Social participation in urban neighbourhoods

This is a finely grained study of three diverse neighbourhoods of a metropolis which opens up a perspec tive on neighbourhood life and social participation, free from many a stereo typic image. The principal theme of this study weaves around the mapping of the patterns of urbanism and urban social participation in an Indian metro polis and delineation and analysis of its structural characteristics. Marked both by richness of empirical data and rigours of theoretical formulations, the import of the study transcends the boundaries of the metropolis it spotlights, as the pro cesses identified and analysed constitute on all-India phenomenon.

The study brings out in bold relief the configurational uniqueness of Indian urbanism and demonstrates the conti nuity and change in traditional soccial forms in a metropolitan setting. The basic postulates of the western model of urbanism are critically challenged suggesting the possibility of an alter nate dynamic model of Indian urbanism. In the present context of national commitment to urban renewal and up grading the quality of urban life, the study assumes an added significance. Some of the leads thrown up by the study may prove engaging enough to a discerning scholar and invite him to undertake full, blow-up ventures.