Subversive Urban Development in India: Implications on Planning Education

By Darshini Mahadevia, Rutul Joshi on December 01, 2009

From the paper's introduction: "Taking example of India, this paper attempts to build this strong critique of the present urban planning practices and processes and argues that the responsibility of such a state of affairs lies with the planning education system itself, that has narrowed its scope to just allocation of urban space, with false notions of comprehensiveness using the positivist methodologies, that result in unjust urban spaces. The planning education has laid more emphasis on providing top-down solutions than on detailed enquiry of urban processes. The second section describes at macro level the processes of exclusions, subversions and insurgency (to a very less extent however) in the Indian cities in general. The third and fourth section goes into the details of urban planning processes in India, narration of urban realities in Indian cities, explaining the disjunction between the planning, governance systems, urban fiscal realities and aspirations of the bottom half of the urban population. Lastly, the paper argues for situaing the planning profession and hence planning education within the present Indian urban reality."

This paper is Working Paper 1 in the CUE Working Papers Series. More information and other related research papers are available on the website of the Center for Urban Equity at CEPT University.

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