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This issue of Mute, largely sparked by Mike Davis’ claim that in the megaslums Muhammad and the Holy Ghost have superceded Marx, considers another view of the world’s burgeoning ‘naked cities’.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?

read the full version online | PDF | low graphics | designed PDF | cover
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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

Contents of this cluster

1. Editorial
2. 21st Century Noir
3. Thinking Resistance in the Shanty Town
4. 'We Are Ugly, But We Are Here': Haiti Special Introduction
5. U.N.-Liberating Haiti
6. Poem: Tourist
7. Poems: Keep On Keepin' On
8. Slumsploitation – The Favela on Film and TV
9. Lies and Mendicity
10. Thriving On Adversity: The Art of Precariousness
11. Demolishing Delhi: World Class City in the Making
12. Extracting Value from the City: Neoliberalism and Urban Redevelopment (print issue only)
13. Delta of Heinous: Developing Thames Gateway. Introduction: Another Green World
14. Great Expectations: Governing Thames Gateway
15. Blue Skies Over Bluewater