双语 | Tackling slums by making them better places to live in

“A kind of square of leprous houses.” That’s how Charles Dickens summed up Manhattan’s notorious, disease-addled slum back in 1842. Five Points was eventually demolished and today the neighbourhood where it once festered boasts some of the most expensive houses in New York.

回首1842年纽约曼哈顿臭名昭著、疾病丛生的贫民窟，狄更斯（Charles Dickens）总结说，“这里就像是个麻风病院广场”。纽约的移民聚集区，以犯罪多发著称的“五点地区”（Five Points）最终被拆毁，曾经衰败不堪的街区后来成为纽约最高级的房产地段。

For centuries, demolishing these settlements was seen as the noble thing to do. Ramshackle assortments of shacks would be razed to the ground, and replaced with more respectable establishments, such as public buildings. After all, who would want to live in a slum anyway?

几百年来，人们认为将这些贫民聚居区拆毁才是正事。各式各样、破败不堪的简陋屋舍都要被夷为平地，并由更为体面的设施来替代，比如说公共建筑。毕竟，谁会想住在贫民窟里面呢？

Of course, there’s one major problem with this strategy: the slum’s former inhabitants often had nowhere to go. At Five Points, thousands of homes were demolished to make way for parks and courthouses. The US government didn’t have a plan for what to do with the people left behind. 

当然，这样整改方式存在一个大问题：贫民窟中原先的居民常常无处可去。在上述的“五点地区”，成千上万的房屋被拆毁，为公园和法院腾出位置，但当时的美国政府对于如何安置这里的原居民并没有什么规划。

Fast-forward to 2019, and the world’s slums are expanding at an alarming rate. There are already around a billion people living this way, and as climate change sets in and the mass exodus out of the countryside and into major cities gathers pace, many more are expected to join them.

时间跳转来到 2019 年，世界上的贫民窟正在以惊人的速度扩张。已经有大约十亿人以这样的方式生活，并且随着气候变化和大批民众离开乡村进入大城市的步伐加快，还会有更多的人会加入他们的行列。

But while some slums are still under attack – parts of Kenya’s largest slum, Kibera, have just been bulldozed, leaving 20,000 people homeless – this model of regeneration has been gradually falling out of fashion. Instead an alternative philosophy has been emerging, one that involves investing in the poorest neighbourhoods instead of destroying them.

尽管一些贫民窟仍然被拆除——肯尼亚最大贫民窟基贝拉（Kibera）的部分地区刚刚被推平，两万人因此无家可归，但这种重建模式已经逐渐过时，另外一种理念已然兴起，这种理念主张投资最贫穷的居民区，而不是将它们拆毁。

Enter slum upgrading – the process of gradually improving these communities until they’re seamlessly incorporated into the city that they occupy. From laying roads and pumping in clean water, to building stronger houses and allowing people to own their land, the ultimate aim is to provide all the same rights and amenities that you would expect in a normal residential area.

投资改造贫民窟的目的是逐步完善社区，直到它们与所在的城市水乳交融。执行手段包括规划铺路、泵送洁净水源、建造更坚固的房子、允许人们拥有自己的土地——这些做法的终极目标在于，为所有人提供同等的权利和便利。

“I think there’s often a representation of informal settlements as places of great insecurity,” says Diana Mitlin, an expert in global urbanism at the University of Manchester. “But a lot are actually permanent – there will be people who have lived there for 40 years… There’s been a recognition that you have to help people where they are.”

米特林（Diana Mitlin）是曼彻斯特大学研究全球都市主义的专家，她说：“我认为，人们常常将非正规的居住点描述为极不安全的地方。但是，这些地方其实都是一直存在的——有一些人们在那儿生活了四十年……人们已经认识到，你得帮助他们。”

It’s not all about charity. Though the inhabitants of slums may be poor, they can still be a source of money – after all, they account for around one in every seven people on the planet – and businesses have been playing a surprisingly important role in their transformation.

这并不全是慈善事业。尽管贫民窟中的居民可能很穷，但是仍然可以成为有利润的市场——毕竟他们占到人口总数大约七分之一——而且在他们的转型过程中，商业公司一直在扮演令人惊叹的重要角色。

Take the humble toilet. One of the biggest challenges in the quest to improve slums is the fact that they are largely off-grid. In many areas, the hidden cables and pipes that keep modern civilisation afloat are non-existent – so when it comes to dealing with humanity’s most revolting by-product, there aren’t many appealing options. 

以毫不起眼的厕所为例，在改善贫民窟的过程中，最大的挑战之一在于，贫民窟大多数都没有完整的上下水道设施。在许多地区，维系现代文明的线缆和管道根本不存在——因此，如何处理令人作呕的人类“副产品”并没有太多好的选择。

“Growing up in India, I saw that there was a real shortage of public toilets,” says Mayank Midha, the founder and chief executive of Garv Toilets. Midha had always wanted to do something about it, and finally saw an opportunity back in 2014 when he was working for a telecoms company. As his eyes rested on one of their electrical enclosures – essentially a metal box that sits at the base of a communications tower and holds equipment – he realised that it would make a perfect toilet.

米德哈（Mayank Midha）是加夫厕所（Garv Toilets）的创始人兼行政总裁，他说：“我在印度长大，据我观察，公共厕所真的很短缺。”米德哈一直想为此做点儿什么，而当他 2014 年供职于一间电讯公司时，他终于看到了一个机会。当时，他的目光停留在一处电器外罩上——它本质上是一个金属盒子，位于一个通讯塔的底座，里面放着一些电路设备——他突然意识到，这个金属箱子可以成为一个完美的厕所。

But this wouldn’t just be any toilet. The few public facilities that did exist at the time in India were not well looked after, so they were often unsanitary and regularly vandalised. “We realised that if we could automate this toilet and track its usage and functionality on a real-time basis, then we could solve these problems,” he says.

而且不仅是一个简单的厕所。在当时的印度，少数仅有的厕所并没有得到很好的维护和保养，所以常常很肮脏，而且常遭破坏。“我们意识到，如果能够让厕所自动化，并且实时跟踪其使用和功能，那么我们就可以解决这些问题。”

Today, after years of development, his company has developed the Garv Toilet. These “indestructible” loos are packed with sensors and fancy electronics, which provide the team with constant feedback. If people aren’t flushing them, they know. If people aren’t washing their hands… well, you get the picture.

如今，经过了数年的发展，他的公司已开发出加夫厕所。这些“坚不可摧”的厕所装有传感器和精密电子器件，为团队提供持续反馈。如果有人如厕后不冲马桶，他们会知道，如果有人不洗手，他们也会知道。

As it stands, Midha’s company has hundreds of toilets across the country. Now he’s bringing them to Ghana, too, where the majority of people live in slum areas with dirty facilities that they don’t want to go near. Instead they use the playfully-named “flying toilet” – they collect their waste in a plastic bag, and throw it as far away as possible.

米德哈公司目前在全国拥有数百间厕所。现在他还要把它们带到加纳；在加纳，大多数人都生活在贫民窟地区，这些地区脏乱的设施让人们不想靠近。当地人戏称他们使用的是“会飞的厕所”——把排泄物收集在一个塑料袋里，然后把它们扔得越远越好。

There are several major advantages to this unlikely collaboration between the world’s poorest communities and profit-seeking businesses. For a start, there’s the fact that public generosity isn’t entirely reliable; in 2017, the Trump administration proposed a 32% cut to the nation’s foreign aid budget. Meanwhile the UK government has recently threatened to slash its spending on developing countries.

在世界上最为贫穷的社区寻求利润有几大优势。首先，发达国家公众援助并不完全可靠——2017 年，特朗普政府提议将国家的外援预算削减32%。英国政府最近也威胁要削减对发展中国家的开支，这意味着当地社区不得不依赖盈利企业提供的服务和解决方案。

Another has to do with the sheer numbers involved. “There are around four billion people around the world who don’t have access to basic sanitation facilities, so that’s a huge requirement,” says Midha. “I believe if it’s totally dependent on grant money or charities then it’s not a very scaleable kind of a thing. There is a requirement for sustainable models, which can be rolled out to different parts of the world.”

另外一点则与其涉及到的庞大人口数相关。“全世界大约有40亿人无法获得基本卫生设施，所以这是一个庞大的需求，”米德哈说。“我认为，如果这完全靠捐赠金钱或者慈善机构，那么它的扩展性就不会有那么大。人们对于可持续的模式是有需求的，这种模式可以推广到世界上的不同区域。”

In the case of Garv toilets, they’re partially funded by the Indian government and partially by their customers, who pay each time they use them. This is topped up by revenue from advertising – the toilets are set in landscaped outdoor spaces with billboards – and community service kiosks, which sell things like mobile data top-ups.

加夫厕所一部分是由印度政府出资，还有一部分是由顾客付费使用，每次使用都要付费。广告收入也能够提供资金——厕所建于风景秀丽且有广告牌的户外区域——以及社区服务亭，这里可以售卖东西，比如移动数据充值卡。

Another key challenge facing the inhabitants of slum communities is access to clean drinking water. Delivering this precious resource is problematic because, as with sewerage, most houses are off-grid. However, governments and businesses around the globe are working hard to get around this.

贫民窟社区居民面临的另一个重大挑战是获取清洁饮用水的问题。提供这一宝贵的资源很棘手，原因是，和污水处理系统一样，大多数房子也都没有自来水。然而，全球的政府和企业都在努力想办法来解决这个问题。

“So typically, what would happen is you would have an extension of the pipe network [into the slum],” says Mitlin. “And then because you probably haven’t invested to the point where you have piped supplies to every house, you would have people either coming to a water kiosk, where water is sold, or a water point – essentially a pre-paid meter, where people use tokens to buy it.”

“所以比较典型的做法是，你要让管道系统延伸（到贫民窟），”米德哈说。“然而，因为你的投资很可能还没法让管道设备进入每家每户，那么你要做的就是：要么让人们来卖水站买水，要么让人们来供水站取水——预付费模式，人们用代金券买水。”

One such company is Grundfos, a Danish engineering firm and pipe manufacturer. Back in 2015, they teamed up with the Nairobi City Water & Sewerage Company to provide “water ATMs” at the city’s second largest slum, Mathare.

格兰富（Grundfos）就是这样的一间公司，它是一间丹麦的工程公司和管道制造商。它们在 2015 年与内罗毕市给水排水公司（Nairobi City Water & Sewerage Company）合作，在该市第二大贫民窟马萨雷（Mathare）推出了“取水 ATM”。

Previously the only way to buy water was from men pulling hand-drawn carts, who sold it in old jerrycans or oil drums. It was expensive, no one could vouch for its safety – it was often stolen from broken pipes – and residents would have to walk for miles to reach it. In fact, providing dodgy water was such big business that historically it has been controlled by water mafia – several different gangs aggressively controlled who could sell water and for how much. 

以前，买水的唯一方式是通过拉手推车的人，这些人将水放在老旧的大扁平容器或者油桶中销售。这很昂贵，而且没人可以确保其安全性——常常是从破裂的水管中偷来的——而且居民们要走很远才能取到水。事实上，提供有问题的水是一笔大生意，这笔生意在历史上曾经被水资源帮派控制——各种不同的团伙肆意控制了谁可以卖水以及水的价格。

This is where the “water ATMs” come in. They look like a cross between a bank ATM and a petrol station pump, with hoses and a digital dashboard. To use them, people are asked to simply swipe their “smart card” – which can be topped up from a mobile phone or at a kiosk – at one of the many machines in the area. Then water starts flowing from the tap.

“取水 ATM”于是应运而生。它们就像银行 ATM 和油站汽油泵的结合体，有软管和数字仪表板。人们如果要使用的话，只需在该地区众多机器上任选一部，然后刷一下“智能卡”就可以；这种卡片可以用手机充值，也可以到电话亭充值。接下来，水就会从水龙头里流出来。

The latest influx of investment isn’t limited to the absolute essentials. Entrepreneurs are lining up to sell many of the normal public services that you would expect in any residential area, such as electricity and the internet.

最近涌入的商业投资不仅仅限于提供生活必需品。企业家正在有序销售许多典型的公共服务，这些服务在任何住宅区中都预期会有的，比如电力和互联网。

Finally, since health and emergency services are thin on the ground in many developing regions – in Kenya, there’s one doctor for every 6,355 people – there are even companies stepping in to provide DIY health and emergency services. These run the gamut from networks of fire alarms that warn neighbours when they’re at risk of a fire, to home delivery kits that reduce the risks for those women giving birth at home.

最后，由于医疗照顾和紧急救难服务在许多发展中地区也是非常少见——在肯尼亚，每6355人当中只有一名医生——因此甚至有私人公司开始涉足这个领域，提供自助式医疗及紧急服务，包括火灾警报服务——向街坊邻居提供火灾警报，以及家庭接生工具箱——减少妇女在家分娩的风险。

“I think there has been a change. What has become apparent is that cities need labour forces and that those people tend to live in informal settlements,” says Mitlin. In places where wages are low, people have no choice – slums are the only affordable option. But thanks to a band of extraordinary innovators and businesses, it seems as though their lives could get a tiny bit better.

米德哈说，“我认为已经发生变化了。很明显的是，城市需要劳动力，而那些人往往会在非正规的定居点生活。”在工资较低的地方，人们别无选择——贫民窟是唯一能够负担的住处。但多亏了一批优秀的创新企业，他们的生活似乎能够有一点点改善了。

News from BBC NEWS

UPDATED 8th February 2019

By Zaria Gorvett