Community-based urban environmental management : a case study of low-income settlements in Delhi, India
Date
2008
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University of Toronto
Abstract
This thesis investigates community-based approaches to environmental management in a
low-income area of Delhi, India. The research site consists of several neighbourhoods within
Sultanpuri Resettlement Colony, a sprawling residential area situated on the northwestern
fringe of the city that was established by the government during the 1970s for relocation of
squatter households. Given that the level of planned infrastructure and services is fairly basic
in Sultanpuri, the study focuses on collective action under the PLUS Project, a recent
community-NGO-government collaboration to improve water supply, sanitation, solid waste
management, and local municipal parks. The study is motivated by the general lack of
documentation about environmental conditions in low-income settlements in urban India and
the limited academic attention thus far. Further rationale is the largely unanswered matter of
whether, and how, the urban poor can be reasonably expected to act together, either by
mutual-help or with external assistance, to achieve a better-quality environment. The
research design is a mixed-method case study comprising a community-wide household
survey; several smaller purposive surveys of local residents; semi-structured interviews with
NGO staff, government officials, and other informants; and a literature search. Social capital
and collective action theories are utilized to characterize the prevailing social dynamics in the study community and to assess the inherent potential for collective action around local
environmental management. Empirical findings show a somewhat low level of social capital
in Sultanpuri, as evidenced by patterns of informal social interaction, associational life, and
generalized trust. The outcomes of various collective activities, moreover, are found to be
partial, in accord with social capital theory. However, the research highlights a number of
shortcomings to the explanatory power of the social capital paradigm, in particular, the
importance of human capital for collective action, and also raises important questions about
the efficacy of the bottom-up, consensual approach to development in the dominant
discourse.
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Keywords
INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS, PUBLIC SERVICES, SANITATION, URBAN POOR, COMMUNITY-BASED DEVELOPMENT, GOVERNANCE, EMPOWERMENT, SLUMS, SOCIAL PARTICIPATION