Everyone agrees that Dharavi needs better working and living conditions. The settlement may have organically achieved the low-rise, mixed-use community of many urban planners’ dreams, but it is not without its problems. Years of government neglect have left Dharavi’s hygiene and safety levels grossly inadequate. There are queues for everything, including toilet blocks, municipal water taps and healthcare clinics. The 300,000 or so residents there has been no official count and studies suggest it could be double that squeezed into an area just one-third bigger than Hyde Park. The new plan to redevelop Dharavi increases that density to inhumane proportions. Although the tower-block buildings offer amenities such as toilets, they also threaten to destroy the fabric of a community in which homes, roofs and outdoor spaces transform into places of work and social interaction the only way many of the micro-enterprises can operate. Dharavi’s design is not an accident; it responds to the social ties and economic needs of the community. The clash of opinions on Dharavi’s future triggered a decade-long stalemate. So, last year, Mumbai’s Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI), an independent organization advocating for more equitable development in its home city, put the problem to the global community. UDRI launched an international competition, called Reinventing Dharavi, to solicit the best ideas for this endlessly limboed issue. Twenty teams, with more than 150 members from 21 different countries, submitted proposals. The competition’s only requirement was that the teams were interdisciplinary, in order to address the complex housing, work, financing, health, sanitation, recreation and legal issues. Their proposals ranged from bathroom towers that moonlight as public spaces, to an annual festival, to a collective brand that would increase marketing power and recognition of the area’s diverse products.