Participatory Urban Planning

Urban planning and infrastructure provision in South Asian cities has traditionally been supply driven and expert led. While the basic objective of planning is to enhance citizens quality of life, the inequitable resource distribution and consumption have found people themselves driven to the margins. This missing link is the ‘people’ themselves – there is a glaring lack of their participation in the planning process, which cannot be ignored. Their inclusion and voice in planning processes must be ensured if the result is to become more need based and demand driven. Inclusion of every citizen must be ensured in every plan, infrastructure/service provision in order for it to be assessed as fair and effective. This calls for an amalgamation of technical expertise, assessment of people’s needs and civil society involvement in planning processes at all levels – city, ward and local areas and neighbourhoods. This course will give a better understanding of Urban Planning in the Global perspective with specific importance to the Indian context. It will look at the intricacies related to Governance as well as the challenges faced in the process of Urban Governance and the impact of Good Governance in the development. It will further lay out the need of participation in the Urban Planning and give an insight to the challenges and issues related to the Participatory Urban Planning.

Course structure

Module 1 : An Introduction to Urban Planning
Module 2 : Decentralized Urban Governance and Urban Planning
Module 3 : Participatory Urban Planning: Physical Planning
Module 4 : Challenges and Issues

Learning Objectives On completion of the course the learner would learn

• The intensive process and aspects of both governance and implementation of planning for urban areas in South Asia

• Showcase efforts that have been made to incorporate the voice of the people through well illustrated case studies

• Demonstrate an assessment of urban infrastructure gaps, as per existing town planning norms contextualized in the demands of its citizens

• To bridge the gap between technical and social dimensions of planning

• Alternative methodologies for town planning with active participation of citizens and other stakeholders