Ethnic Strife and Urban Neighbourhood Ties: Lessons Learnt from Low-income Dwellers in Colombo, Sri Lanka - Paperback

This book on urban low-income neighborhoods mainly focuses on the 1983 riot affected areas in Colombo. Various kind of information proved that, except the Tamil people living in the low-income neighborhoods, a significant number of the Tamils in Colombo were affected by the violence by mobs. The study mainly focuses attention on the way in which the low-income people manage to live together despite ethnic differences in their neighborhoods. The overall data & findings suggests that a urban neighborhood life has a variety of dimensions & where these features of neighborhood personal, social, physical, geographical, & institutional offer strong inducements for involvement, community feelings will be high. The positive forms of social cohesion that identified in the research locations will help others to understand why these forms didn't appear in the areas of violent & conflict in other parts of the country. The lessons learnt from this study can be applied even to develop a national social integration among different ethnic communities & to enrich future city planning, urban housing policies, relocate the families and achieving communal harmony in the country