According to UN research data, by 2030 half of the world's population will be living in slums. Meanwhile, in Durban's Kennedy Road settlement  residents risk arrest and police violence in their struggle for toilets and drinking water. The statistics are not supposed to talk back.

This issue of Mute, largely sparked by Mike Davis’ claim that in the megaslums Muhammad and the Holy Ghost have superceded Marx, considers another view of the world’s burgeoning ‘naked cities’. Where the populace are refugees without rights or basic amenities, are new forms of political action emerging?

Texts by:
Amita Baviskar, Iain Boal, Anna Dezeuze, Michael Edwards, Melanie Gilligan, Anthony Iles, Demetra Kotouza, Penny Koutrolikou, Josaphat Robert Large, Félix Morisseau-Leroy, Kevin Pina, Richard Pithouse, Benedict Seymour and Rachel Weber