ABSTRACT

This chapter presents extreme increasing urban duality in Kolkata, as its urban landscape fragments into spaces of global culture and informal spaces of marginal slums and squatter settlements co-existing side-by-side. In the mainstream literature, megacities epitomize urban challenges of rapid population growth, high densities, poor infrastructure, slums, informal settlements, marginal communities, and environmental pollution. The city’s infrastructure was rapidly deteriorating, and a large proportion of the population lacked any urban amenities. The State government enacted several legislative reforms in the 1980s to provide the legal, administrative, fiscal, and statutory environment needed to empower municipalities as primary actors of urban development. Kolkata’s political history and culture explain why it has been a late bloomer in the proliferation of global architecture and new urban planning paradigms. The inhabitants of the gated communities need the urban poor to maintain their lifestyles; the domestic help often live in the surrounding bustees as well as villages surrounding the city.