small thoughts on sustainability

Dharavi street- afternoon. © Dante Montella

by Michael Montella

How is it that a city of 13 million or a neighborhood in Dharavi can at times seem quieter than my neighborhood, located in a rural town of 6000 people?

I live is a small miid-hudson valley town of approximately 6000 residents. With a population density of 318.5/sq mi (123.0/km2). Mumbai city proper has a population of 13,922,125 with a density of 21,880 /km2 (56,669 /sq mi).

Dharavi, spanning an area of about 223 hectares (550 acres), is home to between half a million and one million people (no recent and reliable population statistics are available). A 1986 survey by the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) counted 530,225 people (106,045 households) living in 80,518 structures; the numbers have surely grown since then.

A recent survey established that a central area of Dharavi (Chamra Bazaar) contained densities of up to 336,643 people per square kilometer! Assuming a population of 700,000, the population density in Dharavi would be around 314,887 per square kilometer. This is 11 times as dense as Mumbai as a whole (the most densely populated city in the world with 29,500 people per square kilometer) and more than 6 times as dense as daytime Manhattan (about 50,000 people per square kilometer).

While there was a constant hum and chatter on the streets of Dharavi, I rarely experienced a decibel noise level that I regularly hear in my town-- or anywhere in the U.S. where houses are close together. It wasn’t until I was back at home that I heard the roar of motorcycles at full throttle going up the hill past my house. Or the rumble and squeal of eighteen-wheelers as they try to slow down, having been going too fast already, negotiate the downhill curve just beyond my house.

In the bustling metropolis that is Mumbai, in ten days, i’d be hard-pressed to say I heard more that one siren from an emergency vehicle. Surely, I saw ambulances and police a-plenty. But there was something about the overall footprint that didn’t call attention to itself.

Americans love to step on the gas, zoom past the scenery at the fastest possible rate of acceleration-- and when the empty light comes on pull in to fill up on our subsidized gasoline (still some of the cheapest in the world). Lawnmowers, high-speed, cup-holder equipped grass chewers, weed-wakers, leaf blowers and leaf suckers. Power tools of every kind, to do the simplest job. Maybe even for one-time use-- then destine to sit on the self and collect dust. Think about the amount of energy it takes to produce, ship, distribute, drive around and operate all this stuff! The amount of energy it takes to cart the unwanted of it away. The landfill, the toxic byproducts. I know, we all heard it before.

I wonder what the median number of gas powered and electric motor driven machines Americans have per person?

It isn’t my intention to throw the preverbal “baby out with the bath-water” There are plenty of things I appreciate about my native country and my Hudson Valley home.

Seeing stark differences can help us take stock of and perhaps reassess and make adjustments of our own ways.