The evolution of the smart cities agenda in India

Abstract

With the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, urban-led economic growth in India was firmly framed around a vision of 'smart cities', an ambiguous concept, which promotes the integration of information and communication technologies in cities to improve economic growth, quality of life, governance, mobility and sustainability. Given its current policy importance, this article examines how the smart cities agenda in India has emerged, what it has encompassed and its potential for transformative urban development. Reviewing policy documents and statements in combination with selected key stakeholder interviews, this article traces the emergence of the smart cities discourse in India, suggesting that the vision and concept of the smart city has shifted over time and has been evoked in different ways to serve different purposes. Overall, the smart cities agenda in India appears to be characterized by a failure to conceptualize and develop an integrated set of policies, and while a clearer (yet contested) concept is emerging, the prospects for success are uncertain.

Smart City Governance in Developing Countries: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Appendix A provides more detailed information about the 56 studies including country/initiative studied, method of the study and the aims/objectives of the study. Geographical locations (country/continent) of the included studies by descending order (based on the number of studies identified) India [28,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][67][68][69][70]79] China [45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53]71,76,80] Indonesia [54][55][56][57] Brazil [3,58,72] Malaysia [59][60][61] Vietnam [62,73] Mexico [63] Turkey [78] Egypt [81] Romania [64] Nepal [65] ...…”

“…Budget constraints and financing issues are among the most significant barriers identified in smart city development in developing countries [40,41,43,48,67,74,78,81]. Budget constraints restrain the ability of governments to develop smart cities, even though smart cities are projected to be more cost-effective in the longer term [40].…”

“…The financial viability of the government in financing smart city development is also halted by the astronomical costs involved for both governments and citizens [41,48,67]. For instance, in China, the Dong-tan eco-city project was estimated at around $1.3 billion USD, and this amount was unlikely to be shouldered by either business or government alone.…”

“…Lack of inclusivity of the original residents, including the poor and the marginalised populations whose lands are often acquired for smart city projects, is another major challenge smart city development in developing countries needs to confront [34,41,45,74]. Forced land acquisition [34], forced displacement of original residents [45], and spatial segregation leading to the creation of class enclaves [41] are some of the documented scenarios that violate the principle of inclusivity in smart city development. In China, forced displacement of the original residents in Dong-tan eco-city disrupted the original social fabric and affected livelihoods.…”

“…Lack of citizen participation or public involvement presents another major challenge for governments in smart city development in developing countries [33,41,43,48,84]. Many smart city projects had insufficient or no public involvement in the preparation of metropolitan development plans, leading to a monolithic policy formulation process and fragmented decision-making [43,48,84].…”