India: the Urban Transition
| Author | Henrik Valeur |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Urban planning |
| Genre | Monograph |
| Publisher | The Architectural Publisher B (Copenhagen) |
|
Publication date
|
1 July 2014 |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | 344 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 893406601 |
India: the Urban Transition is a book by the Danish architect-urbanist Henrik Valeur, curator of an award winning exhibition about the urban transition of China. The book is based on the author's collaboration with activists, bureaucrats, developers, entrepreneurs, researchers and students in India between 2010 and 2014. With experiences from both China and India, Henrik Valeur asks whether India can “use urbanization as a driver of economic, human and social development like China has done?”
The author discusses some of the problems related to the urban transition of India. These problems include air pollution, the contamination and depletion of fresh water resources, the precarious food situation, the lack of proper housing, and various environmental and human health problems related to motorized transportation. He also proposes some possible solutions using the cities of Bangalore in South India and Chandigarh in North India as his primary cases.
India: the Urban Transition is subtitled A Case Study of Development Urbanism. Development urbanism is described as a multidisciplinary field focusing on urban development as a possible means to combat poverty and protect the environment in the so-called "developing world". The concept of development urbanism can be seen as an alternative to the concept of "smart city". Said Henrik Valeur: “There are obviously too many unresolved problems in our cities today, but my point is that many of these problems can be solved by very simple and inexpensive means. Smart technologies are rarely necessary and may, in fact, create more problems than they solve”.
The book is made up of travel essays, opinion pieces and interviews, research papers and project proposals including many photos, diagrams, maps, plan drawings and renderings. The content is structured into four parts: 1. An introduction consisting of two chapters; one about urbanization as a driver of change, including historical references from the first civilizations to modern-day China, and one about some of the challenges and opportunities India faces with regard to urbanization. 2. Two essays about the author’s experiences working in the cities of Chandigarh and Bangalore, told with text and photos. 3. The central part of the book consists of five chapters about five basic concerns of human existence and well-being in urban settings: air, water, food, housing and mobility. Each chapter discusses one of these concerns and provides a proposal to address it. The proposals include the use of plants and natural ventilation to create clean indoor air in an office building, the revitalization of an existing system of water canals, the creation of vertical kitchen gardens in a so-called rehabilitation colony, a design for self-build, low-cost housing for slum dwellers and a strategy for making an entire neighborhood car-free. 4. The epilogue is an interview with Ashwin Mahesh, a scientist who turned environmental activist, development worker and technology entrepreneur before becoming a political candidate for a newly formed political party in India. In addition, the book contains a preface, acknowledgement, references, index and credits.
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