Presenting an original take on women s safety in the cities of twenty-first century India, Why Loiter? maps the exclusions and negotiations that women from different classes and communities encounter in the nation s urban public spaces. Basing this book on more than three years of research in Mumbai, Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade argue that though women s access to urban public space has increased, they still do not have an equal claim to public space in the city. And they raise the question: can women s access to public space be viewed in isolation from that of other marginal groups? Going beyond the problem of the real and implied risks associated with women s presence in public, they draw from feminist theory to argue that only by celebrating loitering a radical act for most Indian women can a truly equal, global city be created.