Indian Slums: The Boundary of Socially Constructed Temporal Borderlands. The Case of Anna Nagar, Wazirpur and Jijamata Nagar Micro-Cities

Abstract

Slums form boundaries of socially constructed temporal borderlands in twenty-first-century India. After the intense industrialisation that started in the 1960s, the perspective of architects and town planners changed. In addition, beginning in the last ten years of the twentieth century, government policies proved essential in improving India’s housing problem for an overpopulated country. Three specific slums provide an understanding of the different scales, the internal structures and the morphologies of the settlements: the slum of Anna Nagar, located next to the airport of Secunderabad; the slum of Wazirpur, situated in a large industrial area of Delhi; and the slum of Jijamata Nagar in Mumbai, whose location is less aggressive for the population. Graphical methods have been used to analyse the slum’s internal organisation and the construction of their houses. This demonstrates how the inhabitants of each slum area have made sociological transformations despite limited resources. Their housing is located in temporary borderlands and is subject to forced evacuation by the government.