Susan Chaplin is a researcher based in Melbourne, Australia, who has been interested in environmental and urban development issues in India for more than 15 years.

1. Colonial City Legacy:
   Growth, Slums and Local Government
2. A Failure to Manage:
   Urbanisation and Planning Since 1947
3. Inadequate Provision:
   Urban Governance and Basic Services
4. Living Illegally:
   Slum-Dwellers and the State
5. A Filthy Occupation:
   Attempts to Eliminate Scavenging
6. Ahmedabad:
   From “Enlightened Self-Interest” to Ghettos and Inequality
7. New Approaches:
   Participation, Partnerships and the Urban Poor
8. Conclusion:
   Globalisation and the Averted Gaze

1. The Constitution (Seventy-fourth Amendment) Act, 1992
2. Selections from the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993

‘. . . in highlighting the political reasons why Indian cities have appalling sanitation for the poor, Chaplin provides invaluable insights, both for puzzled observers and India's civic reformers’.

- Robin Jeffrey, Institute of South Asian Studies, Singapore

‘. . . a stimulating account of the appalling deficits in sanitation access that characterise India[n] cities. . . . This provocative and challenging book should be read widely’.

Emma Mawdsley, Department of Geography, Cambridge University

‘. . . the graph for improved sanitation climbs up ever so slowly even as India boasts of a high rate of economic growth. Chaplin’s book is an essential read for all those who wonder why this happens in India’.

Kalpana Sharma, Independent journalist and author of Rediscovering Dharavi:  Stories from Asia’s Largest Slum