Urban Planning and Its Discontents: Practice in Contemporary India

This book, the first of its kind, introduces various aspects of urban planning in India and contributes towards debates on changes required in the current practice.

Darshini Mahadevia is currently at School of Arts and Sciences, Ahmedabad University where she held the position of Associate Dean, Arts. She was Dean at the Faculty of Planning, CEPT University for one tenure and established and coordinated activities of the Centre for Urban Equity at CEPT University. She has worked on many national and international research projects related to housing, informal sector, urban employment, urban transport, public health, and climate change and has numerous publications to her credit. Her work has focused throughout on the issues of equity of caste, class, religion and gender, in urban policies and development.

Rutool Sharma, a civil engineer-planner by education, with 20 years of teaching, research and consultancy experience, has been a faculty at the CEPT University for more than 17 years. At CEPT University, she has mentored dissertation of more than 70 students, undertaken numerous research and consulting projects for both state and central governments in India. Prior to joining CEPT University, she worked as a senior planner and project head at renowned planning-architectural firm, Vastu Shilpa Consultants. Her research and consulting works are in areas of planning legislation, spatial planning, urban land management, real estate, and housing. She has also been engaged with practical spatial planning exercises, policy-oriented research including evaluating policies and programmes, and capacity-building activities. Her current interest is exploring urban planning from an interdisciplinary lens of sustainability and equity.