The FREAKest Links: Shantytowns and Dreams Edition

In stark contrast to tales of 60-story homes being built in Mumbai, reader Aparna Vemuri wrote in with this story about the bootstrap entrepreneurship of Dharavi, the largest shantytown in Asia, in which nearly every resident produces a good. While the region’s poverty is undeniable, results are starting to show: as of 2006, all homes had 24-hour electricity and running water, and 85% of them had a television.

Via Broadsheet: An excerpt is now online from domestic violence researcher Evan Stark‘s book Coercive Control, which uses FBI data and case studies to debunk conventional theories on why women stay in abusive relationships. The crux of his argument is that, rather than analyzing questions about why women don’t leave, researchers should be examining the inadequacy of resources available to them when they do, as well as the psychology of the abusers’ power.

Reader Renaud Dehareng sends us the 199 Blog, a creative ripoff of the wildly popular Post Secret. Named after the world’s 199 countries, the site collects submissions of photos and drawings that depict people’s “most precious (but realistic) wishes,” with the goal of seeing other readers make them come true.