"`Urban Planning' in India is a comprehensive guide for understanding urban planning and making intelligent planning decisions. Past solutions and pitfalls, present methods and issues, and future solutions to planning concepts are explained. A wealth of practical information, such as law, agency structure, budgeting and financing, and implementation, is included. The causes of and solutions to India's current and impending urban challenges such as the housing crisis, traffic congestion, drainage and flood management, are also explored. Public participation is extremely important in creating a beautiful and functional city. The concept of planning, implementation mechanisms, and financing options have changed tremendously in the last thirty years. This book is meant to inform and inspire citizens, legislators, administrators, technocrats, and planners to shape cities for the benefit and enjoyment of all."

This book is a comprehensive history of city planning in post-independence India. It explores how the nature and orientation of city planning have evolved in India’s changing sociopolitical context over the past hundred or so years. The book situates India’s experience within a historical framework in order to illustrate continuities and disjunctions between the pre- and post-independent Indian laws, policies, and programs for city planning and development. It focuses on the development, scope, and significance of professional planning work in the midst of rapid economic transition, migration, social disparity, and environmental degradation. The volume also highlights the need for inclusive planning processes that can provide clean air, water, and community spaces to large, diverse, and fast growing communities. Detailed and insightful, this volume will be of interest to researchers and students of public administration, civil engineering, architecture, geography, economics, and sociology. It will also be useful for policy makers and professionals working in the areas of town and country planning.

Planners tend to promote formal plans as the only game in town while diverse efforts of urban actors shape our cities. Tracking the development of American "neighborhood unit" concept in independent India’s planning practice and literature—from the national level policies to on-the-ground applications in the city of Jaipur—Vidyarthi explains how a host of actors including neighborhood residents, squatters, politicians and developers made different kinds of plans that assimilated the design concept in line with their practical concerns and cultural preferences creating unique variants of neighborhood urbanism over time. One Idea, Many Plans counters misguided characterization of these unforeseen efforts as ‘unauthorized’ by state authorities. It shows how the frequently informal and tacit plans were neither arbitrary actions nor aimless subversions but purposeful future-oriented efforts that shaped the envisaged sociality and spatiality of Indian cities in more meaningful ways than the official master plans promoting planned neighborhoods. Carefully illustrating the different kinds of plans local actors use to guide incremental adaptation, improvement and investment, Vidyarthi offers insights about how we might improve formal plan making. Scholars, students and professional practitioners interested in different regions of the global south would find these lessons useful as a new generation of city design ideas like sustainability and new urbanism gain traction in an increasingly globalized World.

This is the first volume exclusively dedicated to planning education, with a focus on India and learning from global experiences for India. Prior to the 1990s, planning education in India was largely confined to national and local economic concerns. Within a globalized scenario, such pedagogies and theories have become outmoded. With new concerns emerging in planning, new pedagogical tools and theorizations need to be developed within planning curricula to provide today’s planners with the wherewithal to adapt to changing and globalizing cities and regions in India. Therefore, the eminent contributors to this volume deal exclusively and comprehensively with planning education in a globalized context. Divided into four thematic sections, this volume provides a comprehensive view of planning education in India, with focus on: • The trajectory of planning education in India.• The kinds of knowledge used for teaching in Indian planning schools, and whether some sort of integration of diverse knowledges is achieved. • The ethical foundations of urban and regional planning in Indian planning schools. • The role of international planning perspectives in providing new insights for Indian planning education. Comprehensive and topical, this volume is of interest to academics and researchers from planning institutes, urban and regional planners and policy makers, as well as architects, social geographers and economists.

The Second Half Of The Twentieth Century Has Witnessed A Marked Shift Of Population From Rural To Urban Areas. This Accelerated Rate In The Growth Of Urban Population Is A Necessary Consequence Of Modernization And Industrialization To Which We Are Committed. The Rice Of Urban Centres Of Population, If Not Properly Controlled, Is Bound To Be Haphazard And To Lead To Growth Of Slums. The Administration Of These Urban Areas, Which Generally Is, Or Should Be, The Responsibility Of Local Bodies, Is An Important Part Of The Administration Of The State. As A Matter Of Fact, The Quality Of Urban Administration Affects Urban Dwellers More Immediately And Closely Than The Administration At Higher Levels. This Is Because Subjects Like Health, Sanitation, Slum Clearance, Housing, Education, Etc., Have A Direct Bearing On The Welfare Of The People.Urban India Has Attracted The Attention Of Town Planners, Architects, Traffic Experts, Scientists, Sociologists As Well As Social Scientists. But The Area That Has Received The Least Attention And The One That Has Remained Largely Unexplored Are The Ones Relating To The Problem Of The Agency For Urban Planning And Development. It Is Time The Political Scientists And Students Of Public Administration Closely Study The Structure And Suitability Of The Agency For Urban Planning And Development, And Suggest Ways And Means For Streamlining It Specially In The Context Of The Problems And Challenges That Urban Government Is Called Upon To Tackle. The Need To Comprehend And Synthesize The Analysis And Interpretation Of Basic Facts And Forces Relating To Urban Improvement Gains Fresh Urgency. The Present Study Accomplishes This Task By Providing A Bold, Balanced And Imaginative Approach To Meeting The Greatest Challenge Of Urban India. Based On Empirical Data, It Examines The Suitability Of Improvement Trusts In The Field Of Urban Development, Their Administrative Set-Up, Working And Planning, The Execution Process And The Problem Of Finance. The Study Is Intended For Policy Makers, Administrators, Teachers And Students Who Are Concerned With Problems Of Urban Planning And Development. The Author Intends To Focus Attention On Urban Issues And Provides Material For Independent Research And Guidelines For Policy Formulation On Complex Problems Of Urban India.

This book studies the increasing use of data analytics and technology in urban planning and development in developing nations. It examines the application of urban science and engineering in different sectors of urban planning and looks at the challenges involved in planning 21st-century cities, especially in India. The volume analyzes various key themes such as auditory/visual sensing, network analysis and spatial planning, and decision-making and management in the planning process. It also studies the application of big data, geographic information systems, and information and communications technology in urban planning. Finally, it provides data-driven approaches toward holistic and optimal urban solutions for challenges in transportation planning, housing, and conservation of vulnerable urban zones like coastal areas and open spaces. Well supplemented with rigorous case studies, the book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of architecture, architectural and urban planning, and urban analytics. It will also be useful for professionals involved in smart city planning, planning authorities, urban scientists, and municipal and local bodies.

Indian diaspora has had a complex and multifaceted role in catalyzing, justifying and promoting a transformed urban landscape in India. Focussing on Kolkata/ Calcutta, this book analyses the changing landscapes over the past two decades of one of the world’s most fascinating and iconic cities. Previously better known due to its post-Independence decline into overcrowded poverty, pollution and despair, in recent years it has experience a revitalization that echoes India’s renaissance as a whole in the new millennium. This book weaves together narratives of migration and diasporas, postmodern developmentalism and neoliberal urbanism, and identity and belonging in the Global South. It examines the rise of middle-class environmental initiatives and Kolkata’s attempts to reclaim its earlier global status. It suggests that a form of global gentrification is taking place, through which people and place are being fundamentally restructured. Based on a decade’s worth of field research and investigation in multiple sites - metropolitan centers connected by long histories of empire, migration, economy, and culture - it employs a multi-methods approach and uses ethnographic, semi-structured interviews as well as archival research for much of the empirical data collected. Addressing urban change and policies, as well as spatial and discoursive transformations that are occurring in India, it will be of interest to researchers in the field of urban geography, urban and regional planning, environmental studies, diaspora studies and South Asian studies.