Planning a ‘slum free' Trivandrum

Housing upgrade and the rescaling of urban governance in India

Datos Bibliográficos

ID13111908
AutoresGlyn Williams (0000-0003-0293-5574, University of Sheffield, autor de correspondencia), Umesh Omanakuttan (Centre For Development Studies), J Devika (Centre For Development Studies), N Jagajeevan
Año2018
Volumen37
Número2
Páginas256-276
Fecha de publicación2018-06-29
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEnvironment and Planning C Politics and Space (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2399-6544 • E-ISSN: 2399-6552
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/2399654418784305
OpenAlexW2811439813
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas31

This paper examines how India’s national urban development agenda is reshaping relationships between national, State and city-level governments. Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, the flagship programme that heralded a new era of urban investment in India, contained a range of key governance aspirations: linking the analysis of urban poverty to city-level planning, developing holistic housing solutions for the urban poor, and above all empowering Urban Local Bodies to re-balance relationships between State and city-level governments in favour of the latter. Here, we trace Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission’s implementation in Kerala’s capital city, Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram), where the city’s decentralised urban governance structure and use of ‘pro-poor’ institutions to implement housing upgrade programmes could have made it an exemplar of success. In practice, Trivandrum’s ‘city visioning’ exercises and the housing projects it has undertaken have fallen short of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission’s lofty goals. The contradictions between empowering cities and retaining centralised control embedded within this national programme, and the unintended city-level consequences of striving for Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission funding success, have reshaped urban governance in ways not envisaged within policy. As a result, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission has been important in rescaling governance relationships through three interlinked dynamics of problem framing, technologies of governance and the scalar strategy of driving reform ‘from above’ that together have ensured the national state’s continued influence over the practices of urban governance in India

Business · Civil engineering · Corporate governance · Economic growth · Economics · Political science · Urban planning · Engineering · Public Administration · Social and Economic Development in India · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Urban Planning and Governance · Finance