couchprojects

When you’re done at Fred Segel, grab a latte, get on a bus, and go look at the slums.

Until recently we had to travel to other countries to relate to the poor as a tourist destination. Now thanks to clever entrepreneurs on our home soil, we too can offer these titillating tours. An interesting article about a new venture in slum tourism in the U.S. in today’s New York Times: On Los Angeles Bus Tour, an Insider View of Gang Life.

To object to slum tourism is to have hope that social programs will receive more investment to better these communities and inhabitants. Clearly that has not been the case, resulting in a wide open business opportunity for local entrepreneurs. Most people offended by the specificity in marketing  ”Slum Tourism” seem to be in denial of the fact that most tourism is an act of voyeurism and exploitation on the less fortunate. see NYT: The 31 Places to Go in 2010 – Sri Lanka rates #1:

For a quarter century, Sri Lanka seems to have been plagued by misfortune, including a brutal civil war between the Sinhalese-dominated government and a separatist Tamil group. But the conflict finally ended last May, ushering in a more peaceful era for this teardrop-shaped island off India’s coast, rich in natural beauty and cultural splendors

…or perhaps you prefer Mumbai:

On the one-year anniversary of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, citizens painted a one-kilometer stretch of wall in South Mumbai with murals to show their love and hope for the city.

In a city like Los Angeles that has endured two major riots and where the erasure of public space and lack of public transit between the west and east has “protected” the affluent from the poor (see City of Quartz by Mike Davis), it is ironic that there appears to be a lucrative market for gazing at the extreme poverty exacerbated by this isolation. If we criticize the act of gazing at the poor, it seems in this example at least, it is the poor gazing back at the tour (quite literally):

The few people who were outside that project when the bus passed paid it no mind, except for one woman who stared, mouth agape.

Previous example in U.S.:

Hurricaine Katrina tours:

from Gray Line Hurricane Katrina Tour web site: We’ll drive past an actual levee that “breached” and see the resulting devastation that displaced hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents.