The view of Dharavi as a dreadful slum has been a challenge for government planners, who were charged with designing for other people’s lives without any knowledge of their specific necessities and qualities of their way of life. The process of designing housing under this model involved construction that had a clear beginning and end. However, the true nature of Dharavi’s construction goes far beyond these practices: The construction site is itself the end result; the stage upon which the purpose and form of the slum was gradually transformed, a process driven by foreign interests, NGOs, and the residents themselves.