Learning from Small CitiesÂ
Learning from Small CitiesÂ
2020-2022
2020-2022
Research Fellow in Critical GIS, UCL
Research Fellow in Critical GIS, UCL
The "Learning From Small Cities" project, which I was involved in as a Research Fellow in Critical GIS at University College London, was a comprehensive initiative that aligns closely with my research interests. This project, running from 2018 to 2021 and funded by ESRC-ICSSR, was led by Prof. Ayona Datta and her team. It aimed to forge stronger collaborations between UK and Indian academics and societal partners, focusing on three small cities in India that were part of the country's 100 Smart Cities programme. My role involved critically analyzing how these cities' adoption of smart technologies and infrastructures contributed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in the context of sustainable urbanization.
The project employed interdisciplinary approaches, including urban studies, social and cultural geography, sociology, and geoinformatics, to provide evidence-based insights for sustainable city and community policies. My work, in particular, delved into how these urban transformations under the smart city initiatives could potentially serve as a model for sustainable urbanisation globally.
Objectives of the project included generating innovative scholarship in urban geography and smart urbanism, understanding the experiences of state authorities, urban administrators, and citizens during these urban transformations, and creating detailed evidence bases for policy-makers. A significant aspect of my involvement was to evaluate how the intersection of smart urban planning and technology-driven initiatives in these Indian cities could inform or reform sustainable urbanisation practices worldwide.
The research also involved exploring how small cities become test-beds for India's urban futures, the translation of state-imagined urban futures into actual smart cities, and the lived experiences of citizens amid these changes. It aimed to create pathways for producing socially-just urban futures and develop tools like a 'smart city asset toolkit' for informing smart city planners and policymakers. This project not only investigated the transformation dynamics of India's small cities into smart cities but also offered a lens through which to examine the potential of smart urban planning in contributing to sustainable urbanization on a global scale.