Social Dimensions of Resilience: Challenges of Inner-city Redevelopment, Impact, and the Way Forward

The State of Cities – #CityConversations with Prof Souvanic Roy on Social Dimensions of Resilience: Challenges of Inner-city Redevelopment, Impact, and the Way Forward

#IMPRI Center for Habitat, Urban and Regional Studies (CHURS), IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi invites you to a #WebPolicyTalk series:

The State of Cities – #CityConversations

Social Dimensions of Resilience: Challenges of Inner-city Redevelopment, Impact, and the Way Forward

Details of the #WebPolicyTalk:
Date: August 11, 2021
Time: 6:30 PM IST
Platform: Zoom and Facebook Live

Speaker:

Prof Souvanic Roy
Professor, Department of Architecture, Town and Regional Planning; Founder-Director, School of Ecology, Infrastructure and Human Settlement Management, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), Shibpur, West Bengal

Souvanic Roy is a professor of Department of Architecture, Town and Regional Planning and founder director of School of Ecology, Infrastructure and Human Settlement Management in Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), Shibpur. He holds a bachelor degree in Architecture, masters in Urban and Regional Planning and doctorate in Urban Planning. He has a post graduate diploma on Housing and Urban Development from IHS, Rotterdam, Netherlands. His areas of interest include urban planning, urban policy for inclusive cities and housing strategies for urban poor. Prof. Roy is a Co-Investigator of the International Collaborative Project on ”Brownfield Regeneration of Jute Mills Land in Kolkata” with Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT-USA. He is a member of the Working Group for National Civil Society Consultation and contributed to the Delhi Declaration on “India’s Urban Future: Choice Not Chance- Civil Society Contribution to Habitat III”. He is advisor to the task force on West Bengal Urban Strategy. Prof. Roy is a recipient of prestigious Ford-Asia Fellowship, Shastri-Indo Canadian Fellowship and Netherlands Fellowship to conduct research on social housing and urban development in Southeast Asia, Canada and Netherlands. He is a Visiting Fellow in the University of Victoria, British Columbia- Canada, University of California at Berkeley- USA and Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok- Thailand. Prof. Roy has published extensively in several journals of international and national repute on smart cities, urban policies, housing and urban resilience.

Chair:

Dr Rumi Aijaz
Senior Fellow, and Head, Urban Policy Research Initiative, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), New Delhi

Discussants:

Prof Shipra Maitra
Professor, Institute for Human Development, New Delhi

Dr Ashima Sood
Associate Professor, Anant National University, Ahmedabad

Prof Tathagata Chatterjee
Professor (Urban Management & Governance), School of Human Settlements, and Coordinator, Centre for Humanities and Compassion Studies, XIM University, Bhubaneswar

Tikender Singh Panwar
Former Deputy Mayor, Shimla; Visiting Senior Fellow, IMPRI, New Delhi

About the #WebPolicyTalk – Social Dimensions of Resilience: Challenges of Inner-city Redevelopment, Impact, and the Way Forward

After the Second World War, urban policy was characterized by a period of reconstruction or redevelopment of cities all over Europe, followed by a phase of modernization of urban centres and infrastructures, and the renewal of marginalized and poor urban areas. The rapid industrial revolution was one of the reasons for urban decline and the increase of problems related to insecure housing and social exclusion, which by the 1970s culminated in economic recession and restructuring. It was also in the 70s that the term “urban regeneration” started appearing in official documents. Between the late 1970s and early 1990s, urban regeneration was defined as a series of strategies specifically designed to generate economic and social benefits. Urban regeneration was then defined as the process from which local states and communities seek to bring investment, employment and consumption back on track as a way of improving the quality of life in an urban area. Regeneration in Global north was seen as an instrument for management, planning and maintenance of existing urban areas, rather than an instrument for planning and developing new ones. By bringing new life to the urban fabric, urban regeneration made declining areas more attractive and dynamic, enhancing the use of public space and the quality of life among residents.

Presently, In cities around the world, the growing social problems of unemployment, weak economic growth, and the lack of investment in infrastructure, increase fiscal tensions at both national and local levels, further reducing public spending and services, accelerating the growth in inequality amongst the population. Gradual urban degradation and the breakdown of traditional communities creates growing social problems such as alienation, racism, crime, divorce, and even psychological problems. At the same time, the physical infrastructures of large cities, especially in Europe, began to become obsolete and in need of replacement. However, this replacement and renewal of infrastructure has a very high cost and attendant risks. Governments are reluctant to accept the burden of cost and associated risk especially in times of economic crisis.

Our understanding of urban transformation of old industrial cities in India are to a considerable extent shaped by narratives from the Global North – where the past three decades had seen large scale transformation of nineteenth century factories, warehouse, railway yards and ports to recreational, residential and commercial land uses, through the rubrics of inner-city revitalization. Informed by the logic of sustainable and compact urban form, production spaces of the industrial era have given way to consumption spaces of the creative economy era. As the production economy of old Indian megacities centering on organized sector manufacturing units and its supplychain linkages in small-scale industrial economy terminally declined since 1990s , the void began to be filled by small scale – mainly informal – consumption economy. Land use changes to accommodate such demands are often happening through informal arrangements mediated by small-scale local political leadership and civic officials, bypassing formal regulatory mechanisms. Inadequacies in formal land use conversion mechanism are contributing towards growing informal practices and land conflicts. Since 1990s, with liberalisation of economy, Indian cities of various sizes specially the million plus ones are being remodelled as ”world class cities” to function as nodes of circulation of global finance and hi-tech activities of a diverse nature. Apparently the essential objective is to make these cities sufficiently investment friendly, acceptable to credit rating agencies and help them emerge as geostrategic points to further neoliberalism in Global south. To achieve this a homogenized planning vision including the redevelopment of apparently derelict inner-city areas being floated to attract private investment in rejuvenate the city core through intense gentrification of the urban space and recasting the urban form and its governance.

The event is providing a forum to discuss about the social implications of the existing paradigm of inner-city redevelopment in India, the challenges confronting social resilience of the city core and the possible way forward to address the same.