redevelopment

The role of access to information in empowering the poor is well-acknowledged in India and reinforced by the experience of the Right to Information Act, 2005. However, information asymmetries continue to hamper the ability of the poor to make informed decisions about their future. A new online resource seeks to address this gap in the context of housing. The IHR team speaks to the founders about their motivations, challenges and aspirations for this platform.

Smaller buildings and stand-alone houses are a prominent category in the urban scape of Kolkata, where real estate has emerged as the one of the primary modes driving the urbanization process. While large residential complexes within and outside the municipal limit have dominated popular imagination due to the speculation involved in acquisition of larger lands for real estate, there has been less attention on single stand-alone buildings that are being converted to vertical housing in last decade or more. This trend has been driven by a combination of factors that include municipal interventions, the increasing desire of middle classes for vertical housing, and an active market for redevelopment of small plots.