| Abstract | This study was undertaken in six shanty settlements, in different geographical locations, of Pune city, to study the relevance of Turner's Residential Mobility Decision Model, in the 1980s .
Turner observed that amongst the first generation migrants, the decision to move depends upon the changing household demand . Each migrant adjusts himself and his shelter characteristics, according to his changing life cycle needs and changing income. Thus the shelter location is seen as a “trade-off” between the “three priorities of the dwelling environment ' t namely, location (proximity to inner city jobs), tenure (rental and ownership) and shelter (condition and size)
The study of the six shanty settlement dwellers, reveals that the preference for inner city locations, is slowly going down, due to high land value, scarcity of land in the inner city, dispersed employment opportunities. There is not much deviation from the model, where a shift from a rental tenure on arrival to ownership over a period Of time is predicted. Only that, now in the later arriving cohorts, this consolidation time (time duration from the period of arrival to the city upto the time when he perceives ownership and consolidates), has greatly reduced. There does not seem to be a direct co-relation between the tenure status and the shelter quality, as consolidation is more of a perception of the mind, rather than something physical , i.e. many respondents coming from different cohorts, have not consolidated in the true sense, as they yet continue to stay in poor quality shelter, keeping their rural values with them. Also their stay on land illegaly, has retarded their investing in the shelter itself. They have not yet accepted the urban value system .
Any policy to deal with such a situation, has to achieve two major goals:
(1) to control, contain, chanelize and help the existing settlements and
(2) to curb, contain, chanelize and help the future settlements, to be a part of the urban fabric .
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