Paper short abstract:

Building on urban planning principles and the capability approach, the paper analyses key aspects of inclusiveness and sustainability of cities. Using the case study of the evolving project -'Smart Cities Mission' in India, it also explores the theory and practice of the new urban agenda.

Paper long abstract:

More than 400 million people live in urban India today, almost seven times the population at the time of independence in 1947. Urbanisation in India has been linked with social segregation and higher level of inequality. Indian cities are deeply divided between slums and the rest, gated colony and ghettos, 'safe' and crime-prone, accessible and congested, private and public spaces etc.

The capability approach offers a suitable framework to analyse this fragmentation as it affects the residents' ability to achieve a set of valuable doings and beings: to live with dignity, to value certain types of social relations and opportunities; to influence governance and shape their future in a certain way. This approach allows us to explore the paradigm of new urban agenda of inclusiveness and sustainability based on freedoms, agency, and interactions.

Urban planning principles apply logic of optimal utiliisation of space and efficacy of spatial forms and land uses. The paper examines how the capability approach coupled with urban planning principles can assist in conceptualising cities where all residents can have equal opportunities to live well in the urban space they share on a sustainable basis, with specific reference to the evolving project - 'Smart Cities Mission' in India, launched in 2015. The mission promises to develop '100 Smart Cities' over five years. The paper also critically examines how this mission fits with the new urban agenda and the SDGs, and whether it encompasses an integrated set of policies and innovations for inclusive and sustainable spaces.