Sustainable Development for Creative Cities: People, Policies and Politics in the Global South
Course Design: (Module 1 and 2)
About the course: This course acknowledges the need to build sustainable andcreative cities- that are hard wired with the required infrastructure, policies and capacity to implement ‘out of the box’ solutions to urban problems. Students will be taught that cities are not only about policies, planning and infrastructure alone but about people and inclusive communities. It will showcase case studies of how a dynamic labour force, imaginative and novel ways of thinking - all constituents of software for urban development have the potential of offering ‘creative solutions’. The study of the dabbawallahs (team that delivers lunch boxes in Mumbai), the planned transport system of Curtiba, in Brazil, are illustrations of creative solutions for building sustainable cities.
This course will study the immense challenges; socio- political and economic in the process of upgrading infrastructure and transforming the existing land use patterns in any city. It will offer some basic theories to understand issues of urban politics and urban economics. Through studies centered on the city of Mumbai-the fourth populous city in the world, the course offers an insight into issues of; slums, their up-gradation, inclusion and exclusion and challenges or reordering cities with high population density. The course will examine the major changes in the existing social/ spatial set ups in cities in the process of urbanisation in the Global South namely; Mumbai, New Delhi, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Beijing, Shanghai, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. It will deal with the contested terrainsof understanding urban planning and development in cities with urban sprawls and unplanned settlements, such as in the case of Mumbai.It will also highlight the national programmes such as Vision Mumbai, drawn up by the global consulting firm, Mckinsey and Company, which envisions transforming Mumbai into a world class city through the provision inter- aliaof, infrastructural environment in the city to attract the free flow of international capital and global trade.
Against this backdrop, the course modules will seek an answer to the vexed questions of; constructing roads, highways, railroads, Olympic stadiums, developing waterfronts on land occupied by pre-existing settlements. The course studies how the state tries to reconcile the objectives of social equityand providesrightful recompense and restores livelihoodsof those displacedinvoluntarily. It aims to combine data gathered from empirical field research conducted in Mumbai and cities in Africa, Brazil toanalyze the tenuous relationship between economic growth and social equity in the current context of globalization and from a civil society perspectives on the ‘RTC framework’. .
Methodology: The methodology adopted will be a mixed method approach where quantitative as well as qualitative data will be used. Literature from interdisciplinary disciplines; Sociology, Cultural Anthropology, Development Studies and Economic will be studied. It will also be based on a case study method that contextualizes the lived experiences of people and depicts the social complexities based on field based studies in the city.
Course Objectives: These are to enable the student’sinter-alia to;
1 Critically assess development theories that address urban problems, Understand the multidisciplinary approached required to understand a city, To examine contemporary urban processes within a comparative framework,, To evaluate the overarching characteristics of cities in the contemporary context of globalization, and To study the peoples movements/ struggles in their endeavour towards building’ creative and sustainable cities.
Course structure: The course design cross cuts topics in module V and VI. It is divided into four units (total of 16 hrs) of intensive teaching in the classroom through the lecture- demonstration method. In addition to the usual text material, the instructor will use audio visual medium such as films.
Unit I
Course content: The course is designed along four main thematic areas, namely;
1. Understanding development in the Global South 2. Infrastructure development and its challenges 3. Development induced forced displacement 4. People’s Movements/ Right to City
Readings
Books
o Gottdiener, M. and L. Budd (2005) Key Concepts in Urban Studies, London: Sage o Harvey D. (2012) Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution, New York: Verso Books
o Jennifer Robinson, Introduction, pp. 1-12, in Ordinary Cities: between
modernity and development (e-book).
o Segbers K., S. Raiser and K. Volkmann (eds.) (2007) The Making of Global City Regions: Johannesburg, Mumbai/Bombay, São Paulo, and Shanghai, Maryland, USA: Johns Hopkins University Press o Sen, A. (1999) Development as Freedom. Oxford o UNDP: Human Development Report 2014
Articles
Lefebvre H. (1996) “Right to the city,” in Lefebvre H. (eds.) Writings on Cities,Wiley- Blackwell
2 Lin G.C.S. (2007) “Reproducing spaces of Chinese urbanization: new city-based and land- centered urban transformation,” Urban Studies, 44 (9): 1827-1855
Patel, S. (2006) “Urban studies: an exploration in theories and practices,” pp. 1-41 in Patel S. and K. Deb (eds.) Urban Studies, New Delhi: Oxford University Press
Broudehoux A. (2007) “Spectacular Beijing: the conspicuous construction of an Olympic metropolis,” Journal of Urban Affairs 29: 383-399
The Cape Town 2004 Olympic Bid,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 24 (2): 439-458
Carlos L., V. del Rio, and K. Felix (2005) “Sustainable redevelopment and innovation in a Global City: interdisciplinary design for São Paulo, Brazil” Journal of the City and Regional Planning Department, 2(1):22 at http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/focus/vol2/iss1/22
Chatterji R. (2005) ‘The production of community in Dharavi, Mumbai Plans, habitation and slum redevelopment’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 2005; 39; 197
Cohen B. (2006) “Urbanization in developing countries: current trends, future projections, and key challenges for sustainability,” Technology in Society, 28 (2006): 63–80
Neil Smith, New Globalism, new urbanism: Gentrification as global urban strategy,” Antipode, 34(3), pp. 427-450, 2002
SaskiaSassen, Chapter 1 and 2, “Place and Production in the Global Economy,” “The Urban Impact of Economic Globalization,” in Cities in a World Economy, 2000
Sujata Patel (2007) “Mumbai: the megacity of a poor country,” in Segbers K., S. Raiser and K. Volkmann (eds.) The Making of Global City Regions: Johannesburg, Mumbai/Bombay, São Paulo, and Shanghai, Maryland, USA: Johns Hopkins University Press
Allegra M. et al. (2013) “Rethinking cities in contentious times: the mobilisation of urban dissent in the ‘Arab Spring’,” Urban Studies, July 2013, 50: 1675-1688
Cernea M. (2007) “Financing for development: benefit-sharing mechanisms in population resettlement,” Economic and Political Weekly, 42(12): 1033-1046
Purcell M. (2009) “Resisting neo-liberalization: communicative planning or counter hegemonic movements?” Planning Theory, 8 (2): 140-165
Risbud N. (2003) “Urban slums reports: the case of Mumbai, India,” understanding slums: case studies for the Global Report on Human Settlements 2003 at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu- projects/Global_Report/pdfs/Mumbai.pdf
Films
3 1. Mahanagar (Bengali, Satyajit Ray, 1963)- Shot in the first half of 1963 in Calcutta, the film reflects the contemporary realities of the urban middle-class, where women going to work is no longer merely driven by ideas of emancipation but has become an economic reality.
2. Whose Utopia (Chinese, 2006)- Cao Fei shows the interaction between workers and machines, the dreams of the workers. The film shows the interplay of dreams when confronted with the harsh realities of factory life. For more, read http://teachartwiki.wikispaces.com/Whose+Utopia%3F--Cao+Fei (24 September 2013)
3. City of God (Brazilian, Fernando Meirelles, 2002)- It depicts the growth of organized crime in the Cidade de Deus suburb of Rio de Janeiro, between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1980s. (some more Brazilian movies- http://afonso.hubpages.com/hub/Top-5-Brazilian-movies and http://www.brazilmycountry.com/brazilian-movies/)
4. Tsotsi (Afrikaans, Gavin Hood, 2005)- The dark underbelly of the golden city, Johannesburg, is revealed in the life of a teenage township tsotsi (thug) in the ghetto alter-ego of Johannesburg that is Soweto (for more movies- http://goafrica.about.com/od/southafrica/tp/bestmoviessouthafrica.htm)
5. Slum Futures (Mumbai), 2004, 23 min
RenuModi
27 September 2013
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