ABSTRACT
Though formation of slums takes place in cities all over the world, the Indian city slums are characterized by a total lack of upward mobility and persistence of poverty. Twenty-eight percent of the population of the million-plus cities of India live in slums. This chapter analyzes policy shifts in slum upgrading, first for the nation and then for the city of Calcutta, with a case study of several slums of Calcutta to show how the vicious cycle of poverty persists. The 1950s bulldozing policy aimed at clearance of the slums and of building new housing. Unfortunately, the new properties generally housed the middle class and the rich, while the original, poor slum dwellers were pushed to other slums or forced to form new ones. When the poor migrated to colonial Calcutta as servants of the British families the first group of slums was formed.
