Sustainable Urbanization in India

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxv

   PDF

2. Indian Urban Trajectories: Addressing ‘Sustainability’ across Micro-political Settings

   • Jenia Mukherjee

   Pages 1-22

3. Towards Sustainable Cities in India

   • Annapurna Shaw

   Pages 23-37

4. Governing Investments and Infrastructures

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 39-39

      PDF

   2. Structural Limits to Equitable Urbanization

      • Achin Chakraborty

      Pages 41-52

   3. Alternative Provision of Tenure Security and Rights to the Urban Poor: A Case Study from Ahmedabad

      • Atanu Chatterjee

      Pages 53-77

   4. State, Governance and Urban Poor: Insights from Visakhapatnam City

      • Debapriya Ganguly

      Pages 79-94

   5. Performing Governance in Urban Patna

      • Sheema Fatima

      Pages 95-108

   6. Sustainability of Urban Fringe Development and Management in NCT-Delhi: A Case Study

      • Ramakrishna Nallathiga, Suhani Taneja, Anusha Gupta, Bitul Gangal

      Pages 109-133

5. Managing Wastes and Wetlands

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 135-135

      PDF

   2. Evaluating Municipal Solid Waste Management in Indian Cities: A Comparative Assessment of Three Metros in South India

      • Shaik Sajith, Avinash Y. Kumar

      Pages 137-160

   3. Electronic Waste in Urban India: A Major Sustainability Challenge

      • Anwesha Borthakur

      Pages 161-179

   4. How Expensive is the Decay of East Kolkata Wetlands? An Estimation of Opportunity Cost for Kolkata

      • Debanjana Dey, Sarmila Banerjee

      Pages 181-205

   5. Urban Ecologies in Transition: Contestations around Waste in Mumbai

      • Sneha Sharma, D. Parthasarathy

      Pages 207-223

6. Exploring Ecologies and Environmentalisms

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 225-225

      PDF

   2. Sustainability or (Sustain)ability? Environmentalism and Shades of Power in a Metropolis

      • Amit Jain

      Pages 227-237

   3. Gentrification and Rising Urban Aspirations in the Inner City: Redefining Urbanism in Mumbai

      • Dwiparna Chatterjee, D. Parthasarathy

      Pages 239-255

   4. Communities in a ‘Protected’ Urban Space and Conservation Politics in Mumbai’s Sanjay Gandhi National Park

      • Amrita Sen, Sarmistha Pattanaik

      Pages 257-278

   5. Urban at the Edges: Mumbai’s Coastline Urbanisms

      • Hemantkumar A. Chouhan, D. Parthasarathy, Sarmistha Pattanaik

      Pages 279-293

   6. Contested Urban Waterscape of Udaipur

      • Neha Singh, D. Parthasarathy, N. C. Narayanan

      Pages 295-317

This comprehensive volume contributes to the existing and emerging body of literature on contemporary urbanization and the interactions between cities and the environment. The volume is contextualized against latest theories, debates and discussions on 'sustainable urbanization', the post‐2015 development agenda of the United Nations and India's official launching of the 'smart city' agenda. Reflecting on three major components of urban sustainability: investments and infrastructures, waste management, and urban ecologies and environmentalisms, it moves beyond the bi‐centric approach of only looking into the differences between the ‘developed’ and the ‘developing’ world and reflects on cities across India using polycentric methods and approaches. 


The Indian urban scenario is extremely complex and diverse, and solutions laid out in official and non‐official documents tend to miss these complexities. This volume includes innovative research acrossdifferent parts of India, identifying city‐specific sources of unsustainability and challenges along with strategies and potentials that would make the process of urban transition both sustainable and equitable. Complex explorations of non‐linear, bottom‐up, multisectoral process‐based local urban contexts across north, south, east and west Indian cities in this volume critique a general acceptance of the universalized concept of ‘sustainable urbanization’ and suggest ways that might be important for transcending inclusive theories to form practical policy-based recommendations and actions.

• urbanization
• sustainability
• sustainable urbanization
• smart cities
• urban waste management
• urban environmentalism
• United Nations policies on sustainable urbanization
• urban infrastructure in India
• UN Sustainable City Programme
• limits to equitable urbanization
• urbanization in fringe areas
• urbanization without infrastructure
• urban ecologies

• Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India

  Jenia Mukherjee

Jenia Mukherjee is Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. Her research interests include urban sustainability, environmental history, political ecology and development studies. In 2013, she was awarded the World Social Science Fellowship on Sustainable Urbanization by the International Social Science Council. She has published papers and chapters in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes and conducted international projects on urban environmental issues.  

Policies and ethics