Speaker
Description
Smart cities are a new paradigm of urban developmental transformation in the 21st Century for cities across the world. There is no universally agreed conceptualization or definition of the notion of Smartness and Smart cities, and cities around the world have developed their operational models of Smartness at the intersection of urban planning, technology-based transformations - primarily digital, municipal service delivery, policy, and governance, eventually shaping the design of the built environment at all levels. Smart Cities with an emphasis on resource optimization, renewable energy, reduction of pollution, and real-time planning have the potential to become key drivers for addressing complex urban challenges and environmental sustainability (Komninos, 2020). However, to address these challenges there is a need for urban actors to move beyond the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) dominant approach and smart cities should engage with sustainability and community-centric issues (Praharaj and Han, 2019).
Smart Cities Mission in India has been a unique experimental policy endeavour that has disrupted conventional planning approaches in the post-independence scenario. It brought a radical shift in the paradigm creating space for multidisciplinary praxis with initiatives such as the Place-making marathon, Nurturing Neighbourhoods, Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCCs), Freedom to Walk Cycle Run, etc. This has been instrumental in not only addressing the issues in bigger metropolitan cities but also in smaller cities across diverse geographies making it an unprecedented space for transformative action for even smaller cities to define their unique visions and priorities and not necessarily follow the developmental pathways of the bigger cities. This can be defined as the ‘Other Smartness’ an approach departing from the digitalization of urban systems which has been often associated with the idea of ‘Smart Cities’. This has been a key first step towards achieving socio-environmentally just and equitable futures.
The purpose of this research thus, is to bring to light the shift in urban planning, policy and governance paradigms brought about by the Smart Cities Mission, in India, comprising experimental transformative praxis as an enabler of change within conventional institutional structures. The existing literature elaborates on the conceptualizations, keyword analysis, and varied engagements of Smart Cities, however, there is a significant gap in community-centric narratives, on-ground actions and people’s perceptions. The author being formerly an advisor working with the national government shall bring insights from the field experiences bridging the scales of national policy formulation, city-level planning, neighbourhood and on-ground action in 100 cities across India. The key findings are; community-centric planning as an outcome of an inter-scalar process, ethno-development through policy, Jugaadness and frugal innovation as smartness.
References
Komninos, N. (2020) The new logic of environmental sustainability under the smart everything paradigm. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/sowc2012/urbanmap/.
Praharaj, S. and Han, H. (2019) ‘Cutting through the clutter of smart city definitions: A reading into the smart city perceptions in India’, City, Culture and Society, 18, p. 100289. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2019.05.005.
| Keywords | Other Smartness; Transformative Action Planning; Socio-environmental Justice; Radical Planning |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
