Patron Client Relationships and a Right to the City: A Bangladeshi Case Study

Abstract We highlight how the intentions of a government to improve services and transparency across a city, by providing an enhanced right to the city for the urban poor can be futile when political gatekeeping is not relinquished at the grassroots level and the poor are not mobilised and educated about their rights. A qualitative case study of poor informal settlements was conducted in Rajshahi Bangladesh, to investigate a greater right to the city as the result of a ‘citizens charter’ initiated by local government. This research focusses on the poorest of the poor, who are often overlooked in community-based research due to their inability to attract the support of NGOs and donors means they are particularly vulnerable to this system of urban patron-clientism. We find that attempts by the city government to improve services to the poorest of its citizens is hampered by entrenched patron client practices perpetuated by local political representatives of the city government acting as gatekeepers, blocking access to services for the urban poor.