Urban Planning in India

Chennai is the largest metropolitan city in South India (8.7 million in 2011) and the provincial capital of the large state of Tamil Nadu (population 72 million in 2011). Before that, under British rule, the city was the capital of the Madras Presidency, and was known as Madras until 1996, when the name was officially changed to Chennai. Located on the east coast of India, on the Bay of Bengal, sea trade has been an important aspect of the regional economy since at least the colonial period. Still today, the city combines political functions with economic command functions for both manufacturing and services, reflecting the region’s diversified economy. The Chennai metropolitan area has witnessed strong growth over the last 20 years in automobile manufacturing, software services, hardware manufacturing, healthcare and financial services (CDP 2009). However, it should be noted that only 30% of total employment in the city takes place in the formal sector i.e., is covered by contracts...

In this chapter I propose that the diverse ways in which the public and the private are constituted in different parts of the world pose significant challenges to the conventional analysis of corruption based on exclusive analysis of the public official domain. Any analysis and understanding of corruption is incomplete if not understood in relation to violation of and deviation from the official and public norms. To discuss this, I draw from ethnography of urban planning and land use violations in the Indian city of Bangalore.

Chennai is the largest metropolitan city in South India (8.7 million in 2011) and the provincial capital of the large state of Tamil Nadu (population 72 million in 2011). Before that, under British rule, the city was the capital of the Madras Presidency, and was known as Madras until 1996, when the name was officially changed to Chennai. Located on the east coast of India, on the Bay of Bengal, sea trade has been an important aspect of the regional economy since at least the colonial period. Still today, the city combines political functions with economic command functions for both manufacturing and services, reflecting the region’s diversified economy. The Chennai metropolitan area has witnessed strong growth over the last 20 years in automobile manufacturing, software services, hardware manufacturing, healthcare and financial services (CDP 2009). However, it should be noted that only 30% of total employment in the city takes place in the formal sector i.e., is covered by contracts...

Urbanization is one of the major phenomenon in the current urban scenario. It has been estimated that by 2030 around 400 square kilometers of land would be consumed for urban area and it is expected that in the next 20 years urban population will be doubled due to massive spatial and economic change in developing countries. Many developed countries like UK, USA have adopted transit oriented strategies that focus on catalyzing development along transit oriented corridors. On an ongoing basis, the strategies have been presented for augmenting development and transit ridership. There have been adverse effects of urbanization on development in many countries. In India, mass urbanization, is leading to severe environmental and economic problems such as urban poverty, congestion, pollution, degradation of quality of life etc. Hence, a sustainable approach is required to attend to these problems and ensure a positive growth for the cities. In Indian cities, rapid transit is a comparatively new phenomenon. Hence, the current strategies being introduced include densifying the development along the transit corridors, boosting compact development, discouraging private ridership, improving paratransit modes to enhance transit accessibility and ridership. A transit-oriented development (TOD) is thus an approach integrating land use and transit systems to maximize access to public transport and solve other glitches. Transit oriented development embraces compact mixed use design that provide proper accessibility to transit and non-motorized transportation and encourages transit ridership. It aims at integrating infrastructure, transport and land use with urban design to increase positive growth in the city.

Urbanization is one of the major phenomenon in the current urban scenario. It has been estimated that by 2030 around 400 square kilometers of land would be consumed for urban area and it is expected that in the next 20 years urban population will be doubled due to massive spatial and economic change in developing countries. Many developed countries like UK, USA have adopted transit oriented strategies that focus on catalyzing development along transit oriented corridors. On an ongoing basis, the strategies have been presented for augmenting development and transit ridership. There have been adverse effects of urbanization on development in many countries. In India, mass urbanization, is leading to severe environmental and economic problems such as urban poverty, congestion, pollution, degradation of quality of life etc. Hence, a sustainable approach is required to attend to these problems and ensure a positive growth for the cities. In Indian cities, rapid transit is a comparatively new phenomenon. Hence, the current strategies being introduced include densifying the development along the transit corridors, boosting compact development, discouraging private ridership, improving paratransit modes to enhance transit accessibility and ridership. A transit-oriented development (TOD) is thus an approach integrating land use and transit systems to maximize access to public transport and solve other glitches. Transit oriented development embraces compact mixed use design that provide proper accessibility to transit and non-motorized transportation and encourages transit ridership. It aims at integrating infrastructure, transport and land use with urban design to increase positive growth in the city.

This paper examines the relationship between urban planning practice and planning violations in Bangalore. Through ethnography of the practice of planning networks, It demonstrates that the domain of urban planning in Bangalore is shaped by the ethos and practices of mutually contesting Public and Private interest associational networks working to achieve Public and Private interest outcomes respectively. This is demonstrated using ho w private interest networks shape planning through plan violations and planning for violations as well as how public interest networks shape planning through multiple political, legal and administrative interventions, both of which together prevents the formation of any ideal typical planning system for a Comprehensive Master Planning Regime. Rather than a deviation, violations are identified as the outcome of the particular kind of planning practice embedded within the political culture of democratic governance in India. Ethnographies of Indian state constantly points to the blurred boundaries between the categories of state and society in India. Findings from this research conform to this; actors from both inside and outside government rather than act to achieve the cause of their positions act in the interest of the networks within which they are associated with – public or private interest. Therefore, combining lessons from political systems and policy networks studies of the state and governance with ethnographies of the everyday state in India I propose a conceptual language of Vernacular Governance to trace the constantly changing shape of planning practice in Bangalore through its relationship with planning violations. This paper attempts to raise questions on theorizing planning practices as embedded within the political culture of particular contexts, rather than taking for granted dualist conceptualizations of state and society producing on the one hand theorizations of planning failures and on the other, informality, implementation failure and corruption.

In over fifty years since independence, India has a developed an extensive public delivery system for the provision of health care. This was preceded in 1946 by the Bhore Commission that recommended basic health services be provided for all through Primary Health Centres (PHCs). In-line with the recommendations, PHCs were set up all across the country, each serving about 30,000 inhabitants in its vicinity. At the time, the urban population of India was lessthan 18 per cent. Since then, the urban population has grownover fourfold to 285 million of over the 1 billion peopleliving in India. 22.6 per cent of this 285 million live in slums (GOI 2001). As in the case of health services, provision of education for all in India has also largely been envisaged within the public delivery system even though this sector has a significant presence of private providers. Since independence, the government has launched various schemes and programmes for increasing literacy among all sections of the population, the Sarva Shiksha  Abhiyan and the Right to Education Bill are the two seminal steps in this direction. Recently there has been a growing demand for privatization and growth in the number of private institutions. This phenomenon is more strongly visible inthe urban areas where there is a greater proportion of literatepopulation as well. As per the latest Census of India (2001), 80 per cent of the urban population is literate as opposed to59 per cent in the rural areas. According to the Asian Development Bank, India’s urban population is expected to reach 550 million that is, over 40per cent of the total population by 2020.
Figures released by the Planning Commission indicate that in 1999–2000 about 23.4 per cent of the urban population was below the poverty line (as against 76.3 million, that is, 32.4 per cent in 1993–4). However, variations both across and within economic classes, castes, and states are high. Many disenfranchized segments suffer from high levels of deprivation not revealed by aggregate numbers. This also affects their health indicators. The Food Insecurity Atlas of Urban India
(MSSRF 2002)suggests approximately 38 per cent of children below the ageof three years in urban India are underweight and more than35 per cent short for their age. Further, a high proportion of the urban poor is not able to meet the nutrition norms laid down by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). It is not clear whether the urban poor is generally better off than the rural poor. On the one hand, aggregate figures such as wages, poverty levels, expenditures, all show better performance of urban areas. It is also believed that access to schools and health facilities are better in urban areas. On theother hand casual employment, daily wages, high level of competition for the few unskilled jobs, all contribute to thevulnerability of the urban poor. An aspect of urban poverty rarely captured by published data relates to the condition of those living at the fringes of the urban economy such as footpath dwellers, street-children, and the homeless. There are no scientifically derived estimates onthe extent of urban homelessness and the conditions of thehomeless. Data sources such as the National Family Health Survey or the National Sample Surveys, do not contain information through which this segment of the urban poor can be studied.

This case study in the World Resources Report, “Towards a More Equal City,” of the World Resources Institute (WRI) examines the processes of transformative change and the conditions both enabling and inhibiting it in Pune, the second largest city in Maharashtra state, India. Many initiatives across diverse sectors have had a positive, qualitative impact on sustainability and service provision in Pune, particularly in its solid waste and transport sectors between the 1990s and the present. Civil society organizations played a key role in both sectors, aligning with the municipality to catalyze positive reforms for labor, the economy, and the environment. These initiatives reflect important shifts in the local government’s attitudes and systems towards greater sustainability and equity and have had a positive impact on many lives. Pune’s transformation towards sustainable transportation began in the early 2000s. It has included efforts to reduce dependence on private vehicles by improving public transport through the implementation of India’s first bus rapid transit system and creating more inclusive street space by emphasizing non-motorized transport generally. Improvements in Pune’s solid waste management systems have explicitly linked environmental, labor-related and economic aspects of life in the city by including waste pickers in the formal waste management system of the city. This innovation has also led to new national-level policies. However, the local and state governments have not committed explicitly to a sustainability agenda, which has enabled agendas and projects contradicting sustainability values to take hold too, threatening the durability of the transformations underway in the two sectors. (Available at: https://www.wri.org/wri-citiesforall/publication/pune-civil-society-coalitions-policy-contradictions-and-unsteady)

This policy brief explores the mapping of city visions in fast-growing cities in several emerging economies (Brazil, South Africa, India, Peru). As cities have to deal increasingly with both complexity and uncertainty in their development, they are concerned with the future pathways their cities can take. City visions on urban development portray idealized situations as goals for the future, and the maps portraying them are strongly idealized. To get behind these idealized versions of reality, policy makers need to understand how such visions are developed, by whom, and whose realities they reflect.

After India gained its independence, despite of surplus welfare policies and schemes that targeted at the upliftment of rural areas, a polarized development was witnessed. The past record of development initiatives in terms of plans and policies had clearly indicated weak attempts to curb the rural-urban disparity. Not only were the policies short-sighted but their implementation were lacking on ground level as well. Even in the current scenario, there is a dominant variation in the degree of development across India, and simultaneous existence of developed urban sub-regions. Concentration of essential physical and social infrastructure remains in the urban areas and hence their development outweighs that of the rural areas. The inefficiency of rural areas to provide for basic infrastructure, economic opportunities and
modern amenities has forced the rural population in migrating to the urban areas. This imbalance has led to weaker agricultural productions and has increased infrastructure pressure on urban areas. Urban areas are continuing to attract investments and resources, primarily in terms of housing.
The government's inability to meet the rural infrastructure deficit is the primary reason for out migration and creation of informal and unauthorized settlements. Owing to low levels of education, medical and other essential facilities, the rural areas are increasingly becoming dependent on their urban counterparts. Not only is there a need for efficient rural amenities, there is also a need for additional income generating provisions to make the rural areas self-dependent. In this context, the Government of India under the National Rurban Mission aspires to stimulate local economic development and enhance basic services in rural areas to create well planned Rurban clusters.

The transformation of human settlements over time can
affect the relationship between communities and
commons when, for example, social geographies
change from rural to urban, or from traditional systems
of management to modern bureaucratic systems.
Communities that were dependent on particular
commons could become less dependent, or abandon
those commons. New communities of interest might
emerge. Examining the transformation of a lake in
Bangalore, this paper argues that in the community
struggle towards creating and claiming commons,
claiming the sphere of planning is fundamental. Further,
the making or unmaking of the commons involves the
making or unmaking of communities and vice versa. In
the case of the Rajapalaya Lake studied here, this
occurred and occurs at the interface where democratic
struggles and bureaucratic systems meet.

Chennai is the largest metropolitan city in South India (8.7 million in 2011) and the provincial capital of the large state of Tamil Nadu (population 72 million in 2011). Before that, under British rule, the city was the capital of the Madras Presidency, and was known as Madras until 1996, when the name was officially changed to Chennai. Located on the east coast of India, on the Bay of Bengal, sea trade has been an important aspect of the regional economy since at least the colonial period. Still today, the city combines political functions with economic command functions for both manufacturing and services, reflecting the region's diversified economy. The Chennai metropolitan area has witnessed strong growth over the last 20 years in automobile manufacturing, software services, hardware manufacturing, healthcare and financial services (CDP 2009). However, it should be noted that only 30% of total employment in the city takes place in the formal sector i.e., is covered by contr...

This policy brief explores the mapping of city visions in fast-growing cities in several emerging economies (Brazil, South Africa, India, Peru). As cities have to deal increasingly with both complexity and uncertainty in their development, they are concerned with the future pathways their cities can take. City visions on urban development portray idealized situations as goals for the future, and the maps portraying them are strongly idealized. To get behind these idealized versions of reality, policy makers need to understand how such visions are developed, by whom, and whose realities they reflect.

Digital is a new parameter that is added in the last two decades wherein digital gadgets were familiarized across the households in India. Digital gadgets are devices which are functional and operational at best when these gadgets accessed the high speed Internet. However, the digital divide is wider if we compare both rural and urban in terms of accessibility of the Internet in the country. The accessibility of the Internet is often considered the backbone for the social media industry. The efficient digital infrastructure will enhance the digital consumption in the country.

Chennai is the largest metropolitan city in South India (8.7 million in 2011) and the provincial capital of the large state of Tamil Nadu (population 72 million in 2011). Before that, under British rule, the city was the capital of the Madras Presidency, and was known as Madras until 1996, when the name was officially changed to Chennai. Located on the east coast of India, on the Bay of Bengal, sea trade has been an important aspect of the regional economy since at least the colonial period. Still today, the city combines political functions with economic command functions for both manufacturing and services, reflecting the region’s diversified economy. The Chennai metropolitan area has witnessed strong growth over the last 20 years in automobile manufacturing, software services, hardware manufacturing, healthcare and financial services (CDP 2009). However, it should be noted that only 30% of total employment in the city takes place in the formal sector i.e., is covered by contracts...

This case study in the World Resources Report, “Towards a More Equal City,” of the World Resources Institute (WRI) examines the processes of transformative change and the conditions both enabling and inhibiting it in Pune, the second largest city in Maharashtra state, India. Many initiatives across diverse sectors have had a positive, qualitative impact on sustainability and service provision in Pune, particularly in its solid waste and transport sectors between the 1990s and the present. Civil society organizations played a key role in both sectors, aligning with the municipality to catalyze positive reforms for labor, the economy, and the environment. These initiatives reflect important shifts in the local government’s attitudes and systems towards greater sustainability and equity and have had a positive impact on many lives. Pune’s transformation towards sustainable transportation began in the early 2000s. It has included efforts to reduce dependence on private vehicles by impro...

... I thank Nilotpal Kumar and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments. Jayaraj Sundaresan (J.sundaresan@lse.ac.uk) is a PhD scholar at the department of geography and environment, London School of Economics and Political Science. Planning as Commoning: ...

Mumbai is growing. Not in population, only 25% in the next 20 years, but it is growing.  Due to the sheer size of Metropolitan Mumbai (23 million inhabitants) any absolute figure is substantial. Has to be dealt correctly. Mumbai explosion is in other metropolitan key elements. Car ownership is likely to grow from 2 million to 20 million units. Air traffic will grow from actual 35 million passengers per year to 150 million. Housing requirements from actual 5 million, in 4 member families, to 10 million in 2.4 member families; that is 200.000 new dwellings every year for 800.000 people.

Mumbai has been doing relatively well. Navi Mumbai in 50 years, since 1966, has replicated the linear peninsula structure of urban Mumbai across the bay: 10 new townships of 100.000 inhabitants, a total of 1 million. Now they need to do that almost every year; to be more precise 4 New Towns of 50.000 dwellings every year.
A Metropolitan/Regional is on the way. We cannot comment as it has not been shared with the population and the document is not public. We are willing to believe that these issues have been addressed correctly.

The operative body to implement territorial development is CIDCO, the one that developed Navi Mumbai these last 50 years. The New Challenge is different. Procedural mechanisms will be different, as landowners will have management initiatives. The development approach will account for existing townships and will not have the New Town approach. The risk is a metastatic urban sprawl with commercial ribbon development strips in the American style: unsustainable and inefficient.

Mumbai, India, has one of the richest urban cultures in the world. The elements are there, embodied in the actual townships. It is just necessary to read them and to produce a multi-scalar system that will articulate the metropolitan scale and the local one in fractal dialogue. This is the first attempt to approach the structural elements of that dialogue. Much work still to be done. This is just work in progress.

Emotions relationally and performatively constitute the very boundaries that distinguish the subject from the other(s). The urban human in India is affectively constituted by many intense emotional experiences of everyday life. Adopting a participation view of planning and drawing from Ahmed (2014, The cultural politics of emotion. Edinburgh University Press), we examine ‘what emotions do’ in the planning and participatory atmospheres (Buser, 2014, Planning Theory, vol. 13, pp. 227–243) in Bangalore. Tracing emotional content embedded in participations and non-participations, we demonstrate how distrust, anger and fear co-produced the process and outcomes of the 2031 Master Plan of Bangalore. We join the few emerging scholars that call attention to the emotional geographies of planning, particularly to be able to transform the continuing colonial urban management practice in the postcolonial world to that of planning. Planning, we argue, has to involve participation, in which emotions, we demonstrate, are the connective tissue (Newman, 2012, Critical Policy Studies, vol. 6, pp. 465–479).

Chennai is the largest metropolitan city in South India (8.7 million in 2011) and the provincial capital of the large state of Tamil Nadu (population 72 million in 2011). Before that, under British rule, the city was the capital of the Madras Presidency, and was known as Madras until 1996, when the name was officially changed to Chennai. Located on the east coast of India, on the Bay of Bengal, sea trade has been an important aspect of the regional economy since at least the colonial period. Still today, the city combines political functions with economic command functions for both manufacturing and services, reflecting the region’s diversified economy. The Chennai metropolitan area has witnessed strong growth over the last 20 years in automobile manufacturing, software services, hardware manufacturing, healthcare and financial services (CDP 2009). However, it should be noted that only 30% of total employment in the city takes place in the formal sector i.e., is covered by contracts...

On 22 June 1998, Bharat Dahiya, then a PhD research scholar at the University of Cambridge, organised a Focus Group Discussion with Chennai Municipal Corporation on improving urban government through building institutional relationship with NGOs and community-based organisations on urban environmental management. This is a news report published in the Chennai edition of The Hindu, a national daily in India.

This report concerns the extent to which participatory spatialized knowledge construction1 and learning are conducive to dealing with challenges of strategic domains of urban development; such as economic growth, reducing social inequalities and vulnerabilities, increasing environmental sustainability, and making use of decentralized and participatory fiscal flows. Our main idea is that spatial knowledge construction and use is a strategic instrument in urban development, making explicit the various types of knowledge existing in cities, and reflecting the priorities of different actors in the city (government, private sector and citizens). We focus on urban development processes in which various kinds of knowledge are produced, exchanged, contested and used, and the extent to which joint learning and collective local formulation of principles of change is generated by such processes.

Initiatives for implementing geospatial information databases are being implemented across Indian cities. This essay explores one such initiative implemented by a metropolitan planning agency, the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) in a South Indian metropolis. It shows that, contrary to the promises of digital databases as a toolfor improving information sharing to aid in decision-making and further citizen participation, the state agencies tend to use them primarily for surveillance and storage.

Introduction:

A central challenge within the IIHS mission is creating a dynamic, interdisciplinary, South Asia-centric and globally relevant curriculum that spans the two dozen-odd disciplines and practice areas that define urban transformations. The IIHS Curriculum Development Process—stretching over two years from 2009 to 2011—is aimed at taking on precisely this challenge.