ABSTRACT
Fast developing economies like India are pushing the envelope of growth. Urbanization at a rapid pace leading to large-scale migrations brings a huge number of people to cities in search of a better quality of life: more equitable, more inclusive and with higher income. A shift in India’s economics, from agriculture to industry, drives these migrations. Cities, thus, more now than ever before, grapple with the ever burgeoning populace (see Mc-Manus, this volume). Safety and services are emerging as critical issues. Most of the migrants, having been pushed out of their villages due to loss of land to industry, or as parcel sizes become too small to sustain families, end up living in low-income informal settlements, usually referred to as slums, in the cities. Effectively, their search for a better quality of life does not really lead to such. And they also end up losing their social and cultural support. They end up marginalized in the city, lumped together as a mass, with no locus standi as individuals.
