An area of poor housing, characterized by multi-occupance and overcrowding; see McFarlane (2008) Env. & Plan. A 40, 1 on sanitation in Mumbai’s informal settlements. Rao (2006) Int. J. Urb. & Reg. Res. 30, 1 rails against the use of ‘slum’ as shorthand for ‘the distortion of urban substance into a dysfunctional stage for violence, conflict, and the iniquitous distribution of resources’; although places of marginalization, slums can also be places of great creativity and community survival (Appadurai (2002) Public Culture 14, 21; P. Chatterjee 2004). For example, slums often play an important role in a city and region’s economy, with many slum residents taking part in vital informal production, services, and recycling-based services that support more affluent sections of the city; see Pyati and Kamal (2012) Area 44, 3, 336. Slum clearance is the demolition of substandard housing, usually accompanied by rehabilitation and redevelopment. At the time of writing, history’s most ambitious slum-clearance project is nearing completion, with the elimination of Dharavi, a Mumbai slum that houses between 600 000 and a million people.