Urban Livelihoods in Slums of Chennai: Developing a Relational Understanding

As South Asia urbanizes, urban poverty is becoming more important in the development agenda. Many slums in India have existed for decades, despite multiple policies and programmes for reducing urban poverty. This article reveals the diversity of slums as outcomes linked to their internal development and their relations to the city’s macro-economic policies and institutional landscape. The focus is on the way these relations shape opportunities and constraints of households’ livelihoods over time in two slum settlements of Chennai. The research uses mixed methods to show how outcomes for households are closely linked to the settlement history, institutions and city region of which they are a part of. The article argues that slum development models and policies should promote relational understandings of slum areas to influence policies towards more effective support for reducing poverty among residents.