this model in specific uses bamboo-fiber to wrap the joints)

Kona bicycles has a program called AfricaBike where they have developed a simple, rugged cruiser style bike and for every two of them they sell they donate one through an in house charity to those who need them in Africa. In

slum shoes

I was thinking about the most basic form of transportation in the slums which is of course walking and thinking about those wooden clogs that prisoners were given in Nazi concentration camps and it made me think about how important good footwear is. I'm sure we've all had the experience of wearing the wrong shoes on a day where you have to walk a lot and getting brutal blisters on your heals. So anyway, heres some info on improvised and shoes made with salvaged materials.

This the "unswoosher" made by the magazine Adbusters. I think the re-used tire sole and very exsposed seams and construction make at least look improvised.

Image from a blog I found which has videos on how to make these very simple sandals called "Huaraches"

Again, not really improvised but you could imagine how they could be.

And lastly, a couple diagrams of how to make improvised shoes.

Tristan Roberton 

November 13 2010

http://www.adbusters.org/cultureshop/blackspot/unswoosher

http://barefootted.com/2007_05_01_archive.html

Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.)

I was reading over some of the posts and thinking about what some of the other groups are doing for their presentations (finding a way to redevelop slums) and it reminded my of the Garden of Eden Creation Kit from the Fall Out series of video games. In the game giant vaults are built which can house hundreds of people in case of nuclear war. Nuclear war does break out and each vault is given a G.E.C.K. so once the radiation levels outside the vault are bearable they can emerge and create a liveable environment outside.


"The Kit looks like a small, silver briefcase emblazoned with the letters G.E.C.K.; and, according to Vault-Tec advertisements, it contains all the seeds, fertilizer, and other equipment - including a cold fusion power generator and a basic replicator - necessary to start a new settlement in a post-nuclear world after emerging from a Vault shelter"


"The Garden of Eden Creation Kit is a terraforming device capable of radically altering the Wasteland and transforming dead, irradiated soil into viable land suitable for farming"


"It contains a fertilizer system, with a variety of food seeds, soil supplements, and chemicals that could fertilize arid wasteland into supporting farming. The GECK is intended to be "disassembled" over the course of its use to help build communities (for example, the cold fusion power source is intended to be used for main city power production), and so on. Anything else people needed, they could simply consult the How-To Books/Library of Congress/Encyclopedias in the GECK holodisk library for more knowledge."


I don't think it helps us in a direct way but its interesting to think about. 


"Garden of Eden Creation Kit." The Vault, the Fallout Wiki - Fallout: New Vegas and More. Web. 13 Nov. 2010. <http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Garden_of_Eden_Creation_Kit>.


Tristan Roberton
Nov 13 2010

About a third of the world’s urban population lived in slums in 1990. 
Estimated total number might rise to 1.5 billion by 2020.


Public policies towards slums are highly politicized based on factors such as strength of NGO (Non-governmental organizations) , other social groups and politics of slum management.
Governments have dealt with slum "problems" by either:

1. clearing slums through forced or legal evictions; [ in Africa and Asia, over 14 million people were evicted between 1998 and 2006 (UN-Habitat, 2007)]
2. applying public policies that range from benign neglect to occasional interventions; and
3. regularising settlement conditions

Access to Safe Water in Slums

More than a third of African countries accessibility to safe drinking water have actually declined from 1990 to 2004

http://waterwiki.net/index.php/Access_to_Water_in_the_Slums_of_the_Developing_World

ReachOutWater Solutions (ROWS) 

non-profit development consultant proposes that the solution for slum residents needs consists of four components 

1. increased quantity of water (The World Health Organiza- tion (WHO) recommends 20 liters of potable water and 30 liters of non-potable treated water per person per day.)

2. improved quality of water (The Slum Water Program will serve the market needs by removing 99.99 percent of bacteriological contamination utilizing a small ultraviolet (UV) treatment device which is already in use throughout rural India.)

3.  improve access to water (either collect the water from the Slum Water Program stations, or to have water delivered directly to their home for a small fee

4.  partnering with the Municipal corporation and established community based organizations (provide a water services solution managed by the community utilizing an exist- ing customer base that already pays for improved infrastructure services)

www.acarainstitute.org/?300604/ReachOutWaterSolutions.pdf 

Slums/Water

http://www.wateraid.org/india/what_we_do/7518.asp

THE STATE OF SLUMS IN INDIA

·      Urbanizing very fast > slum population increasing fast

·      Most do not have access to clean water

·      Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh > les than 35% get tap water

·      44% of non-notified slums have no drainage system, 15% notified do not have

·      past few years have seen an improvement in sanitation and water access

·      slum population in India has doubled in past two decades

·      1972 > government program called Environmental Improvement of Urban Slums, drinking water and sanitation was given

·      1996 > gov again initiated National Slum Development Programme that focused on providing drinking water and toilets

·      after nine years, discontinued

·      estimated that approx 46 slum dwellers benefitted

http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2010/03/15/hot-water-for-chiles-slums-courtesy-of-the-sun/

HOT WATER FOR CHILE’S SLUMS, COURTESY OF THE SUN

·      pilot program to install solar water heaters in houses of low-income families

·      took shantytown and made a community

·      lack of water and electricity, cold winters

http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/2903.cfm

KENYA: THE FIGHT FOR WATER – A VALUABLE SLUM COMMONDITY

·      water shortage, water distribution controlled by gov

·      want water to be made public again so it is free

·      largest and poorest slum in Africa

·      half a million people living there

·      most shelters have no piped water, so have to buy water from various sources and public taps

·      water is rare and expensive

·      residents are stealing water by tapping into pipes

Danielle Rosen Nov 9, 2010 10:15

Part 2: Water and Sustainable Settlements

awesome pdf:
http://www.unwater.org/downloads/WWAP_Urban_Settlements_Web_version.pdf


Two main problems associated with water that affect are:

1. lack of access to sanitation

2. water related disasters (floods, droughts)

"Of almost 1.8 billion people who gained access to improved drinking-water in the period 1990–2008, 59% live in urban areas. In urban areas, however, the increase in coverage is barely keeping pace with population growth.

Of the approximately 1.3 billion people who gained access to improved sanitation during the period 1990–2008, 64% live in urban areas. However urban areas, though better served than rural areas, are struggling to keep up with their population growth."

Mario Arnone

November 9th 2010

works cited:

World Water Assessment Programme, Initials. (n.d.). Water for sustainable urban  

     human settlements. Water Problems are Urban Problems, Retrieved from            

     http://www.unwater.org/downloads/WWAP_Urban_Settlements_Web_version.pdf

Nairobi motorcycle taxi service

Young men living in a Nairobi slum formally named Korogocho (but called Dirt Island because of a new paved circular road around the slum) who once were criminals are now becoming "biker boys". Biker Boys are essentially motor cycle taxis. This form of transportation is ideal in several ways, the narrow bikes can more easily fit the tight passages found in the slums, they are very fuel efficient (keeping profit margins higher for taxi operators) and they are fast. Though at first slum residents were hesitant to use these motorcycle taxi services once they began to see the advantages it became a very common practice to the point that today even businessmen and civil servants use the taxis.

There are some negatives to this system as well. Many young men cannot afford to buy a motorcycle so they rent them for a around 400 shillings a day (a good day will bring in about 1000 shillings). At the same time, used motorcycles are not prohibitively expensive so it is very possible to save the profits and purchase a bike later on. The rough roads and often poor conditions of the bikes means that some of the profits must go to repairs. On the up side the new road built around the slum reduces wear on the bikes due to a much more consistent driving surface.

What I think is important about this development is the fact that it is an initiative developed by the young people within the slum, not instigated by an outside party. This means that these young people are thinking about how they can improve their own conditions and those of the slum in general instead of turning to crime.

Tristan Roberton
November 9 2010
citation: Bradshaw, By Steve. "BBC News - Nairobi's Motorbike Boys Improving Their Own Slum." BBC News - Home. Web. 09 Nov. 2010. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8913543.stm>.