Socio-morphological restructuring of savda ghevra- a resettlement colony in peri-urban area of Delhi

Abstract

Enforced exclusions and relocation of the inmost shantytowns have turn out to be a regular and unavoidable function of the advancement of the cities in the overall South. Post liberalization, good governance strategy has become the protocol for maximum of the urban expansion projects. In the phase from 1990, exhibited by the beginning and liberalization of the Indian market to 2007, 218 slums (JJ clusters) were wrecked and families displaced. 'Site and services' approach was taken by the government providing only plots and the bare minimum services to the displaced. One of the recent examples is the repositioning of squatter communes to the city boundaries to make way for infrastructural up gradation and cosmetic treatment. Savda Ghevra, as an ethnographically strategic site, offers insights into the ‘system’ or set of interrelations in which it is situated, which include the planner’s designs for the colony, households balancing residence against livelihood opportunities, women residents working for NGOs etc. The colony is currently in the middle of frenzied suburbanization with a huge conjecture between the residents and state interventions. The existing building typologies demonstrate the mixed economies of the locals. There's a complex mix of incremental housing, govt. quarters and vacant land for future allocation available on the site. The residents prefer to make use of the alleys and streets to conduct their day to day activities rather than their own houses which are largely inhabitable in nature. One can fathom the severity of this 'colonization of the urban poor ' by the government leading to loss in a coherent urban structure and absence of the much needed quality of life that each resident of a city is entitled to. This thesis is an attempt to provide essential ballast to a habitable society through inclusive neighborhood design.