Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe paper examines a part of the housing market in the Indian metropolitan city of Bangalore. Some problems of housing finance from the viewpoints of families and of public authorities are indicated. It is argued that it is these financial problems that make access difficult for the poorer half of the population of Bangalore to forms of housing other than inner city slums or urban fringe informal housing. Public housing with its unrealistic standards of service provision, but especially its high initial access costs is not well designed to meet the needs of the majority of families. The paper concludes that unless public housing authorities emulate the private housing market they will continue to play a marginal role in housing in a city such as Bangalore. There are signs that this is happening in India with experimentation in both housing finance and lower service standards.

AbstractPerceptions of solid waste management in India belong to a tradition of thought which dates back to the early nineteenth century. Solid waste is often thought of as a purely municipal problem. The paper examines how far informal systems of solid waste management are a response to a void in property rights. It analyses the variety of local operations in Calcutta, including the informal system. The assumptions that solid waste management is a public good that therefore needs to be municipalized and that in the absence of municipalization there would be greater costs are both questioned. It is hypothesized that there may be no measurable economies of scale in any part of the waste cycle. It may be more worthwhile to improve and expand the informal system of waste management than to collectivize further the traditional system of collection, transportation and disposal.