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Residential Segregation in cities of South India: Patterns and Correlates

Neeha Jacob, Centre for Development Studies

Urbanisation is growing in India, with the number of cities and its population on a rise. While cities are becoming more connected and ‘globalized’, the inequalities in terms of space are increasing. This paper looks at spatial inequality in major cities of South India, through the lens of residential segregation due to caste. The patterns and correlates of residential segregation in 102 class-1 towns among the states of Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana are studied. The Primary Census Abstracts and House listing and Household Data of Census 2011 have been used for the study. The paper analyses the evenness and exposure between Scheduled Castes and non-Scheduled Castes in cities that could contribute to residential segregation. Varying patterns of segregation were observed based on different scales of urbanization (based on the population size), with cities of larger population size having lower segregation and vice versa, both in terms of evenness and exposure. The paper also studies the impact of segregation on the quality of housing in the cities under study. Cities of higher levels of segregation are found to have poor housing quality and asset availability, and vice versa.

Keywords: Urbanization and urban populations, Inequality, Census data, Culture, ethnicity, race, religion and language

See paper.

  Presented in Session P16.