Sripad Motiram and Vamsi Vakulabharanam deploy a socio-spatial approach and use a spatially representative survey in Hyderabad and Mumbai to analyze the relation between city, space, and religion. They identify poor-ghettos and elite-enclaves in Hyderabad and Mumbai. In both cities, ghettos have a high proportion of Muslims, while enclaves are dominated by non-Muslim inhabitants. Ghettoization of Muslims is far more pronounced in Hyderabad than in Mumbai. A key finding on the relation between city space and religion is that compared to segregated neighborhoods, mixed (“grayer”) neighborhoods produce better economic outcomes like lower poverty.

Using an original household survey conducted in Hyderabad and Mumbai that identifies intracity spatial coordinates of residents, PERI researcher Vamsi Vakulabharanam and Sripad Motiram present a socio-spatial analysis of gender and paid work. They show that the ease of movement through the city, allocation of care work related considerations and educational attainment are all crucial to understanding the labor force participation patterns of urban women. A gender lens identifies key facets of access and mobility characterizing urbanization in developing countries. Spatial heterogeneity of residence has very different outcomes for the labor force participation of women and men.

How do neighborhood characteristics and social cleavages within cities influence economic development? This study by PERI economist Vamsi Vakulabharanam and Sripad Motiram addresses these questions for the Indian cities of Hyderabad and Mumbai. The study conducts an inequality decomposition exercise to show that a substantial portion of intra-city income inequality is explained by social cleavages such as classes and social groups (caste and religion). The results show both that urban inequalities are stark, and that spatial co-existence of classes and social groups (a phenomenon that the authors term as “Grayness”) is pronounced, with Grayness exerting a strong positive impact on development.

Sripad Motiram and Vamsi Vakulabharanam of PERI consider situations where individuals belonging to multiple groups inhabit a space that can be divided into smaller distinguishable units, a feature characterizing many cities in the world.  They conceptualize a phenomenon that they term "Grayness" - a combination of spatial integration based upon group-identity and income. Grayness is high when cities display a high degree of spatial co-existence in terms of both identity and income. They develop an index of Grayness, then apply this Grayness index to both the Indian city of Hyderabad and selected American cities.