Injected Urbanism? Exploring India’s Urbanizing Periphery

Robbin Jan van Duijne, Jan Nijman and Chetan Choithani

Economic Geography, 2023, vol. 99, issue 2, 161-190

Abstract: Engaging with different literatures in economic geography, postcolonial urbanism, and planetary urbanization, this article seeks to develop a theoretical understanding of remote urban formations taking shape in India’s countryside. The analysis draws on extensive primary data collected at two study sites in Bihar and West Bengal, which rendered an uncommonly rich data set for such remote areas. We observe emergent urban formations that result from densification, expansion, and amalgamation of built-up environments and a massive shift of employment out of the agricultural sector. At the same time, alternative local economic opportunities are scarce, giving way to significant increases in circular labor migration. We introduce the concept of injected urbanism to denote a form of urbanization that is exogenously generated through remittances, in the absence of significant local agglomeration processes. The infusion of remittances drives local economic restructuring and the emergence of a consumption economy. Injected urbanism spurs local development, but its dependence on economic activity elsewhere raises important questions about its sustainability.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00130095.2022.2133696 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:recgxx:v:99:y:2023:i:2:p:161-190

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/recg20

DOI: 10.1080/00130095.2022.2133696

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Geography is currently edited by James Murphy

More articles in Economic Geography from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().