Abstract
In 2011, over 65 million people lived in slums in urban India. A slum is an informal settlement that largely consists of dilapidated housing, small living area, without adequate access to clean and potable drinking water, sanitation and unstable renting agreement. Within these slum settlements exist real people and communities whose lives revolve around the nexus of urban (in)formal economy, with hopes and dreams for a better future for themselves and their next generation, as they take decisions to out-migrate from underdeveloped rural areas. These informal and yet vibrant communities often become the backbone of urban economies. Despite a lack of basic amenities, these settlements provide affordable housing to a significantly large share of slum dwellers in India’s cities. This chapter reviews academic literature along six major themes to summarise the accomplishments so far, and existing gaps that need further attention. These include the following: (1) Effects of Globalisation and the Neoliberal Economy in Housing Crises and Growth of Slums in India, (2) Neoliberal Economy and Wage Inequality, (3) Changing Patterns of Economy—From Formal to Informal, (4) Rural–Urban Migration and the Role of Urban-centric Economic Bias, (5) Livability in Urban India and Declining Quality of Life and (6) Methodological Focus in Urban Slum Scholarship in India. This chapter concludes with suggestions for under-researched lines of work with the hope of a spatially informed policy intervention.
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Harrison, M.E., Sharma, M. (2023). Urbanisation and Urban Villages: An Overview of Slum Communities in India. In: Chatterjee, U., Bandyopadhyay, N., Setiawati, M.D., Sarkar, S. (eds) Urban Commons, Future Smart Cities and Sustainability. Springer Geography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24767-5_5
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