Taken for a ride? Mainstreaming periurban transport with urban expansion policies

Abstract

This article describes the transportation needs and practices of periurban residents in a village in the Gurgaon district of the Northwestern Indian state of Haryana. As conurbations grow, urban authorities place much emphasis on connecting them with other major cities or towns. Improving their connectivity with the peripheral villages receives scant attention. This ignores the duality of economies that operates within the newly created urban spaces. This article argues that this reflects a bias in and politics of urban planning that accepts the hegemony of cities to the peril of rural areas that support them and with whom crucial rural–urban links evolve with urbanization. Using a qualitative research design, an ethnographic approach and a diversity of data sources, this article shows how social heterogeneity, land use change and other transformations in rural–urban links brought on by urbanization shape periurban transportation needs and practices. Though the acquisition of private means of transport is made possible through the sale of agricultural lands by the periurban elite, the article shows the increasing role of shared private transport in linking the village with the city. Urban authorities focus on connecting growing cities with other major urban centers; however, the article argues that linking them better with peripheral villages will be essential for making processes of urbanization equitable and sustainable and have wider spin-off effects. Such interventions need to be based on a nuanced understanding of transition processes underway in periurban spaces as well as the complementary roles of private, public and shared private transport.