Dear readers,

City planning and the built environment have a major role to play in making cities  equitable. Inequality in cities is not merely about wealth and wages; it is about the housing and the dignity it offers, about access to spaces and basic services, about work and inclusivity, about pavements and play areas, even about how climate change impacts are felt. The built environment is not neutral; it reflects and exacerbates inequalities, both visible and less-visible. Spatial segregation has been normalised, making spatial justice and the Right to the City ever more resonant. This edition of Question of Cities, ninth in our series on Built Environment, examines various forms of inequality reflected in the lives of construction workers, waste pickers, slum residents, and domestic workers in our cities.

Utkarsh Mishra, Ranchi-based journalist, traces how, despite the construction industry employing millions, construction workers living in makeshift shelters without adequate water, sanitation, power supply, schools and healthcare has been normalised. The national total cess collected for workers’ welfare, by mandated state boards, exceeds Rs 1.17 lakh crore but Rs 70,000 crore remains unspent while only 7 percent of the initiative for rental housing for migrant workers, was allocated till 2024. The problem is structural and calls for mandating worker housing into project plans, and building transit housing with adequate facilities near major construction corridors. Workers’ housing is not a welfare but an urban planning question, he argues. Read it here.

Anjor Bhaskar, PhD, faculty at Azim Premji University with long years of research on the marginalised, details how India’s waste pickers, an estimated 3 to 5 million, collect and sort trash on the streets, in municipal garbage bins, and enormous landfills, but face deep marginalisation. Sustainable waste management and just transition to it calls for land and budget allocations in urban plans so that waste workers can use their skills and experience, and have a better working environment. Drawing on his research and case studies of Pune and Ahmedabad, Bhaskar details five principles for just transition which require allotted space, formal processes, and oversight of municipalities – all political decisions. Read it here.

Researchers Sanjana Krishnan and C Sheth, and video editor Abhishek narrate the story of an informal settlement in Mankhurd, Mumbai, set up 25 years ago where 180 families have been struggling to get legal electricity connections. They possess all the documents and  have spoken to politicians, but to no avail. A complaint with the Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum, eventually withdrawn, challenged the rule that required a No Objection Certificate from land owners – difficult for slums – and argued that electricity as a part of the fundamental Right to Life. The prolonged process and harassment have forced them to tap informal sources, pay hefty bills, and live with safety concerns while the state approves heavy power-consuming data centres as “essential services”. Read it here.

Climate and urban researcher Ujjvala Krishna details how architecture is an active participant in segregating domestic workers structurally and spatially in high-rises and gated complexes. From separate entrances, logging entry-exit, having bags checked to forced into service lifts and limited to designated areas, segregation and social hierarchies are built into the layout and show class-caste anxieties. These design choices are not accidental but micro-architectural separations meant to maintain the structural hierarchy of the served and the server while subjecting the domestic worker to constant surveillance, reducing the dignity of labour, reinforcing caste-class inequalities, and reflecting an ongoing struggle over spatial justice and the Right to the City, she argues. Read it here.

The creation and transformation of the built environment are seen as the result of the interplay between material and immaterial dimensions, which both reflect and influence social structures. From this perspective, spatial inequalities can be interpreted as manifestations of broader economic, social, and cultural processes. This paper, republished from Agathon – International Journal of Architecture, Art and Design with edits, analyses the role of technological and environmental design of architecture in countering such inequalities and focuses on the inseparable relationship between inclusivity and adaptability through a comparative analysis of three cases of social housing. Read it here.

In our regular section, News Digest, read about the approval given to fell 680 mangroves for Thane Coastal Road-2; Built-up land in the Himalayan high-risk zones increases in 7 years; Nepal becomes the first beneficiary of Loss and Damage Fund; UN to start negotiations on the world’s first international protocol to fight environmental crime; Finland residents outraged as Google fells 2.5 lakh trees for data centre.

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Thank you,

Smruti
Founding Editor,
October 30, 2026