Prince Charles admires Mumbai shanty towns

The architectural views of Prince Charles have long attracted controversy; now he has pronounced that the shanty towns featured in the award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire represents a better model for cheap housing than that currently provided by Western tower blocks.

Speaking at a conference at St James's Palace organised by his Foundation for the Built Environment, the Prince suggested that the Mumbai slum Dharavi, home to 600,000 people in an area of 520 acres, has "an underlying intuitive grammar of design that is totally absent from the faceless slab blocks that are still being built around the world to 'warehouse' the poor".

He added: "I strongly believe that the West has much to learn from societies and places which, while sometimes poorer in material terms, are infinitely richer in the ways in which they live and organise themselves."

While the comments will no doubt cause a storm in the urban planning fraternity, they will perhaps be balm to the residents of Dharavi, who found use of the word 'Slumdog' in Danny Boyle's film title insulting. ·