Essay Questions: Answer both questions. 3 pages for each.

1. The migrant experience in the Mumbai context reveals the precarious nature of the existence of workers in the informal sector. Using interview data from the Boo book, provide at least three examples from India’s performance on various social indicators (literacy, basic health care) on how the country’s development policies have actually inhibited social and economic mobility for the urban poor in Mumbai?

2. China’s path to economic progress has been informed by the Lewis model and its management of urban migrants through the hukou system. Please highlight the major theoretical points of Lewis’s understanding of the migration process in respect to how these apply to Chinese urbanization? In what way does the hukou system complement Lewis’s model in explaining Chinese urbanization?

Short Answer questions: Answer both of the following questions (15 marks. 7.5 marks per question). 2 pages for each.

1) Urban informality has been a characteristic of development in both Indian and Chinese cities. Given that urban informality is a bigger problem in terms of how it affects people’s welfare in India than China, present five broad comparisons on how urban informality is tackled at the policy level in both countries?

2) Solomon Benjamin has used the term “occupancy urbanism” to describe the new politics and political economy of the large Indian metropolitan city. What are the three main arguments in his approach to highlight the distinctiveness of the Indian urban context in comparison to cities in other countries?