THE NOBEL PRIZE-winning economist, Amartya Sen, suggested that development can be seen as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy – so it requires the removal of sources of “unfreedoms”. This book considers how urban policies can enable people to live the life they value by removing “unfreedoms” – rather than seeking to improve their lives directly. As Sen has emphasized, freedom is not only the means to development but also a primary end.
The early chapters look at the broader context – the development of urban policies and what underpins them, and recent and current patterns of urbanization. The book then discusses five interrelated freedoms: political freedoms (including being able to vote and access law and order services); access to economic facilities (for livelihoods); social opportunities (for instance, access to health care and schools); protective security (including safety nets and protection from disasters); and transparency guarantees (from public and private bodies). It discusses the obstructions to urban development and how this framework might be used to evaluate development policies and programmes. This includes what might be called “development as freedoms” reviews of various approaches and documents – including the “rights-based approach to development”, the UN Habitat Agenda and the urban strategy of the British government’s Department for International Development. The final part of the book discusses formulating policy frameworks, and includes chapters on the role of culture, rethinking project design and the national urban recovery programme in Afghanistan. It also has a chapter on discussions between the main authors of this book and two federations of community organizations in India – the National Slum Dwellers Federation and Mahila Milan (“women together”) – and SPARC, the NGO that works in alliance with them.