REVIEW

ON
URBAN REFORMS: THE URBAN PLANNING
IN NEW PARADIGM

Submitted by -
KRATI MAHESHWARI

Submitted To -
Prof. J.H Ansari

FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE & EKISTICS

2017-2018

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 INTRODUCTION
The issues of control, professional methods, attitudes, and responsibilities are most hotly debated
among planning theorists and practitioners, particularly in the case of complex social, economic and
political networks of settlements. Town plans then become an instrument of social class differentiation,
an expression of cultural dominance, a means to control standards of safety, hygiene, construction, and
even moral well-being. It is indeed tacit belief in professionalization of knowledge, and of planning
solutions that first created and now continues to emphasize the divisions between thinkers and doers
and between the contrivances of projects and town plans that represent systems of management and
governance rather than the realities of the community life.

Planners so far have considered only physical planning in the Master Plans and have failed to recognize
social, economic, environmental, and legal aspects of a development plan, which have induced adverse
effects in the urban system, rather than facilitating desired objectives. This rigidity of thought, arising
from a failure in comprehension has frustrated the development of practical, imaginative, relevant
development plans, as required by the realities of contemporary situation in Indian town and cities.

However, cities worldwide are witnessing that all sorts of boundaries are beginning to breakdown: in
trade between cities; in trans-national migrations; in the global space of flows of finance capital; in
political coalitions; in male and female social domains; in the fusions and hybrid creations of culture;
and so forth. For planners, it specifically means that the traditional concerns with land use are being
brought into relation with sustainable economic growth, social diversity and justice and spatial equity.
Planning for structural change is therefore increasingly construed as a social learning process that
requires continuous monitoring and critical reflection on the part of planners and relevant publics. How
such planning is to be institutionalized is itself one of the greatest challenges that have to be faced. In
this perspective urban reforms are a means to suggest institutional mechanisms for effective, efficient,
and transparent governance of urban planning.

A. PARADIGMS IN PLANNING - In India two distinct paradigms have been operative to scale up
the supply of housing and infrastructure. They are providers and supporters. In its simplest form,
if the goal is providing houses or infrastructure for reducing housing/ infrastructure deficits and
improves the quality of houses / infrastructure, then the public authorities and / or formal or
private developers have to control the production. It has, however, been growing progressively
out of favor with most financial organizations, which lend funds and, research institutions and
thus is widely discounted in the policy statements of public agencies, at least at theoretical level.
This is the paradigm, which is mostly discussed and encouraged now by the multilateral
agencies.

B. MAJOR ASPECTS OF SUPPORT PARADIGM - There are three major aspects which function
together for the support paradigm. They are flexibility, participation and enablement, and are
influencing in framing policies and also in execution of policies. These three aspects are
discussed below.

1. Flexibility: In physical terms, it is directed at management in deciding sizes, types, and dwelling
mix for families. It is the basis on which to rationalize the production, to reconcile both
standardization and variety. Flexibility is a parameter, by which one can measure the capacity of

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 physical settings to be easily modified, which could undergo a series of incremental
transformations in order to ensure good fit over the years.
2. Participation: Community participation as incorporated in the official jargon of planning and
design is an ambiguous and powerful idea. It usually refers to the process by which professionals,
families, community groups, government officials and others get together to workout solutions,
preferably in formal or informal partnership.
3. Enablement: Enablement is a process by which a neighborhood can be developed, and it
gradually improves its conditions of growth and change in response to prevailing socio-
economic, physical and environmental conditions. It implies that the plan must be flexible to
accommodate changes and incremental growths. Whether in program making, design or
execution of programs, development; enablement is centrally concerned with the practice of
interventions in different stages of development. In this sense, it is an operational side of the
support paradigm.

C. GOVERNANCE OF URBAN PLANNING - There is no doubt that planning for city regions is an
inherently collaborative practice. This follows from its multi–scalar settings, the intertwined
economic, environmental, social, political and aesthetic objectives of spatial development; the
growing focus on special projects that fall outside of planning’s regulatory environment, and
exigencies of action planning. It is likely that planners will have to relinquish their traditional desire
for the close co-ordination of spatial development, where all aspects of development are carefully
articulated in a plan designed to serve as bacon light for all actors. Each collective actor brings
special information and knowledge to the table, expresses views that derive from different value
perspectives, and has different interests at stake that, nevertheless, may overlap to some extent
with those of others. It is these overlapping interests that form the basis of collaborative action. As
trust among actors is gradually established, and each of the participants becomes aware of the
different ‘rationalities’ that are activated during ongoing negotiations, the stage is set for social
learning. At the same point, formal ‘partnerships’ that take a contractual form are often
established. But such arrangements grow out of the process; they are not its starting point.

MY OPINION - The global economy has set cities against each other in a desperate race for a share
of foot loose capital and trade. In this perspective cities are expected to sell themselves to global capital
or to ‘offer real value - to capture the investor’s imagination. Consequently, static document –
orientation of conventional Master Plans, which work quite well under conditions of slow and
incremental change, has to be substituted with ‘strategic focus’. Planning, therefore, has to become
more innovative in finding new solutions and discovering new institutional arrangements through which
change can be affected, rather than serving mainly as a restraint on market forces in the physical
development of cities and regions.
In the end, all planning must be held accountable – to citizens, the corporate stockholders of
participating business interests and the base organization of the civil society. And because it takes
place in the public domain, it must be designed as a transparent process that is open to public
inspection. Urban reforms in this perspective are policies that seek balance between needs and
desires of global capital, and needs and aspirations of our country.