At the roots of urban disasters: Planning and uneven geographies of risk in Kolkata, India

Cities in India are increasingly at risk from natural hazards and the effects of climate change. In Kolkata, urban development on the low-lying periphery has produced uneven geographies of risk, with well-protected suburban settlements surrounded by overcrowded slums with poor infrastructure and a lack of basic services. This article connects proximate conditions of vulnerability in peri-urban Kolkata to their root causes based on a mixed-method case study of the satellite township Salt Lake. I locate roots of risk in four trends in the political economy of urban development—the commodification of hazardous land, inadequate provision of affordable housing and amenities, exclusion of the poor, and interdependence of spatially separated groups. Together these trends constitute a key social dynamic that is shaping development and risk in peri-urban Kolkata, the desire of urban elites to live separately from the poor while depending on their labor. I conclude with a discussion of how these trends are shaping disaster geographies elsewhere in Kolkata and urban India and argue that we must go beyond proximate understandings of urban disaster risk if we are to address its production and proliferation.