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Coastal erosion is a growing problem worldwide and seriously threatens coastal infrastructure ecosystems and communities, particularly in areas where urban development has encroached on natural shorelines. Salty urbanism, an approach to urban design that incorporates natural features and works in harmony with coastal environments, offers a promising solution to this problem. This review explores strategies for coastal erosion reduction, particularly emphasizing community participation within the context of salty urbanism. By investigating the advantages of incorporating salty urbanism and community engagement in coastal management through a literature study, this paper explores a case study-Paradeep, a coastal city in India. The aim is to comprehend how salty urbanism principles have been assimilated into coastal erosion initiatives in Paradeep and to identify potential opportunities for further integration to maximize benefits. The results emphasize the importance of integrating salty urbanism and community participation into coastal erosion management strategies, especially in coastal areas where these principles are either lacking or only minimally incorporated, often without a clear recognition of the term "salty urbanism" itself. Utilizing a mixed-methods research approach, the study integrates primary data from case studies and interviews, along with inferences from literature studies to gain valuable insights from coastal community residents and stakeholders. The findings will provide a significant contribution to advancing strategies and initiatives that advocate for sustainable coastal development and management by suggesting ways to incorporate a community participation-based salty urbanism approach in similar contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the development of a public transport trip planner to help the urban traveller in planning and preparing for his commute using public transportation in the city. A Genetic Algorithm (GA) approach that handles realtime Global Positioning Systems (GPS) data from buses of the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) in Chennai City (India) has been used to develop the planner. The GA has been shown to provide good solutions within the problem's computation time constraints. The developed trip planner has been implemented for static network data first and subsequently extended to use real-time data. The "walk mode" and Chennai Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) have also been included in the geospatial database to extend the route-planner's capabilities. The algorithm has subsequently been segmented to speed up the prediction process. In addition, a temporal cache has also been introduced during implementation, to handle multiple queries generated simultaneously. The results showed that there is promise for scalability and citywide implementation for the proposed real-time route-planner. The uncertainty and poor service quality perceived with public transport bus services in India could potentially be mitigated by further developments in the route-planner introduced in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of the modern commercial political-economic system is influencing rural to urban migration in ad-dition to urban morphology. Slum settlements are one of the major results of rapid and often unregulated rural to urban migration. Slum settlements create a major problem for developing cities. The slum settlements do not fit the leadership’s vision for a modern city, one that can be marketed to outside businesses and organizations for investment. As a result they are often seen as a nuisance by the leadership and targeted for destruction, especially when the land of the slum is valuable. The process of slum removal is therefore a political process.This is especially relevant in India, where slums are growing at an almost unimaginable rate. The Delhi Development Agency views slums as the type of settlement that negatively impacts their vision of creating a “world class city.” In the Kathputli colony, a slum settlement in Delhi, development has been occurring for almost 50 years as the region is a vibrant mix of local production and circus performers. In recent years, as Delhi develops outward, the Delhi Development Agency has looked to redevelop Kathputli. This redevelopment is being presented as an improvement for the residents of the slum, but in interviews with the residents, they are skeptical of the end result. The goal of this paper is to employ Kathputli as a case study to view the life cycle of a typical slum community, using Wolfel, Richmond and Grazaitis’ (2017) framework of urban development to demonstrate how the complexity of slum development, slum dynamics and slum destruction. As more people continue to migrate to a city, understanding the dynamics of slum communities becomes more essential if one is to successfully operate in a large urban area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the conceptualization of Urban Green Space (UGS) within India's urban planning process. In doing so, the context of the Smart Cities Mission (SCM), which is a flagship programme for urban transformation in the country, is chosen. We identified four key elements of UGS planning in the literature – quantity, accessibility, multifunctionality, and connectivity. Using this as a framework for analysis, we reviewed the national SCM guidelines and plans of four cities – Gwalior, Bhagalpur, Chandigarh, and Udaipur – in depth. We find that multifunctionality does not feature in the planning of UGS, and the notable absence of a connected, strategic vision suggests the need for strategic-level planning and assessment that goes beyond the project level in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the hallmarks of urban planning in recent decades has been focused on slum upgrading through improvements in service delivery, better housing and employment policies. This paper explores community participation as an instrument in providing affordable housing for urban poor in India and abroad. Community Participation (CP) creates an appreciation of how people can present their claims in front of development agencies. There is an increasing recognition that the urban development policy framework be inclusive of the people residing in the slums and informal settlements. It is argued in the available literature that community participation and active involvement of the beneficiaries is critical to the success of a programme as people's participation advances their interests, needs, and aspirations in the development discourse. Collaborative initiatives give rise to an enabling approach through which we can achieve a more effective mobilization of community resources and skills to complement public resource allocations. We can increase well-being of deprived section of society by shifting from a needs-based approach to asset based community development. This paper focuses on conceptual framework of community participation along with successful examples of participatory models adopted by the Indian Institute of Human Settlement and Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India to accomplish the target of Housing for All. The discussion will be limited to Community Participation in Slum Improvement Schemes. Various paradigms of Slum Improvement will be briefly discussed. The scope of participatory approach will be evaluated with respect to ladder of participation as established by Sherry Arnstein and Marisa B. Guaraldo Choguill. The paper also makes recommendations within administrative boundaries of institutional framework of local body and provide valuable lessons that can be applied to the implementation of the new urban Sustainable Development Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying current and future informal regions within cities remains a crucial issue for policymakers and governments in developing countries. The delineation process of identifying such regions in cities requires a lot of resources. While there are various studies that identify informal settlements based on satellite image classification, relying on both supervised or unsupervised machine learning approaches, these models either require multiple input data to function or need further development with regards to precision. In this paper, we introduce a novel method for identifying and informal settlements using street intersection data. With such minimal input data, we attempt to provide planners and policy-makers with a pragmatic tool that can aid in identifying informal zones in cities. The algorithm of the model is based on spatial statistics and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). The proposed model relies on defining informal settlements based on two ubiquitous characteristics of informal settlements. We applied the model in five major cities in Egypt and India that have spatial structures in which informality is present. These cities are Greater Cairo, Alexandria, Hurghada and Minya in Egypt, and Mumbai in India. The predictSLUMS model shows high validity and accuracy for identifying and predicting informality within the same city the model was trained on or in different ones of a similar context. To enable this model to be used as a pragmatic tool for future prediction or further research concerning informal settlements and slums, we have made the python code for the pre-trained ANN models of the five studied cities. • A modelling framework is developed for predicting informal settlements. • The model only requires street intersection data as input, making it broadly applicable. • The model is applied to five cities; Greater Cairo, Alexandria, Hurghada and Minya in Egypt, and Mumbai in India. • By training the model using data from one city, the model can predict informal settlements in another city. • Using ground truth data of planning status for validation, the model achieves accuracy of between 82.1 and 97.6%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper dwells on the complex representation of the Indian slums in Katherine Boo's 2012 novel Behind the Beautiful Forevers. Leaving behind the conventional oversentimentalised and over-optimistic literary and cinematographic depictions, the writer places her text on the boundary between fiction and journalism, discussing poverty, inequality, hope and despair in one of the most surprising cities of the globalised world, from a new perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large section of the population around the globe is migrating towards urban settlements. Nations are working toward smart city projects to provide a better wellbeing for the inhabitants. Cyber-physical systems are at the core of the smart city setups. They are used in almost every system component within a smart city ecosystem. This paper attempts to discuss the key components and issues involved in transforming conventional cities into smart cities with a special focus on cyber-physical systems in the Indian context. The paper primarily focuses on the infrastructural facilities and technical knowhow to smartly convert classical cities that were built haphazardly due to overpopulation and ill planning into smart cities. It further discusses cyber-physical systems as a core component of smart city setups, highlighting the related security issues. The opportunities for businesses, governments, inhabitants, and other stakeholders in a smart city ecosystem in the Indian context are also discussed. Finally, it highlights the issues and challenges concerning technical, financial, and other social and infrastructural bottlenecks in the way of realizing smart city concepts along with future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian cities seem particularly prone to investigation through narrative both for the abundance of material about the origins and the development of urban centres from ancient to medieval times--which often contrasts with the relative scarceness of purely 'historical' data--and for the tendency to elaborate modern and contemporary "a posteriori narrative- myths" (Aravot 1995) through popular media such as cinema and television. Using methodological tools provided by research on narratives and analysing two case studies with reference to the cities of Ayodhyā and Bengaluru, the present paper investigates the processes and the dynamics by which narrations on cities are made to evolve. It builds on the conceptual frame provided by recent narratological scholarship, with a specific reference to the "increasing recognition of the ubiquity of narrative within any culture, in discursive practices as diverse as theology, historiography, economics, legal practice, political speech-making, everyday conversation and philosophy" (Rigney 1992: 263-264, italics in the original). Focusing on the 'constructive' aspect of narrative, seen as a discourse that intrinsically involves the active (and determinant) participation of the narrator, it argues that this perspective of analysis allows the researcher to interpret urban narratives eminently in political terms, or within relations of power--which also legitimizes the use of narrative materials for historical research. In broader terms, it contends that narration can give back structured information about the values and the practices which characterize a given society, and which are selectively communicated by the narrator(s); and that, in turn, this quality of 'restoring' structured information may shed more light on the inherent nature of narration itself and lead to further theorization both on its creative dynamics and its created artefacts. Practice of exploration of narration in a context of open communication with other disciplines may undoubtedly facilitate this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies indicate that India must invest more than $150 billion over the next 5 years in the development of urban infrastructure. Urban local bodies lack the financial resources and the capacity to develop these projects on their own, pointing to a large role that public-private partnerships (PPPs) need to play in the development of urban infrastructure. This paper uses a combination of archival sources, case studies, and insights from a recently concluded roundtable discussion on PPPs to highlight five key barriers that PPP projects face in the urban Indian context. These barriers are a distrust between the public and private sector, a lack of political willingness to develop PPPs, the absence of an enabling institutional environment for PPPs, a lack of project preparation capacity on the part of the public sector, and poorly designed and structured PPP projects. A series of measures that the Government of India has undertaken to enable PPPs are evaluated and it is observed that these programs address only three of the five barriers identified. A set of nine additional strategies emanating from the roundtable are then proposed, that, in addition to the existing measures outlined by the Government of India, can help comprehensively address the challenges that PPPs in urban infrastructure that India is facing. This could help improve the quantity and quality of infrastructure services in Indian cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution has become a matter of grave concern, particularly in mega-cities and urban areas, where the situation is alarming and becoming more and more severe day-by-day and warrants, therefore, careful planning to facilitate future industrial development. Site selection, with the objective of minimizing adverse environmental impacts based on environmental criteria is a vital prerequisite, particularly for air polluting industries. In order to locate any air polluting industry, the assimilative capacity of the region needs to be assessed carefully and planned accordingly, so that the receiving environment is not adversely affected. Assimilative capacity of a region/airshed, widely represented through the ventilation coefficient by many researchers in the past, does not give a clear picture about the amount of emission load that can be assimilated in a given region. The ventilation coefficient, at best, can only present a broad picture about the air pollution dispersion potential (low, medium or high) of the region. A modified approach, which utilizes air quality modelling as a tool to estimate the maximum allowable emission load that a region can assimilate without violating the stipulated standards, has been used for estimating the assimilative capacity of the air environment. Details of this approach have been presented in this paper through a case study carried out for the Kochi region, located in the Kerala State of India. A variety of emission and meteorological scenarios have been considered and critical emission loads have been estimated. This approach shall provide necessary technical guidance to the environmental regulatory authorities as well as to the industries in planning environment friendly industrial development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The mainstream debate on urban development looks either at urban development or sustainable cities, and tends to miss out on people-centred approaches to development. The former addresses the issues of economic growth, whereas the latter that of environmental problems, to the exclusion of development concerns of the poor. The new perspective of Sustainable Cities in the South is an 'inclusive approach', which puts the vision of the poor and marginalised sectors at the centre and includes all the dimensions of development in a holistic and synergetic manner. The paper presents such a vision of sustainable cities in India and describes activities aimed at reaching this vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At 300 million, the urban population of India is still less than one third of its total population. It is projected that by 2045 nearly 800 million Indians will be living in its cities - more than the total population of the whole of present-day Europe. Already, the infrastructures of all the six mega- and 40 million-plus cities of India are under very severe stress. The ground water is depleting rapidly, pollution is reaching crisis levels, the transportation system is in disarray, and sewerage and sanitation are in a shambles, all of which is affecting public health and hygiene. This explosive state of affairs has not been adequately appreciated at the national and international level. This paper analyses the programmes and policies adopted so far to correct the situation, identifies their shortcomings, and looks into the new initiatives that have been undertaken to make the cities self-sustainable units of governance and reliable service providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fecal Sludge Treatment or Septage Management is increasingly being recognised as an effective and appropriate method to scale urban sanitation systems to achieve safe sanitation, particularly in small towns and cities. As implementation progresses, data-based evidence is emerging, highlighting the challenges faced on the ground, and the requisite planning necessary to address them. This paper presents the findings, challenges and possible ways ahead from a study conducted to provide data for Fecal Sludge Management (FSM) planning for a small town in a state in southern India. With the objective of understanding the nature of containment structures and on-ground desludging practices, 8,001 households and 1,667 establishments were studied in Periyanaicken-Palayam (PNP), a non-sewered Town Panchayat in Coimbatore District, Tamil Nadu, to provide evidence for effective decision-making. The study showed wide variations in the sizing and design of the containment systems, which, when combined with the irregular frequency of desludging, has implications for FSM planning by municipal bodies. This study also highlights the methodological difficulties in studying containment systems, exposes a significant response bias given the limited understanding of containment systems within households, and spotlights the difficulty in physically verifying the reported data given the underground nature of these systems. • Wastewater treatment, an SDG6 focus, requires broadening scope of urban sanitation. • Methodological difficulties exist in data collection on containment systems. • Containments design and construction deviations from norms impact sanitation chain. • Methods and practices to standardise new, and retrofit old containments needed. • FSM planning needs to be cogniscant of variations in containment systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]