Infrastructure and Metropolitan Reorganization: An Exploration of the Relationship in Africa and India

ABSTRACT:

Despite decades of effort, deficiencies in access and quality of infrastructure persist in cities of the developing world. One common response to the infrastructure problem is to reorganize the structure of metropolitan areas in the hopes that infrastructure provision, management, and quality will improve. What is not clear globally, however, is how the reorganization of metropolitan areas comes to be, and how infrastructure deficiencies function as a rationale for reform in conjunction with other dominant reasons or drivers of metropolitan reorganization. Building on the demand for increased cross-regional comparison in urban studies generally, this article explores and compares the relationship between infrastructure quality and political and social pressures in four cities—two in India and two in East Africa. The comparison is intended to be exploratory; it shows how city and national government efforts to improve infrastructure quality are shaped by political and social pressures. The results provide a foundation for future cross-regional comparison and theory building.

Notes

Although we speak of infrastructure provision and service delivery generally in this article, some of our case studies focus more directly on the role of water supply infrastructure.

In this paper we understand metropolitanization as a product of an administrative innovation that introduces new forms of governance strategies that address the metropolitan growth experienced by cities. We therefore use metropolitanization, metropolitan governance, and metropolitan reforms interchangeably.

In addition to Chennai City Corporation, the metropolitan area includes 16 municipalities (or towns), 20 town panchayaths (small towns), and 214 villages.

See Gopakumar () for a description of the dynamic of water supply provision in Chennai.

The Dravidian movement arose in the nineteenth century in response to the perceived domination of Brahmins in politics and administration and the corresponding exclusion of non-Brahmin castes under colonial rule. In the early twentieth century, the Dravidian movement witnessed a surge in popularity through its iconoclast leader Periyar’s efforts to formulate a rationalist ideology that challenged Brahmins and Brahminical Hinduism’s social and cultural hegemony over the lower castes (Subramanian, ; Wyatt, ).

A mayor is chosen for a 1-year term from among the elected councilors to lead municipal governance by the political party that has a majority in council hall. The commissioner—a career bureaucrat appointed by the Government of Karanataka—heads the administration of municipal governance.

Seven city municipal councils of Rajarajeshwarinagar, Dasarahalli, Bommanahalli, Krishnarajapuram, Byatrayanapura, and Yelahanka, 111 villages, and Kengeri town municipal council adjoining Bangalore were merged with the city of Bangalore to create the new entity.

It is worth noting that there remain some significant contradictions in the quality of the infrastructure in Kampala that is controlled by national entities. For example, one commonly cited success in Kampala is water provision. Nillson cites that over 67% of Kampala residents have access to the public water supply network (, p. 370). In contrast, only 7% are connected to the sewerage network. Despite this, the National Water and Sewerage Corporation has responsibility for both water and sewerage, and owing to its success with water, is one of the few public enterprises that has not been put up for privatization. Similarly, up until the early 2000s, electricity distribution was controlled by the national monopoly, but its performance with respect to reliability of service, system losses, and increased access was very poor.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christopher D. Gore

Christopher Gore is an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. His research focuses on the politics, policy, and administration of urban and environmental issues in sub-Saharan Africa and North America. His current research primarily focuses on the politics and policy of infrastructure (electricity and cyber) in East Africa, and the politics of urban change, urban food policy and security, and urban adaptation to climate change in the region. In addition to several book chapters, select research has been published in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Environment and Planning C, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, and International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability.

Govind Gopakumar

Govind Gopakumar is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair at the Centre for Engineering in Society at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. His major research interests are in understanding processes of urban change particularly as a result of shifts in infrastructure development and governance, in analyzing social and political dynamics of urban infrastructures, and in studying the social context of shifts in engineering education. His publications include Transforming Urban Water Supplies in India (2012) and articles in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Water Alternatives, Mobilities, and the European Journal of Engineering Education.