Smart City: A Failed Approach to Urban Regeneration for Indian Cities

Abstract

City is not a new phenomenon. Civilizations like Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus valley had a rich culture of urban life. However, not more than ten per cent of population of these civilizations used to live in cities (Modelski, 1997). Cities were dependent of villages to meet their everyday needs. They were geographically small and less populated as compared to the Modern Cities. Urban life was not much different in the cities of these civilization than that of the cities of pre-industrialization. Industrialization first happened in 16th century in North-West Europe specifically in Britain and Denmark. Later on it spread to other part of Europe and America. By 20th century it spread its legs to the African and Asian continent in the form of colonization. New modes of social and economic life became evident in all part of the world and this marked the onset of new age called ‘modernization.’ Modernization redefined urban life and urbanization became a mandatory precondition to modernization. Urban-Rural relationship experienced a paradigm shift. New socio-politico environment put villages at back stage. Village resources were drained out to support urban life. A dependency of rural upon urban was created. As a result urbanization increased rapidly. At present there are such countries in the world where urbanization has reached to more than 90 per cent (Geoffrey, 2005). India has 31 percent of her population living in urban area with a growth rate of 2.3 per cent per year (Mani, 2016).