Informal rental practices in an old sites and service resettlement: the case of Ambedkar Nagar, Chennai

Abstract

The rapid pace of urbanisation in Indian cities has led to an ever-growing demand for rental housing, especially in the lower- and middle-income markets. In contemporary India, like in many other countries of the Global South, it is mainly small-scale housing suppliers with different financial resources who provide rental housing on the lower market segments which are characterised by informality. The following work investigates the informal rental housing practices in a mature sites and service resettlement which has been massively transformed through incremental housing processes and provides a wide range of rental spaces in terms of quality and price on the lower segment of the rental market. The area has developed into a socio-economically and ethnically diverse neighbourhood that accommodates both lower- and middle-income groups. This work is based on a rich mix of qualitative data collection techniques, including; document analysis, semi-structured in-depth interviews, participant observation and photo documentation. The research focuses on the demand side of the market by investigating the tenants housing mobility patterns and questions regarding the accessibility of the rental housing arrangements. Moreover, different dimensions of tenure security for tenants, namely the legal, de facto and perceptual security, are investigated. The analysis highlights differences between the local Tamil population and internal migrants from North-East India. Social capital plays a crucial role to access and navigate through the rental market, especially for the local Tamil population. Despite the cultural differences that were mentioned regularly, the findings stress that the many landlords value the tenants financial means more than their ethnical or religious backgrounds. The North-East Indian population therefore find themselves in an advantaged position as they use to live in shared households, work in the formal sector and generate higher household incomes. The findings show how the financial means can affect the housing pathways and the security of tenure for the different income groups. Moreover, the analysis revealed that the water scarcity, which the study area and the city of Chennai as a whole have face regularly in recent years, has substantially triggered moving patterns of tenants.