It's one of the world's largest slums with cramped squalid properties and appalling sanitation - but amazingly no one wants to move out.
More than one million people are crammed into a mazy network of tiny dwellings that cover almost every inch of the 240-hectare Dharavi slum, in Mumbai, India.
Just one per cent of properties have their own toilets and whole families sleep on the floor in bare concrete box rooms.
Yet doctors, lawyers and accountants working for multinational firms like J P Morgan stay living in Dharavi because of the remarkable community spirit and enterprise in the area which is home to more than 20,000 micro-industries.
Slums: Dhavarai is thought to be Asia's largest slum in terms of population with one million people living there. A network of homes is crammed into one square mile
Dynamism: A man works on a rooftop in Dharavi with empty plastic bottles which will be melted down in a small recycling plant and sold on for a few rupees. In the background, some of the city's wealthier areas can be seen
Grim work: A young man works melting down plastic in a tiny recycling plant. All he has for protection is a mask covering his face
Although beggars can be found on streets across Mumbai they are almost entirely absent from the slum where a can-do attitude prevails despite the murky surrounds.
The area is most famous for being the inspiration for the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire and several scenes from the movie were recorded there.
Mumbai is a city of contrasts with Dharvari sitting just a few miles from the southern area which is home to some of the country's wealthiest people - including Bollywood film stars and international businessmen.
Krishna Pujari, co-founder of Reality Tours and Travel who run tours of the slum for western tourists, said it is a myth that the area is depressed and filled with layabouts.
Hard manual labour: A man carries a stack of recycled bags through the streets of Dhavari
People of the slum: Property prices in Mumbai are extraordinarily high by India's standards - and developers would love to get their hands on Dhavri
Manual labour: A man who works in one of the micro-factories in the slum. Because health and safety standards are so poor, life expectancy is low for many
Child workers: These boys work in a cramped embroidery factory and are employed in one of the many micro-industries that operate out of the slum
Slum: Many of the buildings in Dhavari are put together with corrugated iron like this
Slum industries: A view of one of the narrow streets in the area with a marketplace visible in the background
Recycling: Two boys can be seen playing at a cardboard recycling business. In Dharavi there are dozens of tiny businesses like this in what is Mumbai's recycling superhub
Cafe: Indians can be seen eating in a cafe in the slum in this panoramic view
Dirty: Despite the dynamism of the Dharavi which is filled with dozens of micro-industries, it remains dirty and profoundly poor
Slum living: A man can be seen carrying a large white sack down this narrow, dirty alleyway in Dharavi which is reputedly Asia's largest slum
Cramped: A young boy (left) and a man rest on top of two sacks in this narrow alleyway in Dharavi
Slum: A group of workmen in the cramped property they live in (left), and (right) a girl can be seen in one of the main alleyways in the slum
Slum-dwelling: Two of the narrow and dirty alleyways in Dharavi. The one square mile area in Mumbai is home to around one million people
Life in the slum: A crowd of smiling children who live in Dharavi - reputedly Asia's largest slum - pose in one of the area's many narrow alleyways between properties
Slum dwellers: A group of children pose for a picture in another of Dharvai's narrow alleyways
Slum children: Two young boys living in Dharavi - the Mumbai slum which was the inspiration for Slumdog Millionaire. It was filmed in the area
Children of the slum: Dhavari was made famous by the film Slumdog Millionaire which was filmed in the area
Slum dwellers: A mother with her two children in Dhavari. Although the area is poor even by Indian standards it has a real feeling of community. Unlike the rest of the city,
SOURCE-DAILYM
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