1 Chapter 1 - Introduction

1.1 Focus of the study

Making current cities and future urban development more ecologically grounded and habitable is a critical undertaking in the global push for sustainability. Urban infrastructure is a crucial component of every city's planning system for communities to grow and thrive. Its supply is essential to realizing sustainable neighborhoods and metropolitan areas. Today, India confronts tremendous development hurdles, with many urban and rural residents without access to basic infrastructure. For my research, I chose to focus on Bengaluru, a flourishing metropolitan whose economic progress has far outpaced its urban infrastructure and is often known as India's silicon oasis (Roy,2009). It is no longer a tranquil retirement community but one of India's newest and busiest metropolises. In my research, I will be enquiring about the access to urban infrastructure by the low-income minorities of a locally situated area within Bengaluru, India.

With astaggeringpovertyrateof 25%, closeto 81 million peoplein urbanareas of India livebelow the poverty line (Sharma, 2017). Most urban poor in India have dust and despair in their eyes instead of the aspirations for which they went to the city (Sharma, 2017) A unique layer of socioeconomic differences has been carved on a landscape of various enclaves and ghettos, known to be dominated by minorities within India's urban poor (Roy,2009). Adverse living conditions characterize these areas but first, let us understand who the minorities of India are.

Minorities of India?

Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, and Zoroastrians have been designated as minority communities under Section 2 (c) of the National Commission for Minorities Act (1992). (Parsis). According to the 2011 Census, minorities account for around 19.3 percent of the total population in the country (Government of India Ministry of Minority Affairs, n.d.).

Some urban areas have access to a large variety of services. In contrast, others are severely underserved by critical infrastructures, which is the basis of many current inequities in urban communities. Segregation has a long history in Indian cities, leading to the concentration of minority populations in specific locations. The literature will explore the context more in terms of its urban fabric and development, which include informality and how it influences the liveability of a community. The next section of the literature aims to explore the development of a framework used to provide a sustainable city whose components are closely connected with its surroundings. This framework is further used as an assessment criterion for enquiring about the challenges faced by the people of the chosen case study. Based on three months of ethnographic research in Bengaluru, I will show through a historically marginalized area known as Shivajinagar, dominated by a low-income Muslim population, how these settlers in central Bengaluru are being denied a proper urban infrastructure. To properly appreciate the literature review, it is necessary to first briefly grasp the geographical context. A substantial amount of research also emphasizes the relevance of sustainable sectors and factors in urban infrastructure development.

1.2 Aim

To comprehend and investigate the difficulties the urban poor (low-income minorities of Shivajinagar) faced in accessing the city’s urban infrastructure

1.3 Research Questions

It is found that in most parts of the world, mainly the minorities with low income/average earrings tend to or are forced to adapt to living compromised of proper infrastructure, unhealthy atmosphere, access to appropriate public transport spaces, and adverse living conditions. The following questions have been the focus of the whole study.

How would you deliver a sustainable city for India, particularly given the scenario of lowincome marginalized settlements (Muslim minorities)?

To ensure the long-term viability of India's metropolises, how would you design a plan to assess the urban infrastructure of a low-income minority neighborhood (Shivajinagar)?

1.4 Objectives

• Acquiring an understanding of the historical and contextual features of low-income minority neighborhoods.

• Creating a framework to produce a sustainable city intimately tied to the setting of urban infrastructure, as well as arriving at a conceptual framework further to evaluate the selected case study (Shivajinagar).

• Developing a method to include the framework and how to further study the issues that residents of the selected area have when accessing urban infrastructure.

• SharingfindingsanddebatingShivajinagar'spredicament withaneyeonhowtheconcept of sustainability may be applied there.

1.5 Bengaluru city: an overview of Shivajinagar

Silicon Valley, or Bangalore, is one of the world's most rapidly expanding megacities This article focuses on the city's historic downtown neighborhood, which also serves as its site of origin The origin of Bengaluru is identified with a settlement founded in 1537 by the regional chieftain Kempe Gowda (Pathak, 2020). After falling under British rule, Bengaluru is shown on a map from 1924, with its boundaries andmajorsites labeledforeasy comparison with modern-day Bangalore.

As early as 1806, the British were attracted to Bangalore's mild climate and set up a military cantonment there (Pathak, 2020). Starting in the early 1900s, the British invested in developing the neighborhood and an urban market, leading to the creation of what is today known as Shivajinagar, one of Bengaluru's most significant market districts and home to a large population of low-income minorities (Chand, 2018).

Although regions such as Shivajinagar remain crucial to forming such social collectives, they are pushed beyond the state's or other institutions' bio-political care (Anand, 2012). The Muslim provenance of the stores and eateries in the neighborhood is the key reason why Shivajinagar is recognized as a Muslim-dominated region. These urban marketplaces are often characterized by a feeling of chaos and the preservation of variety based on historical links, with religious and economic pressures seeming to be a common element (Patel, Furlan, and Grosvald, 2021)

The IT hubs in Bengaluru ushered in a period of gentrification, altering the city's social, physical, and environmental landscape. It has both good and bad effects on the city, the former being the increased investment in urban infrastructure near major IT centers and the latter being the decreased investment in infrastructure in neighborhoods away from them. Since every community has specific attributes based on the user group and activities, the study of locations like Shivajinagar is a vastly diverse academic study. The methodology chapter delves much more into the thinking behind the geographic context.

Of all countries, India has the highest percentage of its population living in multi-dimensional poverty, at 27% (Tewari and Mishra, 2019). One-third of Muslims in India are impoverished in several ways, including materially but also in terms of their health, nutrition, education, and level oflife(TewariandMishra,2019) BangaloreishometoaMuslimcommunityofalmost1.1million (14%) (www.census2011.co.in, 2011), and this research highlights the difficulties this group of people is having gaining access to essential services in order to promote sustainable development aimed at making the city more habitable for everyone.