THE [SEASONAL] ARRIVAL CITY: Designing for migrants’ ‘transient right to the city’

Abstract

In his seminal book Arrival City, Doug Saunders (2010) paints a picture of arrival to the city as an once in lifetime linear endeavour that migrants from countryside undertake. Contrary to this, the experience of cities in the global south, especially those in Asia and Africa, has been starkly different. The cities here experience a phenomenon known as circular migration, meaning that migrants arriving from the countryside often return back seasonally maintaining a circular or cyclic relationship with the city. The migrants often do so in order to maximize their livelihood prospects, taking up work in the city whilst maintaining a farming homestead in the countryside. The phenomenon although prevalent is hardly taken into consideration in city planning and housing in the cities across the global south leading to a rise of precariously built and serviced tenement-housing settlements.