Assorted City: Equity, Justice and Politics in Urban Services Delivery

A rare piece of research on the game of urban services delivery in an Indian metropolis.

Independent India envisioned the idea of democracy with equality and liberty as its basic tenets. To accomplish this idea, planning was adopted as the policy to take the new nation forward. Assorted City argues that planning has inherent traits of the multiple techniques of governmentality resulting in the politics of distribution which, with its unpredictable consequences, supersedes the policy of distribution. Based on an empirical study of water supply in Delhi and grounded in theory, this book makes an original reading of the city that is highly relevant for the study of contemporary urbanism. Moreover, such observations of the city are made through the lens of urban services delivery, which is unique in itself. Assorted City makes an important contribution to urban planning discourses in India by offering an in-depth conceptual and theoretical insight to address theory-practice dichotomy. A unique work on urban services delivery in an Indian city, it narrates how equity and justice are manipulated in the process. It captures generic urban processes in three ways: the questions it raises about planning, the multifaceted methodological perspective it introduces, and the commitment it underlines toward social justice and equity in a democracy.

This book explores and exposes the interplay between urban existence and the politics of service delivery.