Sharieff, Mohammed Ali (2023) Charaterization of informal settlements (slums) as transition zones in the urban-rural continuum - the case of the south indian city of coimbatore. [Tesi di dottorato]

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Abstract

Informal settlements are common occurrences in most urban areas in countries of the global south, with more than 26.61 million people living in them in twenty major cities of India alone, as of the year 2011 when the last official census was conducted. With such a considerable share of the rapidly-growing urban population residing in informal settlements, the ‘slum’ then presents itself not just as a reality but also as a challenge to be understood and negotiated on several fronts, both internally and externally, in order to preserve and protect the only living window for the disadvantaged. One major challenge is the cultural baggage of negative notions they are forced to carry, while resolving the numerous frictions they encounter in cities. Disadvantaged groups self-initiate processes to overcome the challenges and inequalities, by developing and exploring all possible opportunities through various informal arrangements as survival strategies. And irrespective of the elitist notion of cities that countries of the global south are keen to present to the rest of the world, decades of interventions have not eradicated informal settlements as has largely been the agenda, nor fully empowered and strengthened the settlements or the communities by way of addressing the existing deprivations in cities or the inequalities that produce them in the first place. Then there is also the stubborn refusal or down play of formal systems and institutions to acknowledge informality and informal settlements as an alternate mode of urbanization and thereby fail to explore ways and means to work alongside them. Further, such refusals, prejudices, and incapacities result in the lack of understanding of the processes causing, deepening, strengthening the existing inequalities in urban environments, and do not enable the provisioning of opportunities and resources for the disadvantaged except as random piecemeal strategies and schemes, often benefiting a small set. It is this lack of or grossly insufficient historical provisioning that has led to informal settlements in the first place, and the setting right of these past anomalies require not just spatial interventions but primarily social inclusion strategies. For the worst part, political decisions towards urban interventions and infrastructure projects are portrayed as economically and environmentally beneficial for the entire city, but often also involve or result in displacing disadvantaged groups and further weakening of the minimal survival measures taken by way of informal settlements, thereby producing more inequalities. Such political, economic, environmental processes are often executed through technically convincing proposals that are indifferent to disadvantaged groups and informal settlements allowing skews to perpetuate in the urban environment. These skews then are less of an outcome and more of a slow form of violence perpetuated against the disadvantaged groups and informal settlements. On the other side, communities in informal settlements through consistent efforts, political affiliation, gathering documentation, and a slow assimilation over large periods of time, operate towards resolving these skews in addition to improving their social and material lives, and physical surroundings. They work by themselves - and with whatever little help offered from outside the informal settlements - in the direction of alignment of market forces, albeit at their own pace at individual, family and settlement levels, to tackle the biases and reduce the inequalities. Highlighting such urban inequalities are the visuals captured by photographer Johnny Miller in his photo series “Unequal Scenes” portraying the discrepancies in how people live across the world, as objectively as possible, by capturing communities of extreme wealth and privilege existing just meters from squalid conditions and shack dwellings. Suptendu Biswas on the other side, explains the Indian experience of equity, justice and politics in urban services delivery in his book aptly titled ‘The Assorted City” and presents the existence of a wide range of conditions between the extremes. Taking cue from the survival strategies and the inequalities, from the extreme conditions and the continuum that exists between, as signifying the multitude of processes occurring vigorously in informal settlements in urban regions, more specifically from the general understanding of informal settlements in the urban region of Coimbatore in the southern state of TamilNadu, India, this study posits informal settlements as the ‘transition zones’ of urban regions. ‘Transition zones’ enabled by and enabling dynamic - conditions - processes - outcomes (new conditions) - and discusses the natures of such conditions and processes, including the existing inequalities, underlying causes, arising frictions, emerging informal arrangements and of how informal settlements are manifested spatially in the urban-rural continuum by the varying conditions of social and material ecologies including political strategies. This hypothesis of informal settlements as ‘transition zones’ is further reinforced by the concept of the ‘travelling of the slum’ as a transnational idea from the west to the global south that influenced, forced and reinforced the perceptions and approaches towards slums. An ongoing idea perceived through an outline of historical processes including the notion of ‘slum’ followed by colonial influences and post-independence strategies and reforms. It traces the trajectory of global contemporary processes and influences that continue to affect the dynamics of cities and its informal settlements, and the past and continued role of global and national agencies about how to (re)solve or tackle the southern ‘slum’ problem, largely driven through western strategies and funding patterns. Through the review of secondary data, it also discusses the ways in which political, economic and ecological processes enables socio-spatial transformation of informal settlements. It examines critical insights of the inequalities and deprivations, and the multiple and interconnected nature of social categorizations faced by communities and their settlements, and the nature and role of informal settlements in smaller cities and towns as strategies for survival. This study followed an interdisciplinary and comprehensive approach built around these contextual, historical and theoretical frames, aided by the extraction of fine-grain knowledge from sample settlements obtained through fieldwork, and culminating in the analysis of the empirical observations and findings, and concluding with recommendations. It also reviewed secondary data from various sources, including reports and documents from public institutions, urban local bodies, chiefly from the former TamilNadu Slum Clearance Board now renamed as the TamilNadu Urban Habitat Development Board (TNUHDB). TNUHDB is a public board of the state government of TamilNadu, that was established in 1970 to frame policies and implement programs and schemes related to the redevelopment and resettlement of slums. The TNUHDB runs and operates an office in the city of Coimbatore to better administer its activities in the region. From the secondary data sources, largely comprising documents of the TNUHDB, twenty-one informal settlements were identified and field investigations conducted in them with respect to settlement characteristics, demographics, socio-economic conditions, livelihoods, political affiliations, housing conditions and provisions of infrastructure and services. Data was obtained by mixed methods comprising visualisation techniques and mapping, surveys and questionnaires, and focus group discussions and interviews with the inhabitants and representatives. Specific information on housing, socio-economic conditions and infrastructure and services was recorded and collected but information pertaining to land tenure and records was requested but not insisted upon as many participants were reluctant to share the same. Additionally, informal discussions were also held with officials of the TNUHDB and the TamilNadu Institute of Urban Studies (TNIUS), practicing Architects and Urban Planners of this region, to understand the strategies and implementation of past and current projects and schemes for informal settlements. The data thus obtained from the primary sources and review of secondary sources helped to decipher the socio-political-economic-ecological processes and entanglements, within and among the informal settlements in Coimbatore to understand and assess the changes. This study provides systematic evidence of diverse living conditions in the informal settlements in terms of locational characteristics, environmental conditions and challenges, between the urban core and its rural peripheries, formal recognition of the settlements or the lack thereof, of varying land tenures, of varying degrees of hazards and risks including eviction and resettlement, of social groupings comprising caste and religious denominations, of the education and skill levels of its inhabitants, opportunities for work, of housing conditions and amenities, services and infrastructure, and of political networks and affiliation. The results indicate recognizable levels of variance within and among the sample settlements - as sites of hazards, conflicts, inequalities, poverty, crowding, despair and fear; and as sites of survival, cohesion, informality, mobility and hope. The evidence gathered from this research on informal settlements from a specific context is also presented with a view to engage and relate or demonstrate the complex arrangements and variations among the informal settlements specifically exhibited from the urban core - suburban/peri-urban - rural peripheries. Further such empirical studies of informal urbanization in new and emerging cities like Coimbatore are also crucial to strengthen existing theoretical perspectives. While majorly variations are across the informal settlements in the form of physical conditions - similarities if any are largely due to the locational characteristics of the settlements and redevelopment interventions done in the past; there are also subtle variations within the settlements as a result of the personal characteristics and circumstances of the family unit. Most of the inhabitants in these settlements largely belong to the social groups officially classified as scheduled castes (this alone constituting nearly two-thirds of the families surveyed) and scheduled tribes, denotified communities, most backward and backward classes clearly indicating the systemic deprivations of such social groups, and of social stratification being a predominant marker of urban inequalities. The above groups have been classified on the basis of the socio-economic deprivations and lack of education largely as a result of the earlier prevalent caste system, and in order to provide social welfare and upliftment measures including reservation in education and recruitment. Of these the ‘scheduled castes’ and the ‘scheduled tribes’ correspond to the groups that were placed lowest in the social hierarchy of the caste system in India and were earlier termed pejoratively as ‘untouchables.’ These groups correspond to the native communities and are among the most disadvantaged groups. The denotified communities, most backward and backward groups largely represent the other communities that have been previously marginalised, excluding the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. The word ‘scheduled’ here refers to the inclusion of such groups and communities in the schedule of the constitution of India which provides for the promotion of their educational and economic interests and offers protection from social injustice and all forms of exploitation. Such large presence of the scheduled caste groups reflects the vulnerability of such social groups and the key indicator of the possible transformation (in policy and approach, thereby leading to more literature and increased official and colloquial usage) of the huts of the ‘ex-untouchables’ as seen from maps of Coimbatore in the early 1870’s to the present informal settlements, further enhanced by internal migration of similar groups from neighbouring districts over several decades. Informal settlements exhibit reasonable diversity and dynamism in material possessions especially housing conditions and service provisions, but largely continue to remain static and homogenous in terms of social composition. Between upscaling and mobility, the inhabitants prefer to upscale unless relocated by voluntary or forced evictions. This is due to the attachment towards the occupied lands and a sense of ownership due to the capital invested however meagre that may be, location advantages and social networks. From the perspective of the government authorities, while financial implications are similar, it is easier to provide better housing, services and infrastructure through resettlement, ensuring freeing of the occupied lands for other public purposes and preventing informal settlements from environmental hazards and risks especially in untenable areas. In conclusion, this study contributes to a comprehensive understanding of informal settlements well beyond its physical descriptions explaining the crucial role that they perform not as visual scars or poverty traps but as opportunities for the disadvantaged. The research findings reinforce the hypothetical position adopted, of informal settlements being the ‘transition zones’ in urban regions and highlights the differential transformations happening in its urban-rural continuum. As zones that enable disadvantaged groups to explore life-making processes in cities, aiming upward mobility largely through their own efforts and at their own comfort and pace, as a truly democratic process. While they avail public welfare measures, they do not rely on them completely for their survival. These insights it is hoped will strengthen the planning framework of not just the city of Coimbatore but of similar cities and regions in the global south. It offers insights into inequalities in cities, that enable informal arrangements to thrive due to lack of envisioning and provisioning, highlighting how such inequalities are met with simple survival strategies. Further, the empirical evidence gathered is extensive and can be used to study and understand other strands for future exploration largely concerning urban inequalities, evaluate political strategies and processes, ecological gentrification, evictions and resettlement, and social-spatial legislation for inclusion. These strands will likely be pursued by this author with the possibility of collaboration with peer researchers in future.

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