Slum-tourism, which involves tourists flocking to the most impoverished places on Earth for a taste of exoticism and authenticity, has become an alternative way of travelling. It has been lauded for allowing people to understand the realities of the slums, and criticised for encouraging exploitation of the poor. Governments around the world are still struggling to solve the prevalence of poverty, disease and crime in the slums.
For example, Venezuela's skyscraper slum in Caracas, the Tower of David, is being vacated and will potentially be demolished due to the danger posed by its precarious structure.
The storey building was intended to be a bank centre, but constructions halted in after a financial crisis. In , gangs and homeless people started flooding the building and established the tallest slum in the world. Interesting fact: Rocinha, meaning Little Farm, is one of the largest and most famous slums in South America with , to , people living in the area. The "first world of favelas" was built illegally on a steep hillside in the s overlooking Rio de Janeiro, and is one km from the Rio's famous Ipanema beach.
Look out for: Various Rocinha Favela tours that host walking trips through the narrow alleys of the favela. The tourist routes in the area are safest way to get around the shanty towns that are widely reputed for drug dealing, pickpocketing, prostitution and contagious diseases. But the favela does have a better developed infrastructure and even businesses such as banks and bus lines as compared to smaller slums. Interesting fact: The City of the Dead is a necropolis dating back to A. D, where half a million people literally live among the dead, along a four mile stretch of tombs and mausoleums.
People had started doing so after facing a housing shortage crisis. There is a cemetery guard for the dead and a neighbourhood headman for the living, and the residents build cemeteries so as to be able to live together after death. Children, who are forced to face the morbid concept of death, populate the area.
