The smart res publica as basis for urban planning

TATE policy in India seems to be in thrall of the fact, highlighted by the Census of India (2011), that the urban population in India is growing at a faster pace than the rural. Those who have been studying and observing the winds of change unleashed by the post-1991 dismantling of the Nehruvian socialist economy, are aware of the myriad ways that urbanization has determined the course of all social, cultural, economic and political processes in the country.

Given that other than food production, all aspects of the Indian economy have been centred in cities for centuries, and given that food security and changing lifestyles have already distracted us from the predominantly rural nature of our population, it comes as no surprise that cities are being recognized, albeit belatedly, as ‘engines of growth’. It should be suggested, however, that the rapid growth of cities is the glamorous side of the urban transformation, whose less seemly side is conflict-ridden and requires a new set of priorities and new tools for thinking and policy formulation.

It has been noted since well before Independence that the Indian city creates and represents immense disparities between the rich and poor. The amassing of (often ill-begotten) wealth by elites manifests itself in conspicuously luxurious lifestyles that translate their power and privilege into space, form and culture. That these overly influence the articulation of developmental goals and the formulation of policies and programmes by the nation state is a natural outcome of inequality, and the Indian city is unexceptional in this regard. It is interesting, however, that the past two decades of subaltern politics and the empowerment of marginalized identities with a voice in Indian politics has not significantly reversed or altered the inequitable distribution of space and resources that marks our cities. The formation of new elites and their ascendance finds manifestation in the same way regardless of their caste and creed, and the organization of space and the forms of built environment becomes a mirror of the differences, schisms and contestations in its social matrix. This divided city must command our collective attention if the fruits of urbanization are to be shared as common wealth.

The Government of India has announced an unprecedented urban agenda. It includes the urban renewal of 500 cities, the development of 100 smart cities and the ‘rejuvenation’ of pilgrimage centres and heritage cities. The agenda aims both to complete the unfinished project of urban infrastructure development that was the thrust of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission launched in 2005-06, but also to secure the reformatory outcomes anticipated from India’s first systematic attempt at funding urban renewal. During the JnNURM’s extended course of eight years, neither did the GoI ensure that its incentive-led programme could encourage all states to devolve 18 critical functions to the urban local bodies as envisaged under the 74th Constitutional Amendment, nor did the self- proclaimed achievement of reforms actually create financially robust and sustainable local bodies as intended.

When the JnNURM was brought to a formal conclusion in mid-2014, the project of urban renewal and the building of sustainable cities remained unfinished. However, the mission irreversibly altered our terms of engagement with cities, and we now understand cities as complex phenomena generated from a highly localized and site-specific combination of tangible and intangible assets, systems of administration and control (aka ‘governance’), economic drivers and relationships, social structures, patterns of land use and settlement, and environmental impacts. Cities are borderless entities where the flows of people, capital and resources intersect in space and find order and organization as an outcome of the policies and actions of local governments. We now speak of Indian cities in a new language.

The new language of urbanism is not merely the lexicon comprising words like ‘smart’, ‘sustainable’, ‘green’, ‘livable’ and so on, which is a predictable peeve for the critics of government action who might see these as decoys meant to distract us from more real issues of deprivation and dissent. Rather, the new language is that of the economics of the city. The new urban agenda of the Government of India is to treat cities as engines of economic growth, creators of jobs and generators of common wealth.

There is nothing unusual in this articulation, as cities around the world and throughout history – even Indian history – have been the centres of trade, commerce and industry. The Indian city is home to informal industries that may generate close to 30 per cent of its GDP. However, if the ‘smart’ cities of India are to generate the dramatically enhanced number of jobs that are being imagined – a multiplication factor of ten from the existing number – and if the youth, women and other working age populations are to be brought into the workforce, then we must imagine our cities differently.

We need a crucial shift in thinking at this historic juncture towards a deeper articulation of citizenship and civic identity. Today’s discourses of ‘inclusion’ and ‘participation’ can only be meaningful if we understand the critical role of the public domain and the contribution of the citizen in determining the outcomes of economic development.

A prime example is the contentious issue of ‘public purpose’ that was evoked by the draft land acquisition policy, presently being reviewed by the government. The policy highlights an interesting contrast. In the case of a project being executed in a rural or forest location, the difference between the indigenous or local and the extraneous or intrusive is visibly established and the proverbial battle lines between ‘public’ purpose and ‘native’ rights are clearly drawn; however, the valuation of damages and compensation is extremely difficult.

In the urban context, the value of land and assets is established by the market, whereas the definition of public purpose becomes extremely fuzzy, as it rests on a notional ‘public’ that is assumed to be speaking in one voice. In both cases, the government assumes the ‘voice’ of the public, although in the rural/forest areas, that identity becomes conflated with ‘the nation’ and the national cause, whereas in the urban context, the assumption that the government represents a consensual identity can easily be challenged.

There is very little rigour in the state’s articulation of urban policies with respect to this seemingly esoteric and jurisprudential aspect. However, it now assumes critical significance because of the role that urban planning must play in the future of our cities. When reduced to a purely utilitarian exercise, urban planning becomes a handmaiden of circumstance. Thus, after the initial post-Independence and post-Partition phase, when historic urban centres were haphazardly occupied by migrants and refugees accommodated willy-nilly into existing settlement patterns, the Indian city plan became a post facto rationalization of ground conditions.

In all Indian cities, the decisions regarding planning were preempted either by slum settlements, urban villages or speculative real estate developments. The plan was less of a projection of progressive ideology, economic vision or planning per se, and more of a seeming organization of otherwise chaotic and uncontrollable components of land use and invaded natural features. If there was any semblance of planning then it appeared driven more by the lure of windfall gains, which have been one of the key contributors to the pelf and corruption that have become synonymous with the government’s role in ‘managing’ cities.

Smart cities will need to harness a radically altered understanding of public purpose and public interest because they must, by definition, be better planned cities. If planning has to deliver results, in particular support the creation of livelihoods and the enhancement of economic growth, then it must be both rational and driven by evidence and data. It may seem ironic to be arguing for rational planning in the year 2014, given that the tenets of modern town planning originated in the European Enlightenment and they were articulated into a technical discipline more than a century ago; however, we must consider it as a science that has been overwhelmed by considerations non-scientific. There is now some hope that it may recover its true purpose in the context of the smart cities programme.

Informed by the combined intelligence of data and geo-spatial mapping, the planning of our cities would be a complex system for delivering collective visions and problem-solving. Our capacity to grasp that complexity through mapping technology and to embed the intelligence that results from data into the ‘space’ of the city will create the possibilities to engage with the public in unprecedented ways.

For example, decisions about the feasibility and social sustainability of infrastructural or real estate projects could derive from informed scrutiny of the project by the public. Consultations and referendums about larger issues concerning the public at large, such as the effects of a traffic management system or the location of education and health facilities, could become the basis for policy and regulatory interventions. The rehabilitation of settlements for the urban poor could be informed by intelligence about land values, access to transportation, locations of work centres and schools and hospices.

The ‘death of the commons’ has been a nefarious notion in urban discourse for the past couple of decades. The crippling grasp of its cynicism, which was reinforced by the palpable reality of disenchanted and alienated citizens – hapless participants in the first wave of global commodification – has resulted in unsustainable, unproductive and highly vulnerable cities. The smartness of cities in India can harness the collective smartness of their citizens, and information and communication technology can enable governments to access that collective smartness in ways unimaginable in the analog and non-digital world. Whether we will choose to leverage this opportunity will be determined by the quality and level of our faith in the potential of participation, and whether we still believe that the city is the cradle of democracy.