good places for a city planner

reneeautumn

Hi! I've got a degree in city planning and a passion for anything planning-related.

I figure my Lonely Planet India will have any info I want on famous architecture, but I wondered if anyone could share places of more general city planning interest.

For instance: I was excited to see that Chandigarh was partially or totally designed by Le Corbusier. I want to look more into that; just saw a mention of it in my LP last night. I also remember reading an article for school a year or two ago about Hydeabad, which I think was an example of great city planning in terms of modernizing and expanding to fit in new industries and offices.

I'm the kind of person who looks at the markets and says, Wow! The informal economy right here in front of me! How do the sidewalk widths or the size of the shop fronts affect businesses?

So if anyone else is similarly inclined and can point me to other towns or neighborhoods in cities, that would be great. Thanks!

Also: I don't know too much about international development issues, but any info on, for instance, neighborhoods that have been successful in fighting slum clearance or moving people from slums to more habitable housing would be great, too.

Links to articles would be great, too.

atala

The most prominent planned city in India is New Delhi. Chandigarh is more of a disaster area, socially and aestethically, as I have heard.

In Mumbai the world's largest planned city is under way:
http://www.bombay-india.net/areas/navimumbai.html

the opoponax

I don't now -- a lot of people seem to like Chandigarh. I didn't go, as it didn't seem all that interesting to me, but lots of people suggested that I go, including people who have been, have family living there, etc. and would know if it's a "disaster" or not.

It's definitely worth checking out if you're into urban planning.

Honestly the clash between planned and unplanned, and different levels and intensities of "planning", is there to be seen in a lot of cities and a lot of places in India that you wouldn't miss even if you weren't looking for that. A lot of cities have an old city/new city layout which really emphasizes the different approaches. Lucknow is another city that might interest you in this way -- not as a model of urban planning, but as a way of seeing some of the problems that face contemporary Indian urban design, especially with regard to communal and religious issues.

You also might want to check out Pune, which is growing by leaps and bounds, and because it's somewhat of an academic and technological center, a lot of those questions are being posed in a very interesting way. Pune is one of the few cities I've visited where there was a section of the paper dedicated to local urban planning initiatives and ideas for what the future of the city should be like! Of course it also has its share of "disaster" -- pollution/industrial runoff, over-dependence on cars, the fascination with Los Angeles style sprawl. But it's an interesting place to see how these questions are being asked and answered and how locals are getting involved at least at the level of dialogue.

You might be one of the few people who would genuinely benefit from a tour of Dharavi, in Mumbai.

If you really had the time and drive, I think there are some Indus Valley Civilization sites out in Gujarat somewhere -- they were the original city planners!

reneeautumn

Hey, y'all, thanks for the replies! I found just searching for "India" on planetizen's website (a city planning favorite) pulled up a lot of good articles from the past three years or so that offered a good summary of planning issues there now.

edwardseco

A friend did his city planner doctoral research in Ahmedabad..