Companion to Urban and Regional Studies

Anthony M. Orum, Javier Ruiz-Tagle, Serena Vicari Haddock, Anthony M. Orum, Javier Ruiz-Tagle, Serena Vicari Haddock

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781119316879
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Urban Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

COMPANION TO URBAN AND REGIONAL STUDIES

Indispensable overview and timely coverage of the major issues, debates, and research topics in urban and regional studies

Companion to Urban and Regional Studies offers an up-to-date view of the rapidly growing field, exploring a diversity of theoretical perspectives, current and emerging research, and critical global policy concerns. Uniquely broad in geographical and thematic scope, this comprehensive volume brings together essays by more than fifty international scholars and researchers to provide expert assessments spanning the many dimensions of urban studies.

Organized into five parts, the Companion begins with a review of the current state of cities across East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, North America, Europe, and Latin America, and all other world regions. Subsequent sections discuss contemporary theoretical perspectives, describe common methodological approaches used by urban scholars, and examine the political, social, and economic problems facing twenty-first century cities. Covering historical issues, current challenges, and comparative perspectives in urban studies, this timely resource:

• Addresses intensely debated policy issues such as governance, housing, immigration and migration, segregation, social mix, and gentrification
• Describes the use of demographic methods, advanced spatial analysis, social networks, policy mobilities, and ethnographies in urban studies research
• Discusses critical urban theory, feminist urban research, urbanization and environmental change, and the legacy of the Chicago School
• Covers contemporary research topics such as urban and regional inequalities, social heterogeneity and diversity, financialization
• Includes representative case studies of each region, including Australasia, Latin America, East Asia and South Asia

Companion to Urban and Regional Studies is essential reading for scholars, researchers, practitioners, urban activists, and students, and it represents a must-have complement to The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies.

Part I
CITIES ACROSS WORLD REGIONS

1
Cities and Regions in South Asia

TANVI BHATIKAR AND NEHA SAMI

INTRODUCTION

The ongoing global urban transition, led by cities in the Global South, particularly in Asian and African countries, presents one of the defining development opportunities of the twenty-first century. Rapid urbanisation over the next two to three decades will lead to an explosion in the demand for livelihoods, urban renewal, infrastructure and real estate development, food, water, energy, housing, and digital technology. A significant proportion of this transition will be played out in South Asian cities: between 2001 and 2011, 130 million people were added to South Asian cities and this number is set to rise by almost 250 million in the next 15 years.¹ This urban transition presents exceptional opportunities for sustainable development, but also presents difficult challenges. South Asia is home to some of the fastest growing economies in the world, but also faces critical questions around issues of inequality, poverty, health and social welfare, and environmental degradation.

South Asia’s ‘messy’ and ‘hidden’ urbanisation (Ellis and Roberts, 2016) is evident in the large share of the population living in settlements that possess urban characteristics but do not satisfy the criteria required to be officially classified as urban (Denis et al., 2012). Rapidly growing cities are unable to cope with the increasing demand for urban services and are vulnerable to growing social and environmental factors that govern urban fabric. The inability of the cities to effectively address these obstacles provides the root cause for messy and hidden urbanisation (Ellis and Roberts, 2016). It thus becomes imperative to study the current trends and processes governing new emerging cities in this region and the role that they play in the larger gamut of the sociopolitical discourse in South Asia.

Geographically, eight countries cover the South Asian region – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Collectively, these are some of the most populated countries in the world, with the potential to transform their economies to become more prosperous and liveable. It is also a region with a fraught colonial history that continues to influence contemporary conflicts (such as the relationship between India and Pakistan). In addition, the region faces a range of other social and ecological challenges, including pervasive inequality, chronic poverty, unemployment, growing vulnerability to natural disasters, and climate risk, all of which put its economic growth potential at considerable risk.

It is impossible to take a comprehensive look at urbanisation in South Asian cities, and do justice to urbanisation and the range of issues that it raises, in a single book chapter. This chapter therefore aims to provide an overview of key issues that cities in the region grapple with. It focuses on the current social, economic, environmental, and housing processes in South Asia. This chapter begins with a section on economic and demographic processes where we review urbanisation in South Asia and how urban economies are transforming the region. We also look at factors influencing the economic geography of South Asia and the policy changes and implementations required to propel economic growth.

In the second section on social processes, we provide an overview of critical issues that have emerged and influenced the social fabric of South Asia. Drawing from the Rohingya crises, Indo-Pak conflict, and the Sri Lankan civil war, we reflect on the militarisation of conflict in the region. In addition, we also highlight the emergence and the significance of the civil society and participation of the urban middle class in the democratic process.

Third, we focus on environmental challenges in the subcontinent. The geographical location of South Asia makes it susceptible to various natural disasters that have had a powerful effect on the socioeconomic fabric of the subcontinent. We first reflect on past natural and human-made disasters that have affected the region, specifically looking at the relationship between urbanisation, climate change, and global warming. We then proceed to deliberate on the issues of disaster risk management and the policy interventions that are required to build resilience.

Our final section takes a problem-based approach, focusing on the question of affordable housing. As is the case with most urban issues, a problem-based approach not only allows us to engage more directly with issues on the ground but also highlights the need for moving towards an interdisciplinary approach to thinking about urban challenges. More than 14% of South Asians have no home, and a further 45% live in overcrowded areas. With increasing urbanisation, the pressure to provide affordable housing has been growing, compelling government and other stakeholders to propose different approaches to dealing with this problem that will transcend economic, social, and environmental aspects. We illustrate this in more detail by addressing the challenges of providing adequate and affordable housing in South Asian cities.

A continuing thread that runs through the chapter is that of rapid urbanisation and its ramifications on the socioeconomic and environmental fabric of South Asia. Since economic, social, and environmental processes influence each other to a great extent, it becomes difficult to resolve issues by approaching them from a single lens alone. As we illustrate through the case of affordable housing, it is only through addressing multiple aspects of the problem simultaneously that cities will be able to realise their potential.

ECONOMIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC PROCESSES IN SOUTH ASIA

According to the World Urbanization Prospects Report (2018 revision), the annual urban population of the world is projected to reach 4.37 billion in 2020, of which South Asia’s urban population alone will account for 0.7 billion. A surge in urbanisation has led to a rapid increase in both the urban population as well as urban density in South Asia – cities are therefore not only getting bigger in terms of population size, but also more crowded.² While there are benefits that arise from economies of scale in dense settlements, there are also concerns around resource overuse, public health, and equity in terms of access to and distribution of the city’s resources.

A review of existing literature presents a wide array of conceptual interpretations of South Asia’s urbanisation. South Asia’s urbanisation has been referred to as ‘messy’ and ‘hidden’, reflected in the widespread existence of slums and sprawl, which has facilitated hidden urbanisation, particularly on the peripheries of major cities, which is not captured by official data (Ellis and Roberts, 2016). These are typically new settlements which have urban-like characteristics but continue to be governed as rural bodies (Ellis and Roberts, 2016). Denis et al. (2012) describe this process as ‘subaltern urbanization’ in the Indian context, referring to the growth of settlement agglomerations (whether recognised by the census of India or not), that are not a part of the larger cities and are autonomous in their interactions with other settlements, local and global. Ellis and Roberts (2016) also emphasise the relevance of agglomeration economies which have emerged as an outcome of the region’s transition to a manufacturing and services-led economy (Ellis and Roberts, 2016).

This increase in attention to urban areas could also be attributed to two related trends: the increasing population in cities and the increasing concentration of economic activity in urban areas (Revi, Koduganti, and Anand, 2014). ‘Urbanization is promoted by (1) economies of scale in production, particularly manufacturing; (2) the existence of information externalities; (3) technology development, particularly in building and transportation technology; and (4) substitution of capital for land as made possible by technological development’ (Mohan and Dasgupta, 2005: 214). While South Asian urbanisation fulfils some of the above criteria, its urbanisation has largely been uneven.

Demographic Transition of Cities in South Asia

South Asia boasts of six of the world’s megacities – Bengaluru, Delhi, Dhaka, Karachi, Kolkata, and Mumbai. Four out of these six cities belong to India. By 2020, India will contribute to 68% of South Asia’s urban population. The 2011 Indian census showed a large growth in the number of census towns, i.e. urbanisation outside the recognised urban bodies.³ Pradhan (2013) attributes 26–29.5% of the urban growth between 2001 and 2011 to the recognition of these new census towns, which may not necessarily grow around existing large towns. His study of spatial distribution of new census towns revealed that while there is high concentration in certain districts close to metropolitan cities, the formation of census towns is also widely spread across the country (Pradhan, 2013).

This demographic transition can be attributed to the natural increase, net rural–urban classification and rural–urban migration in the country (Bhagat, 2011). This process of migration is largely driven by the individual’s need to seek better employment opportunities, often fuelled by the primary desire to lead a better life. But the process of migration is not symmetrical in nature. While some regions and sectors fall behind in their capacity to support populations, others flourish and people migrate to access these emerging opportunities (Srivastava and Sasikumar, 2003).

Rama et al. (2015), in their report titled ‘Addressing Inequality in South Asia’, state that the urbanisation process in South Asian cities appears to be more organic. ‘Just as people come to cities in the form of migration, cities also “come” to people through the densification of population and the tr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• COMPANIONS FROM WILEY BLACKWELL IN RELATED AREAS
• Title page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction: A World of Cities and Urban Problems in the Twenty-First Century
• PART I: CITIES ACROSS WORLD REGIONS
• PART II: LEADING THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES AND APPROACHES
• PART III: METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES
• PART IV: SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY CITIES
• PART V: POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY CITIES
• PART VI: CLOSURE
• Index
• End User License Agreement