URBAN CONTEXTS, PATHS FOR A SUSTAINABLE URBAN PLANNING
CONCLUDING REMARKS. WHAT PATHES FOR A SUSTAINABLE URBAN PLANNING TODAY?
Like other megacities in the world, Delhi presents many social, economic, and environmental problems. The urban planning history of Delhi is a history of reproduction of inequalities, a failure in terms of urban balance and integration and a case where the visibility of global interests and forces allows their acknowledgement and analysis. The Indian colonial period influenced the polarization between a Mughal-city (Old-Delhi) and the colonial capital (New-Delhi) promoting a racial and social hierarchy in urban development. The post-independence period was marked by the discrepancy between the rigid modernist plan, based on public control over land and the rise of a ‘subversive urbanism’ that emerged from unattended population needs. Finally, the global financial system, determined the unbalance between urban-rural development and the uneven spatiality’s of the metropolis, where poverty enclaves coexist side by side with wealthy exclusionary enclaves.
Successive planning models were influenced by different ‘agents’, first through colonization processes, after through knowledge or modernization exchange processes and finally through market liberalization promoted by global institutions. Planning practice have been ‘captured’ by distinct interests, has addressed mainly a small part of the population and ignored a vast majority of the communities and their livelihoods in the urban development process. This triggered an ‘spontaneous’
city (with an associated network of vulnerabilities) with which ‘bridges’ have never been truly established.42 The transference and manipulation of urban planning models, polices, and practices from the global North to the global South as part of colonialism or modernization is not a new discovery. What we may question today is if urban planning models, practices, polices and legislation, whether in the Global South or the Global North, aren’t still being captured, having as a consequence, the social, economic and political oblivion of large part of populations? In a globalized word, cities are seen increasingly dependent on territorial competitiveness, capital attraction and market-driven strategies. Simultaneously, uneven geographic development, social-spatial segregation, dispossession or environmental problems are no more limited to national boundaries, but co-exist, within global cities and territories.43 Migration is one of the main signs of social and territorial vulnerability, such as limited access to housing, employment, resources or decision-making processes: Rural population in India migrates to cities due to the loss of their livelihoods, inhabitants of global city centres are expulsed by increasing rents or real state prices, the population of de-industrialized cities (due to industry dislocation) is ‘oblige’ to leave in search of employment, leaving behind ‘unviable cities’ and threats to democratic systems (e.g. Detroit in the U.S). Saskia Sassen refers to the generalization of
“social, economic and biospheric expulsions” and to the importance of looking “at the extremes of a system in order to analyse trends that can be revealed in more moderate ways within the system itself."44 Delhi has an “extreme-case study” reminds us about the urgency of critically analysing the growing ‘geographies of injustice’, considering planning and even knowledge production, not only solution-driven, or technical instruments, but as domains that can be instrumentalized by power.
Identifying the underlying causes of planning options today and depicting trends in what concerns a
‘normative colonization’ of concepts (e.g. Sustainability, Resilience), models (e.g. Participative governance) and practices (Public polices, legislation, Planning Instruments) will be one possible path to envision a more sustainable future for cities and territories around the world.45
REFERENCES
1 United Nations, The World’s Cities in 2016 - Data Booklet (New York: Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division, 2014), 4 (ST/ESA/SER.A/352)
2 Preeti Kapuria, “Quality of life in the city of Delhi: an assessment based on access to basic services”. Social indicators research 117(2) (2014): 459-487, Acessed September 27,2017, doi: 10.1007/s11205-013-0355-2
3 Pravin Kushwaha. Interview by Sebastião Santos, STEPS- South Asia Sustainability Hub, Centre for the Study of Science Policy- Jawarlal Nehru University. Delhi, 2016
4 Gautan Bhan, “Planned Illegalities” Economic and Political Weekly, 48.24 (2013): 68-69, Acessed April 11, 2017, http://www.epw.in/journal/2013/24/special-articles/planned-illegalities.html
5 Waquar Ahmed, “Neoliberal utopia and urban realities in Delhi” ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 10.2 (2011): 164, Acessed April 11, 2017, https://ojs.unbc.ca/index.php/acme/article/view/893/749
6Debnath Mookherjee, H.S. Geyer and Eugene Hoerauf (2015), “Dynamics of an Evolving City-Region in the Developing World: The National Capital Region of Delhi Revisited” International Planning Studies, 20(2015): 149, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi: 10.1080/13563475.2014.942515
7 Blake Stephen P., Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India 1639-1739 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 2-3
8 Jane Ridley, “Edwin Lutyens, New Delhi, and the architecture of imperialism”. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 26.2 (1998): 70-71, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi: 10.1080/03086539808583025
9 Deyan Sudjic, The Edifice Complex: The architecture of power . London: Penguin, 2006
10 Peter Hall, Cities of tomorrow: an intellectual history of urban planning and design since 1880 (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2014), 217
11 Gavin Stamp, “New Delhi: a new imperial capital for British India” The Court Historian, 17.2 (2012): 196, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi: 10.1179/cou.2012.17.2.004
12 Diya Mehra, “Planning Delhi ca. 1936–1959” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 36.3 (2013) :356, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi: 10.1080/00856401.2013.829793
13 Ritu Priya, "Town planning, public health and urban poor: Some explorations from Delhi." Economic and Political Weekly (1993): 825-826, Acessed April 11, 2017, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4399649
14 Diya Mehra, “Planning Delhi ca. 1936–1959” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 36.3 (2013):358, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2013.829793
15 Stephen Legg, “Ambivalent Improvements: Biography, Biopolitics, and Colonial Delhi.” Environment and Planning A 40.1 (2008): 47-48, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi:10.1068/a38460
16 Veronique Dupont, "Delhi: Dynamique démographique et spatiale d’une grande métropole." Mappemonde 2 (2001): 32-33, Acessed April 11, 2017,
http://lettres.histoire.free.fr/lhg/geo/geo_japon_ase/Asie1/Inde/Inde_delhi_dynamiques_demoq_spatiale_dupont.p df
17 Marie Thynell, Dinesh Mohan, and Geetam Tiwari, "Sustainable transport and the modernisation of urban transport in Delhi and Stockholm", Cities 27.6 (2010): 425, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi:
doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2010.04.002
18 Eugene S. Staples, Forty Years, a Learning Curve: The Ford Foundation Programs in India, 1952-1992 (New Delhi:Ford Foundation, 1992), 6-7
19 Tridib Banerjee, "US planning expeditions to postcolonial India: from ideology to innovation in technical assistance." Journal of the American Planning Association 75.2 (2009): 199-201, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi:
10.1080/01944360902790711
20 Jeffrey R. Ewing, "Town Planning in Delhi: A Critique." Economic and Political Weekly (1969): 1593-1594, Acessed April 11, 2017, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40737978
21 Srirangan K., “Land policies in Delhi: their contribution to unauthorised land development” PdD diss. University of London (1997): 37-38
22 Ritu Priya, "Town planning, public health and urban poor: Some explorations from Delhi." Economic and Political Weekly (1993): 827, Acessed April 11, 2017, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4399649
23 Tridib Banerjee, "US planning expeditions to postcolonial India: from ideology to innovation in technical assistance." Journal of the American Planning Association 75.2 (2009): 199-201, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi:
10.1080/01944360902790711
24 Srirangan K., “Land policies in Delhi: their contribution to unauthorised land development” PdD diss. University of London (1997): 53
25 René Véron, "Remaking urban environments: the political ecology of air pollution in Delhi", Environment and Planning A 38.11 (2006): 2097-2109, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi: 10.1068/a37449
26 Utsa Patnaik, "The republic of hunger", Social Scientist (2004): 9-35, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi:
http://www.networkideas.org/featart/apr2004/Republic_Hunger.pdf
27Delhi Human Development Report 2013 (New Delhi:Institute for Human Development for the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi,2013), chap. 3, p.67
28 Ahmad Sohail, "Delhi revisited." Cities 31 (2013): 644, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi:
10.1016/j.cities.2012.12.006
29 Mike Davis. Planet of Slums (New York: Verso, 2009), 16
30 Véronique D.N. Dupont, "The dream of Delhi as a global city", International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35.3 (2011): 534-537, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.01027.x
31 Tathagata Chatterji, "The micro-politics of urban transformation in the context of globalisation: a case study of Gurgaon, India," South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 36.2 (2013): 274-277, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi:
10.1080/00856401.2012.739272
32 Loraine Kennedy, "The politics and changing paradigm of megaproject development in metropolitan cities," Habitat International 45 (2015): 167, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.07.001
33 Avani Kapur, “Jawaharlal Nehra National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM)”, Budget Briefs 5.7 (2013), Acessed April 11, 2017, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2231891
34 Amita Singh. Interview by Sebastião Santos, Disaster Research Program-Centre for the Study of Law and Governance - Jawarlal Nehru University. Delhi, 2016
35 Water police for Delhi Draft 2011. (New Delhi: Delhi Jal Board ,Govt. of NCT, 2011)
36 Waquar Ahmed, "Neoliberal utopia and urban realities in Delhi”, ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 10.2 (2011): 163-187
37 Pravin Kushwaha. Interview by Sebastião Santos, STEPS- South Asia Sustainability Hub, Centre for the Study of Science Policy- Jawarlal Nehru University. Delhi, 2016
38 Dipak K Dash, “Why are only NDMC areas in Smart City plan: Manish Sisodia”, The times of India (2017), Acessed April 11, 2017, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/why-are-only-ndmc-areas-in-smart-city-plan-manish-sisodia/articleshow/57458846.cms
39 Debolina Kundu. Interview by Sebastião Santos, National Institute of Urban Areas. Delhi, 2016
40 Pravin Kushwaha. Interview by Sebastião Santos, STEPS- South Asia Sustainability Hub, Centre for the Study of Science Policy- Jawarlal Nehru University. Delhi, 2016
41Leon Morenas (2016). Interview by Sebastião Santos, School of Planning and Architecture. Delhi, 2016
42Ananya Roy, "Why India cannot plan its cities: Informality, insurgence and the idiom of urbanization", Planning theory 8.1 (2009): 76-87.
43David Harvey. Spaces of neoliberalization: towards a theory of uneven geographical development (Munchen:
Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005) Vol. 8, 31-33
44Sassen Saskia. "At the systemic edge." Cultural Dynamics 27.1 (2015): 173-181.
45Leonie Sandercock. “Making the invisible visible: A multicultural planning history”( California:Univ. of California Press, 1998) Vol. 2, 4-5
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ahmed Waquar. "Neoliberal utopia and urban realities in Delhi." ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 10.2 (2011): 172-172.
Ananya Roy. "Why India cannot plan its cities: Informality, insurgence and the idiom of urbanization". Planning theory 8.1 (2009): 76-87.
Banerjee Tridib. "US planning expeditions to postcolonial India: from ideology to innovation in technical assistance." Journal of the American Planning Association 75.2 (2009): 193-208. Acessed April 11, 2017. doi:
10.1080/01944360902790711
Bhan Gautan. “Planned Illegalities” Economic and Political Weekly 48.24 (2013): 59-70. Acessed April 11, 2017.
doi: http://www.epw.in/journal/2013/24/special-articles/planned-illegalities.html
Chatterji Tathagata. "The micro-politics of urban transformation in the context of globalisation: a case study of Gurgaon, India." South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 36.2 (2013): 274-277. Acessed April 11, 2017. doi:
10.1080/00856401.2012.739272
Dash Dipak K, “Why are only NDMC areas in Smart City plan: Manish Sisodia”, The times of India (2017), Acessed April 11, 2017, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/why-are-only-ndmc-areas-in-smart-city-plan-manish-sisodia/articleshow/57458846.cms
Davis Mike. Planet of Slums (New York: Verso, 2009), 16
Delhi Human Development Report, New Delhi:Institute for Human Development for the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi, 2013, chap. 3, p.67
Dupont Veronique. "Delhi: Dynamique démographique et spatiale d’une grande métropole." Mappemonde 2 (2001): 32-37. Acessed April 11, 2017,
http://lettres.histoire.free.fr/lhg/geo/geo_japon_ase/Asie1/Inde/Inde_delhi_dynamiques_demoq_spatiale_dupont.p df
Dupont Véronique D.N. "The dream of Delhi as a global city." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35.3 (2011): 533-554. Acessed April 11, 2017. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.01027.x
Ewing, Jeffrey R., "Town Planning in Delhi: A Critique." Economic and Political Weekly (1969): 1591-1600.
Acessed April 11, 2017. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40737978
Hall Peter. Cities of tomorrow: an intellectual history of urban planning and design since 1880. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2014
Harvey David. Spaces of neoliberalization: towards a theory of uneven geographical development (Munchen:
Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005) Vol. 8, 31-33
Kapur Avani, “Jawaharlal Nehra National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM)”, Budget Briefs 5.7 (2013), Acessed April 11, 2017, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2231891
Kapuria Preeti. “Quality of life in the city of Delhi: an assessment based on access to basic services.” Social indicators research 117(2014): 459-487. Acessed April 11, 2017. doi: 10.1007/s11205-013-0355-2
Kennedy Loraine. "The politics and changing paradigm of megaproject development in metropolitan cities." Habitat International 45 (2015): 163-168. Acessed April 11, 2017,. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.07.001
K. Srirangan. “Land policies in Delhi: their contribution to unauthorised land development”. PdD diss. University of London (1997): 37-38
Legg Stephen. “Ambivalent Improvements: Biography, Biopolitics, and Colonial Delhi.” Environment and Planning A 40.1 (2008): 37–56. doi:10.1068/a38460. Acessed April 11, 2017. doi: 10.1068/a38460
Mehra Diya. “Planning Delhi ca. 1936–1959” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. 36.3 (2013): 354-374.
Acessed April 11, 2017. doi: 10.1080/00856401.2013.829793
Mookherjee Debnath. H.S. Geyer and Eugene Hoerauf. “Dynamics of an Evolving City-Region in the Developing World: The National Capital Region of Delhi Revisited.” International Planning Studies, 20 (2015): 146-160.
Acessed April 11, 2017. doi: 10.1080/13563475.2014.942515
Priya Ritu. "Town planning, public health and urban poor: Some explorations from Delhi." Economic and Political Weekly (1993): 824-834. Acessed April 11, 2017. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4399649
Ridley Jane. “Edwin Lutyens, New Delhi, and the architecture of imperialism”. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 26.2 (1998): 67-83. Acessed April 11, 2017. doi: 10.1080/03086539808583025
Roy Ananya, "Why India cannot plan its cities: Informality, insurgence and the idiom of urbanization", Planning theory 8.1 (2009): 76-87.
Sandercock Leonie. “Making the invisible visible: A multicultural planning history”( California:Univ. of California Press, 1998) Vol. 2, 4-5
Sassen Saskia. "At the systemic edge." Cultural Dynamics 27.1 (2015): 173-181.
Sohail Ahmad, "Delhi revisited." Cities 31 (2013): 644, Acessed April 11, 2017, doi: 10.1016/j.cities.2012.12.006
Stamp Gavin. “New Delhi: a new imperial capital for British India”. The Court Historian 17.2 (2012): 189-207.
Acessed April 11, 2017. doi: 10.1179/cou.2012.17.2.004
Staples Eugene S., Forty Years, a Learning Curve: The Ford Foundation Programs in India, 1952-1992 (New Delhi:Ford Foundation, 1992), 6-7
Stephen P. Blake. Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India 1639-1739. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Sudjic Deyan. The Edifice Complex: The architecture of power. London: Penguin, 2006
Thynell Marie, Dinesh Mohan, and Geetam Tiwari. "Sustainable transport and the modernisation of urban transport in Delhi and Stockholm". Cities 27.6 (2010): 421-429. Acessed April 11, 2017. doi:
doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2010.04.002
United Nations. The World’s Cities in 2016 - Data Booklet, New York: Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division, 2014 (ST/ESA/SER.A/352)
Utsa Patnaik. "The republic of hunger." Social Scientist (2004): 9-35. Acessed April 11, 2017. doi:
http://www.networkideas.org/featart/apr2004/Republic_Hunger.pdf
Véron René. "Remaking urban environments: the political ecology of air pollution in Delhi". Environment and Planning A 38.11 (2006): 2093-2109. Acessed April 11, 2017. doi: 10.1068/a37449
Water police for Delhi Draft 2011. (New Delhi: Delhi Jal Board ,Govt. of NCT, 2011)
AMPS, Architecture_MPS; London South Bank University
Active and lively streets are indicators of successful communitiesi.
The provision of mixed uses and concentration of diverse people and activities are perceived as necessary conditions for vitality at the street level2. Active streets help promote sustainable and healthy behaviours such as walkability3. Most research on urban vitality has focussed on city centres4 with less attention has been paid to non-central residential areas. There is a lack of understanding of how residents experience street vitality or how vitality can be integrated into urban design interventions at the local level. This paper reports on ongoing research that explores the concept of vitality in the case of non-central residential areas. It addresses the questions of what vitality means for local people and how they experience vitality in their everyday lives. These questions are addressed through a qualitative approach including multiple methods: participant observation (26), walking interviews with residents (24) and semi-structured interviews with residents (11), local small businesses (12) and stakeholders (10). The research is underpinned by a comparative case study approach in Madrid (Valdebebas) and Edinburgh (Granton Waterfront), focusing on mixed- use areas (mainly residential, retail and offices uses) in an intermediate stage of redevelopment in which new residential buildings live together within vacant plots.
By examining local people perceptions and experiences of vitality in their everyday lives, this research suggests that street vitality is required to create a sense of place and wellbeing. Despite the increasing mobility and specialization of contemporary lifestyles, everyday spaces and opportunities near home are essential to encourage walkability and allow for contact between diverse people, helping create an inclusive sense of community. A variety of services and facilities and the quality of urban design are necessary elements to build street and urban vitality.
URBAN VITALITY IN NON-CENTRAL AREAS
Vitality in the context of urban design has been defined as the main goal of city planning and the principal characteristic which distinguish successful urban areas5. A successful urban area can be recognised by a dynamic mixture of activities and street life. Those are the visible elements which shape the vitality of a place. For Montgomery6 the concept of vitality defines the life and culture of cities around the interactions between activities and the public realm. Jacobs7 defines vitality as a product of concentration of diverse people and activities overlapping across time and space. Jacobs stresses the concept of diversity as the main generator of vitality, where people with different tastes, skills and needs living in close proximity are able to support a mixture of uses and activities which strengthen social networks and ties.
Vitality has been explored at different spatial scales including the city district and street level. Most of the research about vitality has focused on city centres. Less attention has been paid to non-central