ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Arindam JanaSubscribe to Arindam Jana

Reading Spatial Inequality in Urban India

Where one lives matters because patterns of spatial inequality shape the horizons of urban lives. They also critically affect urban policies, especially in large metropolitan cities where intra-urban differences can be of very large magnitudes. Gaining insights from recently released ward-level census data for urban settlements, this paper uses a set of constructed indices and geospatial maps to focus on spatial inequality within cities and across scales of settlements. Arguing that the slum is not a proxy for urban poverty and inadequate housing patterns, it underscores the need for newer methods to spatially trace multidimensional urban poverty and vulnerability.

Of Slums or Poverty

The slum data in Census 2011 needs to be interpreted with caution on three counts: the correlation between the definition of "slum" and urban poverty; the dimension of quality when estimating access to basic services; and the question of why so few cities and towns report any slums.

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