Using case studies from Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Jaipur, and Bangalore,this book examines the causes of poor public service delivery in India scities with specific reference to finances and institutional factors.

With increasing population and expanding demand for urban infrastructure services, the capacities of local governments in many developing countries are overburdened. Adequate infrastructure is not only necessary for increasing productivity but also improving the quality of living. Given the primacy of public service delivery for cities to become engines of growth, this book answers two critical questions: Does low spending explain the state of poor public service delivery? How can urban local bodies have access to greater resources so as to enable them to improve public service delivery? Using case studies of four citie—Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Jaipur, and Bangalore—the book examines urban services such as water supply, sewerage, sanitation, solid waste management, municipal roads, and street lighting. It compares the state of these services with international norms and suggests new ways in which they can be financed and improved. More specifically, the book examines the role of land as a revenue-generating source in India's cities.

"The Politics of Sanitation in India examines how the environmental problems confronting Indian cities have arisen and subsequently forced millions of people to live in illegal settlements that lack adequate sanitation, and other basic urban services. This has occurred because of two factors. The first is the legacy of the colonial city characterised by inequitable access to sanitation services, a failure to manage urban growth and the proliferation of slums, and the inadequate funding of urban governments. The second is the nature of the post-colonial state, which, instead of being an instrument for socio-economic change, has been dominated by coalitions of interests accommodated by the use of public funds to provide private goods. The result is that the middle class has been able to monopolise what sanitation services the state has provided because the urban poor, despite their political participation, have not been able to exert sufficient pressure to force governments to effectively implement policies designed to improve their living conditions. The consequence is that public health and environmental policies have frequently become exercises in crisis intervention instead of being preventive measures which benefit the health and well-being of the whole urban population. These issues are explored by studying the history of colonial and post-independence urban development and management in Ahmedabad, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai, and analysing why these cities have failed to provide equitable access to sanitation services for all residents."--Http://www.orientblackswan.com.

From ancient metropolises like Pueblo Bonito and Tenochtitlán to the twenty-first century Oceti Sakowin encampment of NoDAPL water protectors, Native people have built and lived in cities—a fact little noted in either urban or Indigenous histories. By foregrounding Indigenous peoples as city makers and city dwellers, as agents and subjects of urbanization, the essays in this volume simultaneously highlight the impact of Indigenous people on urban places and the effects of urbanism on Indigenous people and politics. The authors—Native and non-Native, anthropologists and geographers as well as historians—use the term “Indian cities” to represent collective urban spaces established and regulated by a range of institutions, organizations, churches, and businesses. These urban institutions have strengthened tribal and intertribal identities, creating new forms of shared experience and giving rise to new practices of Indigeneity. Some of the essays in this volume explore Native participation in everyday economic activities, whether in the commerce of colonial Charleston or in the early development of New Orleans. Others show how Native Americans became entwined in the symbolism associated with Niagara Falls and Washington, D.C., with dramatically different consequences for Native and non-Native perspectives. Still others describe the roles local Indigenous community groups have played in building urban Native American communities, from Dallas to Winnipeg. All the contributions to this volume show how, from colonial times to the present day, Indigenous people have shaped and been shaped by urban spaces. Collectively they demonstrate that urban history and Indigenous history are incomplete without each other.

This study examines the provision of infrastructure in India's urban areas by examining the costs of providing these services. It analyses the challenges in reform of service delivery in the context of developing countries.