Urbanisation in Asia
The peri-urban interface and sustainability of south Asian cities
Read the project overview (pdf 98 kb)
New publication Sept 09: On the Edge of Sustainability: Perspectives on Peri-urban Dynamics
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.
Find out more about this project
Autumn 2009 update by Fiona Marshall
Two peri-urban STEPS working papers have been completed, and presentations made at relevant conferences in Manchester, UEA and Stockholm, in addition to events in Delhi. A follow on funding bid is being submitted to the current DFID-ESRC call; this involves our current Indian project partners and extends the work to a second case study city with new team members in Dhaka.
Over the past six months fieldwork has included an additional 60
interviews with members of peri-urban communities include farmers,
industrialists, residents of middle class colonies, residents of villages, slums and unauthorized colonies and water plant owners. A core area of focus has been on issues of water safety and self reliance (and the range of technologies that are being promoted outside the formal system). Draft fieldwork reports are currently under review,
To support ongoing consultations with government officials and wider engagement plans, a workshop has been organized in mid September, with a larger, higher profile event planned for January 2010. The September meeting, will promote discussion of the failure of current water supply systems for the poor, and wider Sustainability implications of not recognizing issues 'beyond supply' such as multiple water use practices, deteriorating quality, and coping strategies of the poor, which impact across disciplines and sectors. Additional 'Designs' activities have focused largely on pilot interviews interviews in Delhi to inform appropriate adaptations to existing multi criteria mapping approaches.
Photos from our project
www.flickr.com
|
STEPS members working on this project
- Fiona Marshall Co-convenor
- Lyla Mehta Co-convenor
- Hayley MacGregor Research Fellow
- Pritpal Randhawa Research Officer
- Linda Waldman Research Fellow
STEPS partners on this project
- Awadhendra Sharan, Sarai, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi
- Professor Amitabh Kundu, Centre for the Study of Regional Development based at Jawarhalal Nehru University, New Delhi
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.
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 35: Peri-urban
On the Edge of Sustainability: Perspectives on Peri-urban Dynamics (pdf 640kb)
by Fiona Marshall, Linda Waldman, Hayley MacGregor, Lyla Mehta and Pritpal Randhawa
This paper examines some of the many ways in which the peri-urban has been theorised, considering, in particular, the implications for a normative research agenda towards improved environmental and social justice. The paper discusses the value of different notions of sustainability in the context of the peri-urban, challenging the view that ‘sustainability’ is not an appropriate goal in relation to cities which are seen, by some urban theorists, as inherently ‘unsustainable’.
Printed copies of this paper can be ordered from the IDS bookshop cost £5.00
STEPS Working Paper 6: Liquid Dynamics
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
Download this briefing (pdf 243kb)
Related research
- STEPS Centre water and sanitation research
- STEPS at World Water Week 2009, Stockholm
- The STEPS water team held an event at World Water Week in Stockholm in August, using case studies from our peri-urban work in Delhi and Community-Led Total Sanitation.
Blog from World Water Week in Stockholm
Photos from World Water Week
Podcast of STEPS session at World Water Week
Presentations x3 from World Water Week (on Slideshare) - Community Led Total Sanitation As the International Year of Sanitation comes to a close, the CLTS conference highlights this innovative way of mobilising communities to completely eliminate open defecation. Dec 16-18 2008
- World Water Week: Sanitation Scandal
- Water: the ethics of efficiency Lyla Mehta writes about whether our food is too thirsty for Food Ethics magazine (pdf 2MB)
- Peri-urban synamics and sustainability challenges - STEPS panel session at DSA 2007
- Suman Sahai speaks at the STEPS Symposium
- STEPS Centre Symposium panels at the DSA Conference
- Reframing Resilience The STEPS Centre's theme for 2008 is resilience; engaging with resilience thinking and exploring practical implications for policy in agriculture, water, peri-urban dynamics, epidemics and regulation.
 |
Girl in alleyway, India / Danish Khan / iStockphoto |
Steps Direct
On this page
related links
external links
