This interdisciplinary training and research program brings together Brown University and four partner institutions in Brazil, China, India and South Africa, to examine inequality in the developing world. It aims to help resolve one of the most crucial, but intractable, problems of the twenty-first century: the high levels of inequality in many developing countries.  The project is housed at the Watson Institute at Brown.

Using GIS techniques, South African Census data and qualitative fieldwork, this project explores the economic and social reconfiguration of the post-apartheid city. The spatial engineering of apartheid resulted in the concentration of public services and infrastructure, such as access to electricity, trash collection, schools, and paved roads in the sections of cities designated as white under the Group Areas Act. Efforts to undo these inequalities have been a focus of all levels of post-apartheid government.

Indian cities face tremendous challenges of governance because of entrenched inequalities and accelerating urban migration. Yet the social science literature on urban governance in India is conspicuous by its absence. This interdisciplinary team proposes to fill this gap through a long-term research project that is motivated by three fundamental questions. First, what are the predominant patterns of inequality in urban India and how is inequality structured? Second, how are Indian cities governed and how do these patterns of governance both reflect and impact patterns of inequality?