Who is making the plans shaping fast-growing Indian cities and their metropolitan regions? The presentation, which shares preliminary findings of this research, is organized in two parts. The first part describes the changing perception of spatial plans within the planning discipline. Plans, for example, are no longer seen as precise and predictive in character but incremental and provisional by nature. There is a growing recognition that a diverse range of actors (homeowners, squatters, developers, politicians etc.) make different kinds of plans (informal, tacit, spontaneous, incremental and more) as they anticipate and prepare for an uncertain future in an increasingly urbanized world. The second part of presentation will then illustrate the wide variety of existing and emergent urban actors and their plans that are beginning to shape Indian urban regions in unprecedented ways.
Sanjeev Vidyarthi is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Trained as an architect, urban designer and spatial planner, Sanjeev studies ideas and actions in the domain of human settlements focusing upon the meanings and purposes of planning for places. His research interests span the fields of planning theory and history and globalization and development studies, and his current research explores who does (and should do) the planning work. Exploring planning efforts in a wide variety of urban settings, Sanjeev has lived, worked and studied in the Middle East, Western Europe, and the United States over the past couple decades, while maintaining a strong research agenda around the spatial planning and development of post-independence India.
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