MASS INHABITATION

 The main argument of the course is that in the last few decades, the questions of housing were located in the questions of affordability and liveability and that this course would like to argue that the housing questions are always located within the changing context of urbanization. For example, the chawls in Mumbai emerged in response to the mercantile economy and industrial economy emerging in the city which created a massive demand for cheap rental housing. Similarly, urbanization of second cities across India is transforming in various ways: establishment of numerous new higher education institutions, new IT and related services establishments, retirement communities; transformation of the industrial sector, older economies, environmental conditions, emigration pattern, and remittance. These changing urbanization conditions are creating the conditions for changes in the configuration of population, temporal migrations, practices of living, and production of new housing types in the city. For example, new students, migrant IT workers and entrepreneurs, aging and retiring citizens, migrant industrial labor, emigrating persons, etc. not only bring with them new practices and forms of living but also bring with them new demands for several kinds of housing in the city which is more often than not for a specific duration of stay. With this background, the course asks its students: what formal and spatial ideas can be formulated about changing urbanization and the practices of housing and home-making in India’s second cities?