Somenath Ghosh & Saumya Chakrabarti

ABSTRACT

The processes of modern urbanization across the Global South have generated an intense debate. While mainstream researchers view it as largely inclusive and advocating for slum development, critics argue that this process has an inherent tendency to displace slum. Given this perspective, the authors show that there is, in fact, a change in the location of Indian slums and the slum population from city centers to city fringes, where fringes are found to be significantly and consistently unprivileged in terms of an array of infrastructural facilities in and around the slums. This paper also argues that the typical process of urbanization and increasing urban inequality is inducing this changing location of slums. The analyses indicate a forced relocation of the slum population away from the city centers towards an inferior standard of living on the city fringes. This paper uses Indian slum-level data for 2001–2012, undertakes various advanced statistical analyses, and presents a basic theoretical framework.

KEYWORDS: Slum location; exclusionary urbanization; urban inequality; slum infrastructure; center–fringe inequality

From: International Critical Thought 2021 11 (3)

Editor: Wang Yi