Abstract
The influence of economic development on the resorption of inequality levels in India is an open debate. Inequality shapes both the Indian society as a whole and, spatially, the different regions of this subcontinent-wide country. In this article, emphasis is given to the conception and to the spatial analysis of an indicator named “Non-Crowded Housing” (abbr. NCH). The latter uses official census data, is easily computed and focuses on the absence of housing overcrowding. This indicator offers a good alternative to explore the standard of living gap in India in terms of housing usage and unveil specific sub-spaces and trajectories within the 2001–2011 period. Census data are complemented with field studies in order to shed new light on the geography and nature of housing and spatial inequalities linked to rapid urbanization. The case studies reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the NCH index, which is able to provide a comprehensive overview of the human well-being, focusing on housing conditions only, though being scale-dependent and sensitive to urbanization levels.
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Source: Office of the Registrar General (Census of India 2011)
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Notes
As defined by the former Planning Commission: threshold of Rs. 27 in rural areas and Rs. 33 in urban areas per day.
Reserve Bank of India database. https://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/Publications/PDFs/162T_BST130913.pdf.
India is expected to become the most populous country by 2025 (UN World Population Prospects, 2017 Revision, https://population.un.org/wpp/).
Following this logic, India has experienced several major waves of reform in the 80s, 90s and 2000s decades which have brought positive results to the GDP growth (around 3% in the late 80s, 6% in the early 90s, 8–9% in the early 2000s).
Are enquired in the Indian housing and amenities Census: the material out of which a house is built, the number of dwelling units, the source of drinking water, the source of lighting, the fuel used for cooking and the assets available (computer, phone, etc.). A household is defined as “[…] a group of persons who normally live together and take their meals from a common kitchen unless the exigencies of work prevent any of them from doing so. Persons in a household may be related or unrelated or a mix of both. However, if a group of unrelated persons live in a census house but do not take their meals from the common kitchen, then they are not constituent of a common household. Each such person should be treated as a separate household. The important link in finding out whether it is a household or not, is a common kitchen. There may be one member households, two member households or multi-member households […]” Census of India (2011).
Dataset including the NCH indicator (under the name of RES_WELLF) all the indicators used in the cross-analyze and a geospatial layer of the Indian districts is available at: https://zenodo.org/record/2563213#.XOz6Pc2YS8E.
The strategy of these rehabilitation plans was simple, the private sector had to build free housing for Dharavi inhabitants and in exchange, the state government gave to the builders the newly created land surplus (Zubrzycki 1997). The buildings found in Dharavi are social housings constructed through the Slum Redevelopment Scheme of 1991 or the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme of 1996.
More information about this foundation in Sawamura and Amiraly (2015).
built by Biodiversity Conservation India Pvt. Ltd. (BCIL) http://www.zed.in/.
Hubli and Dharwad: two main cities only 15 km away which have physically merged into a single built-up area are the economic nerve of this district. Due to their proximity, they are referred to as twin cities and considered as a single conurbation by the Indian Census. Hubli-Dharwad conurbation is composed of 943.788 inhabitants and the entire district of 1.84 million inhabitants. With a population of 786.018 inhabitants in 2001, Hubli-Dharwad sustained an impressive growth of 20.06% in only 10 years. Source: Census of India.
Kullu district has experienced an accelerated development in tourism, agriculture, and hydroelectricity since 1985 (e.g. Gardner and Sinclair 2003). It has been followed by a remarkable social and economic development. For example, in 1971 there were two guesthouses and hotels in Manali against 700 30 years later (Pandey 1998). Today, the northern part of the district is totally dedicated to mass tourism with a number of guesthouses and hotels that keeps increasing.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Jean Grebert who greatly assisted the research, JuanJuan **ng who provided insight and language editing and the reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions.
Funding
This research was partially supported by a CIFRE contract between ESPACE and Renault (Industrial Agreements for Training Through Research funding).
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Perez, J., Fusco, G. Exploring inequalities in India through housing overcrowding. J Hous and the Built Environ 35, 593–616 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-019-09703-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-019-09703-w