Module 5: Poetics and Politics of Urban Spaces
  Lecture 31: The Gemeinschaft in the City: Urban Neighbourhoods
 

Selling and buying of pol houses show interesting sociological patterns:

  • The price of the houses on the roadside was cheaper and easily available, while the houses in the interior were not easily available and the prices were very high.

  • Buying and selling used to be restricted. A survey done by the author’s team reveals that 86 per cent of the Jethabhaini pol showed that they were owners and many had inherited since generations.
  • So far as the social composition of the pol is concerned, usually there used to be a single caste along with a few service castes such as priest, carpenter and barber. Since the 18th century there are records of communal tensions in the pols and gradually pols acquired a religious identity over professional identity.