Access to the City Governing Housing, Services, and Urban In/Exclusion in Amritsar and Lahore

This research focuses on Punjab, across the India–Pakistan border, specifically on the cities of Amritsar and Lahore. Their proximity, shared colonial past, socio-cultural ties, and entangled urban heritage offer a unique setting for comparative research on postcolonial urban governance and transformation. The book examines how governance practices shape urban dwellers’ access to housing and services in specific neighbourhoods and contribute to the (re)production of socio-spatial in/exclusion. Rather than relying on a property rights lens, it adopts and expands Access Theory, conceptualising access as the ability to derive benefits from material, institutional, and symbolic resources. This lens foregrounds governance mechanisms and power relations that enable, control, and maintain access over time. Case studies in Amritsar and Lahore engage with theoretical mergers—such as access assemblages, evolutionary governance, and city\scapes—to explore neglected dimensions of urban processes, including human/non-human interfaces and socio-material infrastructures. By unraveling contestations over access, the research traces evolving governance arrangements and dependencies. While grounded in these two cities, the findings contribute to broader debates on postcolonial and South(east)ern urbanism, especially in border regions.

Revisiting the Housing Question at the 
India-Pakistan border.- Living and Planning on the Edge: Unravelling 
Conflict and Claim-making in Peri-Urban Lahore, 
Pakistan.- Mitigating Pro-Poor Housing Failures:
Access Theory and the Politics of Urban 
Governance.- Endangered Urban Commons: Lahore’s 
Violent Heritage Management and 
Prospects for Reconciliation.- Heritage of inclusion or exclusion? 
Contested Claims and Access to Housing in 
Amritsar, India.- City\scapes of Lahore: Reimagining the 
Urban.- Looking at the city from below: How an 
“access” approach and “city\scapes” 
contribute to the understanding of 
marginalization in Amritsar (India).- Access to housing in liminalities: Beyond 
income-based social mix in pro-poor 
housing policies in Amritsar.- Access to the City: Amritsar and Lahore in 
comparison.

Helena Cermeño is an architect, urban planner, and researcher exploring governance and urban (in)justice through the lenses of housing, infrastructure, and heritage.