Urbanisation in Asia

The peri-urban interface and sustainability of south Asian cities

Read the project overview (pdf 98 kb)

The expanding fringes of Delhi are indicative of the conditions that a growing proportion of the world's poor and marginalised citizens will inhabit in decades to come. This project uses water conflicts as a lens through which to explore the technological and environmental sustainability challenges in peri-urban areas.

Context

The rapid expansion of peri-urban areas presents opportunities and challenges for urban and rural activities, institutions and sustainability. No longer soley seen in spatial terms, the peri-urban interface is increasingly recognised in terms of dynamic flows of commodities, capital, natural resources, people and pollution. Although often seen as a transition zone, peri-urban areas are expanding rather than diminishing.


Today’s landfill, tomorrow’s housing estate

Today’s landfills become tomorrow’s housing estates for urban migrants in an era of rapid change. Conflicts - over land, water and tenure; siting of polluting industries, waste disposal, mining, construction or commercial cash crops - are now competing with small-scale agriculture, common lands or conservation areas.


The ambiguous peri-urban interface, split between urban and rural jurisdictional boundaries, presents significant governance challenges. Contradictory or absent regulatory frameworks and technology arrangements, poor health, water and sanitation service provision and haphazard planned and unplanned operations abound. These are coupled with intense pollution, land degradation, poor public health and sanitation, changing disease ecologies and a competitive labour market. Meanwhile discrimination is rife and social capital is falling. The health and livelihood challenges for an increasing number of disenfranchised, poor and marginalised citizens are numerous and complex.


A planning minefield

Not only are peri-urban areas framed in different ways by policy makers, academics, the powerful and powerless, but there is a lack of understanding about the peri-urban environment, the diverse livelihoods of people experiencing different degrees of urbanization, and the perceptions and priorities of peri-urban villagers. As a result, planning decisions are almost inevitably flawed.


With no clear jurisdiction, ‘organised irresponsibility’ has emerged allowing powerful actors to benefit from the lack of regulation and constant impermanence. Meanwhile the very marginalised and disenfranchised groups lack access to basic health, water and sanitation services. Often their rights to land, health and water are stripped away. Moreover, their livelihoods are frequently declared ‘illegal’ by the state and the judiciary. The recent urban evictions in Delhi in the wake of state efforts to make Delhi a ‘world class’ city are a good case in point.


New approaches needed

The current challenge is to find approaches to address these conflicts and implement changes to benefit the poor and marginalised; to strike a balance between ameliorating poverty, protecting the environment, maximising the productivity of natural resources and drawing synergy from urban and rural relationships.
Our research aims to bring together the social, technical and environmental dimensions of peri-urban areas and chart how these interlock, reinforce - or contradict - each other and change over time. We will track diverse pathways (ways in which interacting social, technological and environmental systems co-evolve over time) and assess which can address the needs and interests of marginalized and disenfranchised groups in ways that enhance sustainability. We seek to unpack the politics of sustainability in peri-urban areas and unravel alternative visions of sustainability that are often hidden due to issues of power and politics.

Peri-urban flyerFind out more about this project

STEPS members working on this project

STEPS partners on this project

Case study location

The study focus on peri-urban areas of Delhi, the fastest growing city in India, with an estimated population of 19 million by 2010 and 22 million by 2015 (NIUA 2007). The initial round of community-based research is taking place to the East of Delhi, outisde the National Capital Territory in the trans Hindon (West of the River Hindon, East of the Yamuna river) area of the Ghaziabad district, close to the polluted Hindon River.

Ghaziabad, Delhi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Explainer: sustainability or Sustainabilty?

  • sustainability– (in general usage): the general capability to maintain any unspecified feature of system structure or function over indefinite periods of time.
  • Sustainability– the capability of maintaining specified values of human wellbeing, social equity and environmental quality over indefinite periods of time.

Publications

STEPS Working Paper 6: Liquid Dynamics

water cover


Liquid Dynamics: challenges for sustainability in water and sanitation (pdf 556kb)
By Lyla Mehta, Fiona Marshall, Synne Movik, Andy Stirling, Esha Shah, Adrian Smith, John Thompson

 

 

STEPS Briefing 6: Water & sanitation

STEPS Briefing 6: Liquid dynamics
Download this briefing (pdf 243kb)

 

 

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