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The work highlights how adjustments, tactics, strategies, resistances, and everyday processes continuously remake the settlement. Rather than relying on a single discipline, it synthesizes ethnography, architecture, and political economy to reveal power’s logics and the lived experience of informality across space and time. The book also frames informality as a condition of contemporary urban life, mapping solidarities and collective capacities that open paths to alternative futures amid climate risks.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/city-of-desire-an-urban-biography-of-the-largest-slum-in-bangladesh/390076/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/city-of-desire-an-urban-biography-of-the-largest-slum-in-bangladesh/390076.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Đào","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-03","2026-09-25",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":44},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What does the book focus on about Korail?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"The book presents Korail through an urban biography lens, emphasizing how the settlement is made and remade through everyday tactics, strategies, and resistances.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does the book approach the topic instead of using only one discipline?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"It intentionally avoids privileging a single disciplinary lens, and synthesizes perspectives associated with ethnography, architecture, and political economy to examine urbanism in Dhaka.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What broader idea does the book develop about informal settlements?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It treats informality as a condition of living in contemporary cities, situating Korail’s lived experience in both space and time and linking it to power and collective life.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},390076,1790804323,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":44,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},1374402968488,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_29158cc5080c5b710cf443261637dec0","[eprints@whiterose.ac.uk](eprints@whiterose.ac.uk)[ ](eprints@whiterose.ac.uk)[https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk](https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk)  \nUniversities of Leeds, Sheffield and York  \nDeposited via The University of Sheffield.  \nWhite Rose Research Online URL for this paper:  \n[https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/223655/](https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/223655/)  \nVersion: Published Version  \nBook:  \nShafique, T. (2024) City of Desire: An Urban Biography of the Largest Slum in Bangladesh.  \nBloomsbury Publishing. ISBN: 9781350438606.  \n[https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350438637](https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350438637)  \n© Tanzil Shafique, 2025. This work is published open access subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC BY 4.0, [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). You may re-use, distribute, reproduce, and](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). You may re-use, distribute, reproduce, and)[ ](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). You may re-use, distribute, reproduce, and)adapt this work in any medium, including for commercial purposes, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes have been made.  \nReuse  \nThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. This licence allows you to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as you credit the authors for the original work. More information and the full terms of the licence here: [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/)  \nTakedown  \nIf you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by  \nemailing [eprints@whiterose.ac.uk](eprints@whiterose.ac.uk) including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request.  \n‘Using a lucid narrative style, Shafique illuminates an understanding of Korail beyond the usual binaries and categories constructed through normative taxonomies. He provides a unique kaleidoscopic view of the adjustments, tactics, strategies, resistances, protocols, and manoeuvred processes by which the settlement is made as well as remade every day. This is a reading that does not privilege any one disciplinary lens and instead collapses, intersects, folds, interrogates, hybridises and synthesises multiple perspectives to present a convincing way of seeing a form of urbanism in which half the urban population on the planet will possibly settle in the coming three decades.’  \nRahul Mehrotra, Harvard University  \n‘After all this time in urban studies, we still know very little about cities such as Dhaka, which are home to a significant portion of the world’s population. This lively and thoughtful book gives us insight into the collective lives being forged in such cities and does so by providing a complex political analysis of community and state.’  \nAnanya Roy, UCLA Luskin  \n‘What do we know about informal settlements? Very little or nothing from censuses. Nothing from government and international agencies’ household surveys. So we are reliant on relatively few in-depth studies of informal settlements This ‘biography‘ ofKorail is a welcome addition to this. It challenges readers to see not only these settlements but also cities differently,“at least enough to imagine alternative futures for them” – that better serve their needs and concerns within the huge risks brought by climate change.’  \nDavid Satterthwaite, IIED / University College London  \n‘Behind the caricatures of planetary slum life, the logics of another city – braver, smarter and more interesting – are revealed in this brilliant engagement with one of the most important sites of the emergent urbanisms that will shape the 21st century. Replete with detailed and extended engagement with Bangladesh, Dhaka and Korail the text moves beyond thick description, configuring a kaleidosc","cbCailfEBuQJfQMS","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCailfEBuQJfQMS","pdf",11473299,218,"English","# About the book\n## Korail as an urban biography\n## Informality, power, and everyday life\n## Interdisciplinary perspectives","[{\"question\":\"What does the book focus on about Korail?\",\"answer\":\"The book presents Korail through an urban biography lens, emphasizing how the settlement is made and remade through everyday tactics, strategies, and resistances.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the book approach the topic instead of using only one discipline?\",\"answer\":\"It intentionally avoids privileging a single disciplinary lens, and synthesizes perspectives associated with ethnography, architecture, and political economy to examine urbanism in Dhaka.\"},{\"question\":\"What broader idea does the book develop about informal settlements?\",\"answer\":\"It treats informality as a condition of living in contemporary cities, situating Korail’s lived experience in both space and time and linking it to power and collective life.\"}]","City of Desire - An Urban Biography of the Largest Slum in Bangladesh | PDF",1790329612,336]