The slums of Mumbai are an important microcosm of how slums are developing around the world.
Bombay -- now known as Mumbai -- is the home of Bollywood movies and India's city of gold, its financial capital. But behind the glitz and glamour lurks a different reality -- a city landscape dominated by massive, sprawling slums, which rank among the biggest in the world. According to Mumbai's city housing authority, eight out of the twelve million people in Mumbai live in the slums. Mumbai's slum dwellers are, however, a vibrant and proud community, and the city is also an important microcosm of how slums are developing around the world. Globally one in six people live in slums. At the current rate of growth, UN-Habitat predicts that by 2030, one in every three people in the world could be living in a slum.
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