Developing countries worldwide have been embarking on ‘smart cities’ programmes using new technology solutions to improve public services. Faced with severe problems of digital divide, poverty, unemployment, inequality, and financial and social exclusion, these cities have to negotiate hard in order to reach their goals. This book examines urban governance, digital divide, poverty, unemployment, and financial and social exclusion and presents a theoretical perspective on inclusive cities, urbanization, migration, slums,and affordable housing. The book aims at formulating and implementing an agenda for inclusive, equitable, and sustainable urban development in tune with the UN-SDGs, the New Urban Agenda of Habitat III, and India’s new national urban missions. It probes into the scope of adopting inclusionary urban planning, zoning, and housing, financing inclusive city development, and poverty alleviation through municipal finance reforms using findings and lessons from detailed field studies of Indian cities. It also suggests an agenda for slum-free and poverty-free cities in an attempt to make these cities more people-focused, humane, and inclusionary. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of political science, policy studies, public administration, urban studies, urban planning and management, urban sociology, and geography, besides being of interest to policy researchers, community workers, grass roots researchers, policymakers, and sociologists.

Become empowered to build and maintain smarter cities At its core, a smart city is a collection of technological responses to the growing demands, challenges, and complexities of improving the quality of life for billions of people now living in urban centers across the world. The movement to create smarter cities is still in its infancy, but ambitious and creative projects in all types of cities—big and small—around the globe are beginning to make a big difference. New ideas, powered by technology, are positively changing how we move humans and products from one place to another; create and distribute energy; manage waste; combat the climate crisis; build more energy efficient buildings; and improve basic city services through digitalization and the smart use of data. Inside this book you’ll find out: What it really means to create smarter cities How our urban environments are being transformed Big ideas for improving the quality of life for communities Guidance on how to create a smart city strategy The essential role of data in building better cities The major new technologies ready to make a difference in every community Smart Cities For Dummies will give you the knowledge to understand this important topic in depth and be ready to be an agent of change in your community.

This book is a comprehensive document visualizing the future of built environment from a multidisciplinary dimension, with special emphasis on the Indian scenario. The multidisciplinary focus would be helpful for the readers to cross-refer and understand others' perspectives. The text also includes case studies substantiating theoretical research. This method of composition helps the book to maintain rational balance among theory, research and its contextual application. The book comprises selected papers from the National Conference on Sustainable Built Environment. The chapters provide varied viewpoints on the core issues of urbanization and planning, especially in the economically diverse Indian market. This compilation would be of interest to students, researchers, professionals and policy makers.

This book examines urban governance, digital divide, poverty, unemployment, financial and social exclusion and presents a theoretical perspective on inclusive cities, urbanization, migration, slums and affordable housing.

This volume offers fresh insights into economic development and growth in emerging economies. It includes contributions covering topics such as natural disasters and income inequalities, the environmental impact of economic growth, social preferences, information and market disorder under democracy, inflation targeting and its covariates, economic empowerment. This book is intended for scholars in the field of economics, and those interested in furthering economic development.

The concept of the 'smart city' as the confluence of urban planning and technological innovation has become a predominant feature of public policy discourse. Despite its expanding influence, however, there is little consensus on the precise meaning of a 'smart city'. One reason for this ambiguity is that the term means different things to different disciplines. For some, the concept of the 'smart city' refers to advances in sustainability and green technologies. For others, it refers to the deployment of information and communication technologies as next generation infrastructure. This volume focuses on a third strand in this discourse, specifically technology driven changes in democracy and civic engagement. In conjunction with issues related to power grids, transportation networks and urban sustainability, there is a growing need to examine the potential of 'smart cities' as 'democratic ecologies' for citizen empowerment and user-driven innovation. What is the potential of 'smart cities' to become platforms for bottom-up civic engagement in the context of next generation communication, data sharing, and application development? What are the consequences of layering public spaces with computationally mediated technologies? Foucault's notion of the panopticon, a metaphor for a surveillance society, suggests that smart technologies deployed in the design of 'smart cities' should be evaluated in terms of the ways in which they enable, or curtail, new urban literacies and emergent social practices.

“Saath ensured communities understood not just their rights when it came to basic services but also their responsibilities. With three decades of experience in partnerships for equitable and rights-based urban development, Saath is well positioned not just to be a player, important as that is, but to also be a resource agency, a teacher and a guru, sharing its successes and failures to other institutions who are treading a similar path.” Mr Shankar Venkateswaran, Former Chief, TATA Sustainibilty Group and former Country Head, American India Foundation “This book not only highlights the good work done by Saath, but also provides food for thought in terms of what needs to be done to make our cities a much better place to live than what they are today. This book will certainly help inspire people to join NGOs in their own ways and help create an atmosphere for social change that will lead to a more inclusive growth.” Mr Dilip Chenoy, Secretary General, Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries “Urban India needs a large number of initiatives like those taken by SAATH to solve its large and diversified problems.” Prof Chetan Vaidya, former Director of the National Institute of Urban Affairs and School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, Trustee of Saath

An unflinching look at the aspiring city-builders of our smart, mobile, connected future. From Beijing to Boston, cities are deploying smart technology—sensors embedded in streets and subways, Wi-Fi broadcast airports and green spaces—to address the basic challenges faced by massive, interconnected metropolitan centers. In Smart Cities, Anthony M. Townsend documents this emerging futuristic landscape while considering the motivations, aspirations, and shortcomings of the key actors—entrepreneurs, mayors, philanthropists, and software developers—at work in shaping the new urban frontier.

This open access book revisits the theoretical foundations of urban planning and the application of these concepts and methods in the context of Southern countries by examining several case studies from different regions of the world. For instance, the case of Koudougou, a medium-sized city in one of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso, with a population of 115.000 inhabitants, allows us to understand concretely which and how these deficiencies are translated in an African urban context. In contrast, the case of Nueve de Julio, intermediate city of 50.000 dwellers in the pampa Argentina, addresses the new forms of spatial fragmentation and social exclusion linked with agro export and crisis of the international markets. Case studies are also included for cities in Asia and Latin America. Differences and similarities between cases allow us to foresee alternative models of urban planning better adapted to tackle poverty and find efficient ways for more inclusive cities in developing and emerging countries, interacting several dimensions linked with high rates of urbanization: territorial fragmentation; environmental contamination; social disparities and exclusion, informal economy and habitat, urban governance and democracy.