Abstract:
The main focus of this book is on understanding the emerging relationship between State, Market
and Social Classes in the city of Colombo in the context of emerging housing market and citizens,
access to livable house in the city and its suburbs. The people’s recent residential patterns or
segregation of the area, urban life styles, and class formation due to new housing communities have
received only scant attention. The commercialization of housing as a commodity by the private
builders, whom the State has found impossible to exclude, due to its dwindling resources and
infrastructure, has successfully manipulated the consumerist zeal of the consumers, both rich and
poor alike, obsessed with status consciousness. The research findings of the study will help in
formulating appropriate urban housing policies and the appropriate strategies to cater to the
individual housing needs in future. The book will be of values to sociologists and other social
scientists interested in urban development, politics and planning. The book will also be of interest
to urban planners, city administrative, urban policy makers, builders and bankers.
