The natural process of slums

When we talked about slums in class on Tuesday, it occurred to me that the people who live there don't really have a "home" in a traditional sense, but aren't technically homeless. Obviously slums aren't desirable, but their creation can be seen as an organic process. It's kind of like when you have a pot of dirt, eventually something (probably a weed) will sprout. Eventually the pot will be full of things (weeds) simply because the conditions were right to sustain that life. Now I'm not calling people who live in slums "weeds" , but it's similar in that if you have a space that is suitable for people to inhabit, and there's nothing stopping them, they will inhabit it. Whether they be squatters in an abandoned structure or a homeless man on the bench at a park, people will occupy space like weeds occupy cracks in a sidewalk. And yet there's something fascinating about them. The vibrancy of both the colors and community. It feels personal, exactly how they created it to suit their needs.