Urban frontiers are considered spaces of rapid changes where rural activities lose ground in favour of non-agricultural economic activities and multiple forms of residential developments. Rapid environmental transformations driven by climate changes associated with poor management of resources such as water and neglect of farmers’ conditions tend to accelerate land use changes well beyond the urban limits such as urban built-up. It is notably the case in South Asia which experiments with more and more extreme weather conditions. Looking at the case of South India and articulating the distress of agriculture to land assets demands we demonstrate how the desire for urbanism is conceived as an answer to the economic and environmental crisis of farmers. _x000D_
Far from the classical Von Thünen’s configuration of urban expansion where rich orchards surround the city’s peripheries, the socio-environmental crisis of the countryside generates a new landscape where more and more patches of residential layouts replace cultivated lands, often rich irrigated parcels. Many of these layouts remain barren lands for years. Plots are bought as assets to secure or generate capital that can be used later on. Some plots are occasionally built. Purchasers adhere to the idea of the possibility to live a quiet city life in a countryside-like gated community that is sold to them by farmers in disarray and intermediary real estate contractors. The pandemic has accelerated this trend which invites further questions about the notion of urban frontiers. It invites the reconceived South Asian urban world whose viability is profoundly challenged by the increasing number of extreme weather events – including deadly heat._x000D_

Eric Denis, Marine Frantz
Géographie-cités’ Lab, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

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ID Abstract: 799