Subaltern urbanism in India beyond the mega-city slum: The civic politics of occupancy and development in two peripheral cities in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region

Tara van Dijk leverages concepts from subaltern urbanism, namely political society and occupancy urbanism, to look at how residence and locality development are constituted and governed in practice across three types of settlements in two 'satellite' cities of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region: Kalyan-Dombivli and Mira-Bhayandar. Academically, this work contributes to filling in some of the gaps present in research on political society in postcolonial cities and its diverse spatial manifestations. Practically, this text speaks to discussions regarding localised political and spatial bottlenecks to urban governance offsetting inequalities and uneven development. Additionally, network approaches to urban politics and splintering urbanisation of all sorts can benefit from a better understanding of the processes and power dynamics within political society that contribute to the making, maintaining, or unmaking of localities, and the networks adapting or forming to create and accumulate value(s) from these processes.