Injected Urbanism? Exploring India’s Urbanizing Periphery
基于印度比哈尔邦和西孟加拉邦的实地数据，提出“注入式城市化”概念，描述农村地区通过汇款驱动、缺乏本地集聚的城市化现象，并质疑其可持续性。
Engaging with different literatures in economic geography, postcolonial urbanism, and planetary urbanization, this article seeks to develop a theoretical understanding of remote urban formations taking shape in India’s countryside. The analysis draws on extensive primary data collected at two study sites in Bihar and West Bengal, which rendered an uncommonly rich data set for such remote areas. We observe emergent urban formations that result from densification, expansion, and amalgamation of built-up environments and a massive shift of employment out of the agricultural sector. At the same time, alternative local economic opportunities are scarce, giving way to significant increases in circular labor migration. We introduce the concept of injected urbanism to denote a form of urbanization that is exogenously generated through remittances, in the absence of significant local agglomeration processes. The infusion of remittances drives local economic restructuring and the emergence of a consumption economy. Injected urbanism spurs local development, but its dependence on economic activity elsewhere raises important questions about its sustainability.