Slum upgrading frameworks for better liveability: Case of Pune, India

Subhashree Nath, Sigrun Kabisch

Sustainable & Resilient Urban-Rural Partnerships – URP2020", Leipzig, 25–27 Nov. 2020 http://www.urp2020.eu

Liveability studies are mostly limited to formal settlements, whereas in emerging economies like India, a large proportion of the population lives in informal settlements. Lack of liveability studies for informal settlements often lead to the assumption that ensuring safer housing structure and providing basic services like household-level water, sanitation, and electricity, inevitably leads to an improved living experience. Consequently, slum upgrading frameworks rarely consider improvement in liveability as one of the criteria. The research paper addresses this knowledge gap by studying the change in liveability perceptions of residents when they move to upgraded housing. Five residents each from four settlement types were interviewed: slums with no intervention, slums in-situ upgraded through retrofitting or relocating into multi-story housing in the same area, and slums upgraded through relocation to new housing. It aims to find how different liveability indicators weigh in the overall liveability score of these settlements by mapping their perception through Fuzzy Cognitive Maps and find the most influential (central) indicator as well as poor performing indicators. It hypothesizes that indicators related to community ties are most influential and despite improved housing quality and availability of basic services, community ties are lost when up-gradation is done through relocation to new housing. The result of the analysis highlights areas of potential improvement for a better liveability in the upgraded settlement. This comparison could then become a tool for guiding policies for slum upgrading, which considers the causal relationship of various indicators for an overall higher liveability. The centrality values of different indicators further help city administrator in prioritising areas which need immediate action.