Filtering density and doing the maintenance work

ABSTRACT

In this paper we argue that the infra economy of the city contributes to the metabolic functioning of everyday dense rhythms of urban life. In Indian cities, this complex work performed by the city’s vulnerable and marginalised labouring classes produces a secure, sanitary and aesthetic city, keeping the crowds at bay and yet maintaining desirable limits of density.

KEYWORDS:

• Infra economy
• security guards
• waste
• sanitation workers
• density
• cities
• India
• urban

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Soylent Green: In the novel and film, Soylent green is a food substitute that is originally made with Soyabean and Lentil, however as resources have depleted, the company comes up with an idea to tackle the problem of overpopulation and starvation that is to make a processed food protein made of human bodies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green

2. For example: The Population Bomb (1968) by Paul Ehrlich, The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind (1972) by D H Meadows et al. Fiction: Issac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel (1954), J G Ballard’s Billenium and other collections (1961), Richard Wilson’s “The Eight Billion” (July 1965), Harry Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room! (1966), and Soylent Green (1973) – are some classic fiction and non-fiction books.

3. In 1798 the UK economist Thomas R Malthus (1766–1834) published his Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the Future Improvement of Society that influenced many other academic and fictional representations of overpopulation and crowds.

4. For victorian representations of crowds see: https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/slums and https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01202196/document

5. James Elmes, Metropolitan Improvements (London: Jones & Co., etc., 1827), p.2.

6. Gidwani (2015) explains “the term ‘infra-economy’ has a double valence: it denotes, on the one hand, an economy that is denied recognition by state and civil society (and is ‘seen’ only at moments of crisis, as an object of condemnation or reform); and on the other, an economy that is critical to the production of urban space such that it is conducive for capitalist accumulation”.

7. Mumbaiwalas: or the middle class and upper class residents of Mumbai.

8. In the oppressive Hindu caste system the term Dalit or untouchables is attributed by the upper castes to members of the lowest castes.

9. Several cases of sanitation workers strike as reported in the Indian news:https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-11-03/india-learning-what-happens-when-you-treat-sanitation-workers-garbagehttps://www.dnaindia.com/delhi/report-city-stinks-as-sanitation-workers-remain-on-strike-2553695https://www.mumbailive.com/en/civic/bmc-safai-workers-on-strike-against-privatization-of-waste-collection-in-mumbai-30291