Exploring impacts of resettlement and upgrading on the urban poor's daily lives in a second tier city in India

Abstract

This article intends to understand the impact of resettlement and upgrading in the context of Coimbatore, a second-tier city in India. It aims to explore the effects of these housing policies on the urban poor's daily lives and lived experiences by data triangulation. It describes these effects concerning residents’ social networks, livelihoods and commute, infrastructure and maintenance as well as process participation.

Most concerns raised for both resettlement and upgrading – such as destruction of livelihoods and social networks - that have so far primarily been investigated in bigger cities, are found to also apply for housing projects in this second-tier city. To a certain degree, location is an exemption here as three of the four investigated colonies are located near the city center, thereby enabling most of their residents to walk to work and many amenities. Public land in such a central location was thus available to the Urban Local Body (ULB). However, this land was found to be of low quality and rather unsuitable for construction. Overall, the lack of agency vested in residents during planning and implementation gravely contributed to several different projects’ deficiencies.