A shack at Shanty Town on Nov. 15, 2013, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The town is a holiday spot where tourists can pay $82 a night to sleep in a shack. American satirist Stephen Colbert called the concept, 'At best insensitive and at worst poverty porn.' (Charl Devenish/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

On first seeing the slum at Bloemfontein, something may seem amiss. The shacks aren't crowded together or dirty. A brick terrace is laid out around each shanty. Wild animals graze not far from the little town.

Welcome to Shanty Town, a luxury slum for those who want to experience South African poverty without getting dirty or giving up the conveniences of wireless Internet and running water.

The controversial vacation dwellings are run by EmoyaLuxury Hotel and Spa, who advertise the experience as a chance to "stay in a Shanty within the safe environment of a private game reserve." Each shack sleeps four people and can be rented for 850 South African Rand ($82) per night. To make the experience more authentic, guests have access to an outdoor toilet, a basin to heat water, an outdoor braai (South African barbecue), a paraffin lamp and a battery-powered radio, reported Fox News.

The shanty town has drawn criticism for insensitively transforming poverty into a cultural selling point. An op-ed writer for the Johannesburg Business Day Live said the luxury Shanty Town "reduces the pain of poverty to an experience that you can dip in and out of for more money than those poor shack dwellers have in a month."

Another writer at The Wire said, "It's one thing to turn someone's circumstances into a glamorous vacation. It's another thing to pretend that socio-economic conditions like poverty, the legacy of apartheid, or South Africa's housing crisis don't exist."

The owner of Shanty Town, Buks Westraad, defended his decisions by saying the unusual hotel was filling a gap in the market.

"Regular overseas visitors suggested that they would like to sleep in a real shanty rather than just seeing them from a bus tour," Westraad told eNews Channel Africa. "We believe we've taken something with a negative connotation and turned it into something positive, which reflects the ingenuity of our South African people."

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The controversy over the replica Shanty Town is a sign of the larger issues of inequality that continue to plague South Africa and which have recently been scrutinized anew with the death of anti-apartheid leader and former president Nelson Mandela. According to Business Day Live, more than half of black people in South Africa live on monthly wages that amount to less than the cost of staying in the luxury Shanty Town for a night, whereas around 87 percent of white South Africans are in the middle class or above.

The slums in South Africa and around the world are hardly something to be idealized. Based on UN data, urban slums are the fastest-growing human habitat in the world, and it's estimated that around one billion people live in slums. The Khayeltish slum of Cape Town, South Africa is one of the world's five largest slums, with about 400,000 people living there with the constant threat of violence, disease and hunger.

Still, the Bloemfontein Shanty Town isn't the first of its kind. Tours of the Dharavi squatter settlement in Mumbai stirred up controversy when they first began, reported Smithsonian Magazine, and slum tours in Kenya were popular among tourists hoping to get a glimpse of those who live in in real shanty houses, wrote the Guardian.

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Artist rendering of Hotel Unbalance, to be built in Lima, Peru. (Credit: OOIIO)