It isn’t by design - in fact, there are concerted efforts to move these ‘eyesores’ - that the first thing you see when you fly in to Mumbai by air, is evidence of its urban poor. There are some that perch precariously on the slopes of the hills you see as you fly in.
In contrast, Mumbai’s poor cluster in neighbourhoods that are unmistakable, particularly because of the blue tarp on their roofs. In Seoul, it seems the poor are virtually out of sight by virtue of this underground real estate. Reading about the banjiha made me think about the optics of a city and the visual symbols we associate with progress. Today, these are homes for those who can’t afford to live in high-rises and reminders that Seoul, for all its shiny prosperity and super-fast internet, suffers from a critical shortage of affordable housing.
Worried that there may be a warlike situation with North Korea, the South Korean government in 1970 issued directives that all apartment buildings should have basements that would serve as bunkers in case of a national emergency.
There’s something poetic about the Kims’ bonhomie in the basement apartment because banjihas, as these basement apartments are called in South Korea, are the result of tension between North and South Korea.
