Spatial plans in post-liberalization India: Who’s making the plans for fast-growing Indian urban regions?

Abstract

This article asks who is making the plans for India’s fast-growing urban regions? It begins with the adopted conceptual framework illustrating how the perception of plans within the planning discipline has begun to change with an increasing recognition that a more diverse mix of efforts pursued by different planning players, rather than a singular state-sponsored master plan, shapes contemporary cities and urban regions. Employing a careful analysis of spatial plans and interviews with planners and officials, the article next explains the 4 main kinds of planning efforts I found in India’s National Capital Region (NCR): a growing number of state-led plans at different spatial scales; sectoral plans made by public sector agencies like the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI); project-specific plans, such as those sponsored by private developers and emerging entrepreneurs; and tacit and spontaneous plans, including those pursued by local actors, that often leverage unforeseen opportunities, contesting and transforming the preceding plans. The article concludes by calling upon scholars to pay attention to the interplay between these different kinds of plans that are beginning to shape urban India in an unprecedented manner.

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