Urban Informality and Planning: Challenges to Mainstreaming Resilience in Indian Cities.

Abstract

Indian cities are experiencing multiple simultaneous transitions in demography, income, governance, physical expansion and infrastructures, amplifying existing challenges of providing housing, water, sanitation, employment and clean environment. With little capacity to cope with risks from the in situ climate, added risks from climate change present an overwhelming challenge. The global, long-term and highly uncertain nature of climate change phenomenon has contributed to the remoteness and sparseness of the treatment of climate change risks in the framing of city development policies. Building sustainable and climate resilient cities and communities require quite the opposite approach to conventional urban policies and plans. Several Indian cities have announced policies to build resilience to climate change; however, the extent of institutionalization of climate change resilience in the local government agenda is not well understood. This chapter reviews India’s urban development and governance structures in the context of urban climate change resilience. Drawing from the case study of Ahmedabad city’s Heat Action Plan, the paper highlights the key issues faced by local governments in mainstreaming climate change resilience in formal urban policies.