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I think that the search terms 'slum' and 'shantytown' (and other synonyms like favela, barrio etc. should redirect to an article called 'informal housing' which would be a merger of those articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.190.135.230 (talk) 15:10, 21 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It has been suggested that "Slum" be merged into "Shanty Town." I think the other way around is better. Slum is a more familiar term to most. Hellno2 23:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• oppose merge no they are similar but different, slum refers to poverty. Shanty towns are slum, but a different subject sorry. The sunder king 22:48, 2 November 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• support merge they are slightly different manifestations of poverty. I think there should be a single article (perhaps in "Slum" instead of "Shanty Town" because it is an older term, and used by the UN), and there should be a section where its different flavors are explained. Many different terms are used in different countries, so this should be stated within this article. For me certainly there is no sense in having one article for each of the different terms, if the meaning only varies in a little detail, instead having only one (well organized) article would allow a more uniform definition, its differences would be more evident, and it would be easier to maintain. Alchaemist (talk) 22:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• support merge : if you see differences, please explain them. At UN- and NGO-level, we use the words "slum" for large sttlements and "shack" for very small ones. On Wikipedia, the subject would benefit from being dealt with in a single article to start with. le Korrigan →bla 17:06, 12 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Oppose Merge: A "slum" isn't necessarily composed of informal housing; the word is often used to describe areas suffering from severe urban decay. Shanty towns tend to also be slums, but not necessarily; look at the Freedom Tunnel in the 1990s, which featured an expansive shanty town that wasn't necessarily located in a slum of New York City. The two are distinct and the articles should remain as such. -Lamarcus (talk) 04:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• support merge : it would provide a more comprehensive overview of what is the same thing in the minds of most people likely to visit the page. COGITO ERGO SUM 11:27, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Merge: I disagree with a single article but suggest a compromise. I tried twice to create slumdweller as a page but each time it was merged with slum. Broadly slums are people, houses and cities. Why not simply include the broad topic in each of the existing categories 'Houses' (btw 'Home' exists too) and 'Cities' and 'People'. Then specific words like shack, shanty, slum, slumdweller can branch off on their own pages from these? Wikipedia has a section for 'Sloane ranger' (consisting of maybe a few thousand UK people) but not 'slumdweller' consisting of hundreds of millions. I do not want to include slum under architecture. Slum is the opposite of architecture. The wikipedia entry for architecture cannot embrace slums within its definition. Slums politics, sociology and philosophy is important and would be good to have as a separate page. I dont agree that slums are severe urban decay. They might be, or they might be creative thriving communities, cities in embryo or whatever. I dont like the phrase 'informal housing'. Tkay (talk) 03:59, 27 February 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Oppose Merge: To my mind these things are completely different. A shanty town is by definition made up by 'make-shift' accommodation, but historically slums (in, for example, Victorian Britain) were run-down areas of town - perfectly well-built permanent housing, but massively overcrowded with poor sanitary conditions (e.g. Greek Thompson's Gorbals in Glasgow). 91.106.248.148 (talk) 11:50, 5 March 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• support merge but think that shanty should be merged into slum, not the other way around. As noted above, slum is the word used in UN reports and many other contexts, and can refer to a wide variety of situations where there is poverty and poor-quality housing – including run-down areas that used to be good, and informal settlements of tin shacks, etc. It is, admittedly, quite a big and vague category, but with separate pages there would be too much overlap and pointless confusion over precisely what the distinctions are between each term, when the reality is that they are often used interchangeably. 85.168.76.59 (talk) 20:48, 20 March 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• support merge a slum is an area crowded with people with housing problems and plumbing as well. The article of shanty towns sounds exactly the same, shanty town said s**t houses are getting built. A slum is high in population, there is really no difference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:48F8:3024:1F76:74DA:1E66:FA63:C797 (talk) 18:08, 26 November 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What is the difference between a shanty town and a slum. Both looks quite similar. Looks like two names for the same thing. Ahirwav (talk) 04:09, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm not sure if you'll find official definitions. In general, however, a slum is an area of "normal" buildings that has fallen into disrepair due to the poverty of their inhabitants. So a slum is poorly maintained housing stock that would have originally been built "to code". It would generally still have municipal services like water, electricity, and telephones.

A shanty town is a collection of makeshift housing thrown together with no recognizable organization. From its beginnings a shanty town is very poorly constructed. It generally lacks even basic municipal services.

Even in its disrepair, a slum generally has far superior housing stock than a shanty town. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.38.54.164 (talk) 19:17, 10 December 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Isn't the difference between a slum and shanty that a slum can be an inner city street, area or district, whilst a shantytown is normally on the outskirts of a city or town? A slum can be found in many western cities, but there are not many shantytowns outside the poorer south and east. Perhaps a few good examples and a little clear thinking might bring into focus more about what is going on in this area? Tkay (talk) 03:39, 27 February 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There's clearly no consensus to merge these articles (nor should there be, as they are very different things), so I'm removing the merge proposal templates. faithless (^speak) 01:12, 2 April 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

See Talk:Slum#Merge_with_shanty_town. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:17, 19 May 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Anyone want to support the IP's repeated inclusion [1] of this picture of Mumbai? It does not belong in the popular culture section, but even if we move it it is is a poor quality picture (dark and low contrast), it's not really apparent that what is shown is actually a shanty town, and we already have a much better image of a Mumbai shanty town in the article. Meters (talk) 02:32, 1 March 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Meters That is exactly what I told the IP but the IP accused me of having a POV since I am from Mumbai (from my user page). The article might benefit from adding other places rather than multiple images from the same place. I also think the IP has a COI for some of these image since on one they claimed the people and added it themselves. Adamgerber80 (talk) 02:36, 1 March 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I fully agree with your removal of the image, and I have no connection to Mumbai. The picture just does not add anything useful to the article. Meters (talk) 02:41, 1 March 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Meters, I think the user is hell bent on plugging that image and other POV edits across other pages as well. Check here Dharavi, List of slums in India. Adamgerber80 (talk) 02:46, 1 March 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Adamgerber accused me of certain things. He reverted my edits on Gulfstream III and London Biggin Hill Airport, even when I had a source in each. Also, he stated that I know the people some of the images I had inserted in the articles. Furthermore, he stated that I clicked the photos. I tried to show some excerpts from my previous edits to make him read carefully. Hope that worked. 203.26.123.208 (talk) 02:54, 1 March 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Here is your claim [2]. What does that comment mean?Adamgerber80 (talk) 02:56, 1 March 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What does that comment mean? Let me paste it here, "I know those are female personnel. I was the one that added the photo. You take it to talk, stop vandalizing the article." Did I say "I know those female personnel" ? No, I did not. I said "I know those are female personnel". Two different things. If you have difficulty reading, I suggest you refresh your skills before accusing me next time. It's on here for everyone to see. And everyone can see that you are wrong.

That has nothing to do with this article or whether we should include this picture. Nothing about other articles or who took the picture is relevant here (assuming there's no claim that the license it was uploaded under is invalid). The IP added a picture three times. It has been removed three times. Unless we reach consensus here that the picture should be added it stays out. If the IP continues to add it this will go to 3RR. Meters (talk) 03:04, 1 March 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Meters The IP has been blocked for disruptive editing across other articles. I am not against adding the image as long there is broad consensus on it. Adamgerber80 (talk) 03:10, 1 March 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I see that there have been previous discussions about merging this article with slum. The decision was to keep them separate. But can we please have a sentence in the lead that explains the difference of shanty town to slum? That would be useful (and perhaps the same in the lead of slum). EMsmile (talk) 03:34, 5 September 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Squatting is a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to squatting. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Everyone is welcome, from beginner to experienced editor. Feel free to pass by with suggestions. Let's get it going again! Mujinga (talk) 18:46, 20 April 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No opinion. Technical completion of incomplete merge suggestion. Lembit Staan (talk) 23:25, 30 January 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Oppose - no rationale given for the merge in over a week. As already stated in the Informal housing article, the broad term includes shanty town and also slums, squatting and pavement dwellers. Mujinga (talk) 13:21, 9 February 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Closing, given the uncontested objection and no support. Klbrain (talk) 14:54, 14 August 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There are over one billion squatters worldwide and the phenomenon is under-represented on Wikipedia. Join Wikipedia:WikiProject_Squatting to help write articles about squatting in every country, or drop a message on the talkpage about something else you'd like to see covered. This is just one of many ways to counter systemic bias on Wikipedia! Mujinga (talk) 19:19, 29 November 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What would you do if you were leaving in a shantytown 41.116.53.76 (talk) 03:02, 27 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

meow meow meow meow 207.190.164.254 (talk) 19:19, 31 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]