City Planning in India, 1947-2017

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.

Ashok Kumar is a professor of physical planning at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India. Trained as a human geographer and spatial planner, he believes in planning that aims at reducing spatial injustices, a task that is not well accomplished without comprehending and linking planning with broader political and economic processes. For him, collaborative planning remains at the core of planners’ efforts, where plans are participatory and pragmatic. Ashok lives and works in Delhi. He has studied in India and the UK. His most recent edited books include (with D.S. Meshram and Krishne Gowda) Urban and Regional Planning Education - Learning for India (Springer, 2016) and (with Poonam Prakash) Public Participation in Planning in India (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016).

Sanjeev Vidyarthi is a professor of urban planning and policy and director of the Master of City Design program at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Trained as an architect, urban designer, and spatial planner, Sanjeev employs an integrative research approach to studying the meaning and purpose of planning for places. His recent work explores plan-making and city-designing efforts in a variety of urban settings like planned neighborhoods, historic settlements, and rapidly-growing urban regions. Sanjeev has lived, worked, and studied in the Middle East, Western Europe, and the United States while studying the case of independent India using a comparative lens and insider/outsider perspective. He works with progressive scholars and professional practitioners worldwide.

Poonam Prakash is a professor of physical planning and head, Department of Physical Planning at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, an institute of National Importance. She has a doctoral degree in Housing from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. She has been teaching for the last 23 years. Her research interests relate to low-income housing, participatory planning, decision-making processes in planning, and planning pedagogy. Her approach toward teaching is to facilitate self-reflection through experiential learning. She was the nodal officer for Housing and Urban Development Corporation’s Chair for research and documentation in housing and urban development between 2012 and 2017. In 2016, she was nominated for the In-residence Programme for Inspired Teachers at Rashtrapati Bhawan.