Kids in India Are Sparking Urban Planning Changes by Mapping Slums

This book by James Scott has a very interesting perspective on the mapping of unmapped cities. The TL;DR is that an unmapped or unmappable city can't be managed from afar. In an unmapped city you must go there to manage it, in a mapped city you can sit at a desk a thousand miles away and know who's paid their taxes, etc. Paradoxically the act of mapping helps both outside help and outside exploitation.

http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condition/dp...

It looks like they're building legends on these maps. I wonder if the legends are standardized. It'd be cool if whoever is reviewing these, or someone involved in the process, could scan them in and make a public repository.

Inspiring.

First the idea of mapping slums and making stakeholders aware (even though they are already) whenever they sit to plan. Secondly the idea of using children who will foresee the future they want to live into.

"The value of child-led mapping, however, is not restricted to dreaming of a modern cricket pitch or other public utilities (although that's evidently important)."

Proud of these kids. It would be great if a local representative could help with uploading some of the data. I believe there can be a lot of restoration aid provided from many of us in helping with this process.

Meanwhile, kids in Britain are sparking urban planning changes by slapping mums :(

(Not entirely joking; I wonder if it's media bias, or are kids in less-well-off countries like this really so much more motivated to create and improve, where ours slack off and vandalise?)

Those are some really well organised maps, kudos to them.