While urban poverty alleviation has long received less attention in Indian policymaking than rural poverty alleviation, simply creating urban policies that parallel rural policies won't fully solve the problem, especially when migrants and other groups fall into the cracks between the two policy regimes.
There is no better time to witness the shortsightedness of governments than around elections. With municipal elections just around the corner in Mumbai, a whole raft of new promises are being made to certain slum dwellers...
Slum neighbourhoods are teeming with industry and commerce, yet the policy sphere still tends to treat them as residential spaces alone. What are the consequences of this misconception, and is it time to invoke a right to space, not just of housing?
Governments in many places can exhibit a loss in the basic competencies required for effective urban planning. In the UK and India, some of the slack is picked up by the private and non-profit sectors, with surprising and innovative results.
Sheila Ochugboju sees much to admire in Mumbai's Dial 1298 for Ambulance but fears the middle class is too small in her own Accra for the model to be replicable there.
The current slum rehabilitation scheme creates incentives for developers to distort the housing market; civil society must challenge the rhetoric of 'free housing' to allow leaders to consider alternatives.
Authorities meet in Nairobi this week to set the agenda for UN-HABITAT, but domestic politics makes a lot of that agenda impossible. How can we put domestic politics back on the table?
A number of urban poverty alleviation schemes including housing, sanitation and slum upgrading programmes still principally target on the basis of reported household income, and fail to incorporate a more nuanced understanding of poverty.
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The Global Urbanist is an online magazine reviewing urban affairs and urban development issues in cities throughout the developed and developing world.
Its readers are drawn from the urban policy and international development sectors, and include urban planners, officers in local, national or international government agencies, civil society leaders, and researchers.
