Habitability, Viability and Disaster Risk Creation in Urban India

This commentary proposes a new approach to understanding postdisaster housing resettlement of informal neighborhoods in Indian cities that forefronts the longue durée. We argue that resettlement should not be viewed as simply a causal response to urban challenges of disasters, climate change, urban crowding and inequality. Disasters and postdisaster resettlements are deeply political. And, as seeing as resettled communities contend with both persistent, preexisting vulnerabilities and the new challenges of making the resettlement physically habitable and economically viable, we propose that it must be re-examined through a life-cycle approach–one that places resettlement within the spatio-temporal histories as well as future horizons of the subjects of resettlement programs. In doing so, this piece contributes to urban geography and disaster studies by facilitating a conceptual conversation between ecological vulnerability, habitability and economic viability.