[Urbanstudy] Reflections on Chennai-a city that breeds inequality

[Vinay Baindur]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/reflections-on-chennaia-city-that-breeds-inequality/article6364395.ece



Reflections on Chennai-a city that breeds inequalityAJAI SREEVATSAN
[image: The pity is that low income people are completely left out,
particularly in the past decade or so when the government has withdrawn
from the construction of dwellings for the poor (low income group). As a
result majority of the urban poor are forced to live in slums and squatter
settlements in poverty and destitution without access to basic amenities
and essential services. A file photo: S. R. Raghunathan]
The HinduThe pity is that low income people are completely left out,
particularly in the past decade or so when the government has withdrawn
from the construction of dwellings for the poor (low income group). As a
result majority of the urban poor are forced to live in slums and squatter
settlements in poverty and destitution without access to basic amenities
and essential services. A file photo: S. R. Raghunathan
“Chennai has taken the wrong lessons from Delhi, where a large section of
the poor were forcibly resettled during the Commonwealth Games”

Expressing concern at the manner in which the urban poor are increasingly
getting pushed out in cities like Chennai, Balakrishnan Rajagopal of the
MIT’s Department of Urban Studies said: “This is one of the biggest drivers
of inequality. There were certain periods when Indian cities were actually
quite friendly to the urban poor.

“In Chennai, for example, the slum redevelopment during the 1960s and 70s
was part of a larger Dravidian welfare orientation. But this commitment to
find housing for the poor fairly close to or on the land where they
actually live has unfortunately been lost.”

Chennai has taken the wrong lessons from examples such as Delhi, where a
large section of the poor were forcibly resettled during the Commonwealth
Games, Mr. Rajagopal said. Due to the existence of poorly-constructed
resettlement colonies like Semmanchery on the city’s outskirts, Chennai
gives the impression of an “apartheid city”.

Speaking to The Hindu during a recent month-long visit to India along with
a team of researchers from the Displacement Research and Action Network
based at MIT, Mr.Rajagopal said that the same structural conditions that
encourage the marginalisation of the poor currently prevail in nearly every
Indian city – from Bangalore to Chennai to Delhi.

“In India, the focus right now is on good governance, but understood in
terms of a World Bank definition that essentially means efficiency and
world-class infrastructure. But, if you look at cities across Latin
America, they are laying greater emphasis on equity and social access for
the poor,” he said.

India must remember that the livability of all the residents of cities
should be improved, not just the rich, Mr. Rajagopal said.

Emphasising that the “market fetishism” of the 1990s has driven up land
prices marginalising the urban poor even more, he said: “If India’s rapidly
growing tier-II and tier-III cities need to avoid the same mistakes, they
need to start focusing on deepening democracy and increasing public
participation at every stage of a city’s life and governance.”
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