Paper tries to look at the option of planning in order to promote good urban governance in order to make cities inclusive, equitable and sustainable

1. URBAN PLANNING - KEY TO GOOD URBAN GOVERNANCE
Prof. J.K. Gupta
Director, College of Architecture, IET, Bhaddal
(Former Senior Town Planner, State of Punjab, India)
1. PROLOGUE
1.1 Contemporary Urban world has its genesis in three major developments which inter-alia include
growth in size, number and spread of human settlements; increase in the proportion of population
that lives in urban centres and transformation of the society based on large proportion of
population making urban centres as place of residence besides following a pattern of life which
has its origin and character in urban environment. Combination of these three developments has
created a system which is both powerfully deep seated and self- reinforcing. It has rapidly
changed the spatial organization and economy, which has impacted both local and global
environment.
1.2 Cities as economic and social system in space
involving large concentration of population;
concentration of Industry; principle centers of
economy and polity; large consumer markets
and highly trained workforce, represent most
viable and suitable places with significant, social
and economic achievements. Cities are known
to contribute disproportionately to economic
growth and social transportation by providing
economics of scale and proximity that allows
industry and commerce to flourish. They also offer optimum location for services and facilities
which require large population threshold and markets for its operational efficiency. Despite
housing large population at higher densities, cities are known to offer opportunities and quality of
life better than its rural counterparts.
1.3 Looking in the Indian context urbanization is, primarily and essentially, characterized by its
massiveness, duality and contradictions. Despite the fact that level of urbanization merely stands
at 31.11% in 2011, number of urban dwellers are placed at 377 million. Considering the massive
differential between urban and rural growth rate (2.1% against 0.7%), number of urban dwellers
will share parity with rural population by 2050 AD. Next four decades are likely to witness
enormous growth in terms of numbers of urban centres, their size and population. It is estimated
that by 2050 AD number of Metro Cities will go beyond 100 with Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi
occupying distinct place and rating among the largest urban centres at the global level. In the
given context urban centres are likely to emerge as major settlements, housing large proportion of
Indian population.

2. 1.4 Urban India besides housing large population
concentrated in a limited area, is also known to
make sizeable contribution to the national
economy. It is said that in the year 1951, with
level of urbanization placed at merely 17.29%,
contribution of Urban India to the gross national
product was of the order of 29%. In the year
1971, contribution recorded was 37% with level of
urbanization placed at 19.91%. In 1991, with
urbanization going up to 25.72%, contribution level was recorded as 50%. In the year 2001, urban
centres contributed 60% share in GNP with urbanization placed at 27.78%. It is estimated that by
2021, when urbanization will be in the range of 35-38%, contribution of urban India will be in the
range of 70-72% .With highly positive correlation between urbanization and GNP, it can be safely
visualized that urban centres will be major drivers of Indian economy and story-writers of its
growth and development. This calls for critically and objectively looking at the urban centres in
terms of their pattern of growth and development and evolving strategies which make them more
productive, efficient, healthy and sustainable.
1.5 Despite distinct advantages and critical role, urban centres have not been growing in a planned
and rational manner. Emerging urban scenario on Indian canvas is that of duality and
contradiction where large number of slums are over-shadowing the city growth; where slums and
state-of-the-art buildings are rubbing shoulders; where poverty and prosperity compete with one-
another; where unplanned development has emerged as the order of the day; where informal
sector govern the growth and where basic amenities and services are eluding the majority of
urban residents. Majority of urban centres continue to face problems of acute housing shortage
and rapid uncontrolled growth resulting into haphazard expansion with sub-standard
infrastructure, adversely impacting the quality of life of majority of urban residents. The existing
inadequacies have further resulted into inefficient traffic and transportation besides uncontrolled
rapid growth and proliferation of informal sector. Poverty and environment have emerged as the
major issues and greatest threat to the urban
dynamism. In addition, urban centres are fast
emerging as largest consumers of non-renewal
resources and energy, adversely impacting the
sustainability both at local and global level.
They are also generating enormous amount of
waste which is grossly polluting water, air and
land based necessities of human existence,
growth, development and survival.

3. 1.6 Looking at the entire context, Indian urbanization can be called a urbanization of poverty,
population and pollution marked by large concentration of people in a small area; rapid growth of
urban poverty; inadequate and inefficient state of service delivery; unregulated expansion and
pollution which have emerged as some of the major concerns of urban growth and development.
The present state of affairs of urban sector can be largely attributed to the way urban centres are
being managed and governed. In the
Indian context, urban governance is
conspicuously ineffective, resultantly
inefficient. Major problems faced by urban
centres have their genesis in the poor
quality of urban governance in these
centres. Poor urban governance has at its
roots in the poor urban planning. Urban
planning which is considered as the key to
overcome majority of the urban problems,
is, by and large, absent in the majority of urban settlements. Most of the urban centres are being
managed and developed by proxy. Therefore, in order to leverage the inherent potential of urban
centres, it becomes critical that urban centres are effectively and efficiently governed through a
well defined and innovative system of planning and development. Effective, efficient and people
centric urban governance can be put on professional pedestal only through the mechanism of
planned development. In this context, role of physical planners and planning profession assumes
critical importance to usher an era of high quality of urban governance.
2. GOOD GOVERNANCE AND URBAN PLANNING
2.1 Urban Governance as an issue, as an option and as a strategy to leverage the inherent potential
of urban centres has been well recognized and assumed critical importance in the context of ever
growing role and importance of urban centres in the overall economic growth, employment
generation and contribution such centres make to the national/state wealth. Accordingly, good
urban governance ranks high on the agenda of all welfare governments. With urban centres
growing larger and larger, urban governance becomes critical because of the impact it has on the
life and liberty of innumerable urban dwellers. With cities becoming centres for large investments,
centres of large concentration of population and providers of specialized services and amenities,
their effective and efficient functioning
assumes added importance.
2.2 With India following a policy of economic
liberalization, globalization and
deregulation, urban centres in general
and large urban centers in particular are
going to attract lot of investment. Urban
centers are likely to emerge as the hub

4. around which entire Indian economy and polity would gravitate. Accordingly, it would be essential
that appropriate environment is created in these centres to attract investment, provide
employment, eradicate poverty and ensure appropriate quality of life to make them more
productive and sustainable. If urban centres have been termed as engines of economic growth,
urban governance can rightly be called wheels of such engines. Urban governance, accordingly
becomes more relevant and critical, because capacity of a nation to pursue its goals of economic,
physical and social growth is contingent upon its capacity to govern its towns and cities effectively
and efficiently.
2.3 Urban settlements are vital because they define the agenda for human living and working.
Accordingly the overall objective is to improve social, economic and environmental quality of
urban settlements and the living and working environment of all people, in particular the urban
poor. Based on this premise in 1996, the Habitat Agenda identified adequate shelter for all and
sustainable human settlements as the international priorities. Subsequently, UN General
Assembly in its special session and World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 stressed
the need for promoting more sustainable urbanization through better urban governance.
Considering that urban planning is central to promote better governance of urban settlements,
proactive role and importance of urban planning is accordingly stressed. Urban Planning has the
capacity and capability of promoting sustainability besides making connections between people,
economic opportunities and the
environment. It also has the potential to
reduce poverty and promote quality of life
for all the urban dwellers through the
generation of social and economic
opportunities. Urban planning has the
potential and capacity to usher an era of
rational growth and planned development,
provide space and platform for affordable
living and ensure basic services and
amenities and quality of life in urban centres.
2.4 Looking at the existing scenario of ever increasing and all pervasive poverty; growth of slums on a
scale never known before; high degree of traffic congestion and obsolescence prevailing in urban
settlements; acute shortage of basic amenities and services in the towns and cities, haphazard
and unplanned development emerging as the accepted pattern of growth, a new regime of urban
planning emerges as the basic necessity to improve the development framework of urban
centres. Urban Planning has been found to have considerable effectiveness and impact in
leveraging good governance through:
i) Reducing considerably new slums formation through slum up- gradation and ensuring
adequate supply of land for development of affordable shelters in safe and accessible
locations.

5. ii) Reducing vulnerability to natural disasters through carefully siting and planning urban
settlements and designing them as energy efficient and green settlements by addressing
key issues of climate change.
iii) Creating Environmentally friendly cities through adopting a new regime of
transportation based on least priority for personalized mode of transport, using more
efficient and economical city forms, making cities more compact and humane, creating
sustainable built environment besides putting in place legal and governmental system
which is promoter of state of art planning and development besides good governance.
iv) Building sustainable economic growth based an adopting livelihood focus in the urban
planning, helping in the process reducing urban poverty and rural-urban migration by
creating appropriate level of gainful employment opportunities. Re-planning declining
cities and derelict areas and reusing/ recycling urban land leading to sustainable
economic growth and better governance.
v) Creating safer and crime-free cities by adopting planning based on inclusiveness and
partnership and providing a comprehensive framework for different interest groups to
work together for a common purpose. Planned reconstruction and a governance
approach used in the post- conflict reconstruction in strife-torn cities found to be highly
effective to create sustainable communities.
vi) Enhancing quality of life in human settlements by addressing human, social ,cultural ,
environmental and natural aspects of settlements infrastructure through the mechanism
of urban planning recognizing that poverty remains central to planning of urban
settlements.
vii) Generating Resources by leveraging the inherent potential and capacity of urban
centres to generate resources for development of basic infrastructure and service and
providing amenities which are critical to human sustenance and growth. Planned
development has capacity to usher a new era in the regime of generating fiscal resources
through the mechanism of levying the development charges, land use conversion
charges etc.
viii) Creating land bank in urban centres through the framing of land pooling and distribution
schemes by involving land owners as co-partners in the planning and development
process. Town Planning Scheme in Punjab , Gujarat, Maharashtra have been role-model
in creating land banks for providing housing for the poor and laying down road network
beside creating open spaces and sites for physical and social infrastructures.
3. RE-INVENTING PLANNING
3.1 Promoting planned development and involvement of Town Planners have amply demonstrated
that good planning can lead to good urbanism and good governance. Areas developed under
mechanism of planning have clearly shown that they offer better quality of life and environment as
compared to un- planned parcels. Chandigarh, Manesar, Gurgaon, Noida, Panchkula, Mohali etc.
are few examples of planned development which have amply demonstrated the effectiveness of

6. urban planning. Master Plans and
Development Plans prepared for
various cities have considerably
redefined the destiny of existing
towns and cities and have put
them on the path of rational
growth and development. Building
Bye-laws and Zoning
Regulations/Development Control
Regulations have also helped in
rational use of land and enabled
construction of buildings which
meet the basic requirement of
quality living besides ensuring air, light and ventilation within the buildings. However, despite
numerous efforts made, inherent, potential and genesis of art and science of planned
development has not been fully appreciated and put in operation in the development of urban
centres. Most of the cities suffering in the context of poor urban governance have their roots in the
neglect of urban planning. Urban planning remains central to urban governance and this fact must
be duly acknowledged and accepted. No city can ensure good urban governance unless it is
backed and supported by a comprehensive, integrated, effective and efficient mechanism of
urban planning.
3.2 However, in order to make urban planning supportive of good governance, we have to look for
new innovative and better options and put in place a new planning regime in operation. It needs
to be appreciated that present form and pattern of physical planning and town planning will not be
able to meet effectively challenges of 21st century in terms of rapid and massive urbanization of
population, urbanization of poverty, urbanization of pollution and Natural Disasters. Planners
need to revisit their planning tools, planning processes and planning options/ strategies in the
changed context. They need to be made more effective and efficient in order to meet the
emerging urban dynamism and challenges.
3.3 Master Plans /Development Plans have been extensively used by urban planners to usher an era
of planned development and redefine future growth pattern of the cities. But in practice, these
plans have emerged as the major roadblocks in the planned growth and development of the
cities. Master Plans have known to be rigid, consumers of enormous time and resources, based
purely on land use, addressing merely physical issues, difficult to interpret etc. In the process,
Master Plans have been put the planning process behind the city growth and chasing
development. With considerable time taken for preparation, approvals and following
procedural/legal requirements, cities continue to grow in the absence of the planning framework in
an illegal manner, with the result majority of Master Plan proposals become non-implementable.
Rigidly defined land use and Development Control, Regulations often fall under public criticism

7. resulting in more violations than
compliance. Agencies involved in
planning are invariably far removed
from cities leading to formation of non-
realistic proposals. Agencies involved
in implementation lack technical and
financial resources for effective
implementation. The existing
administrative capacity and dichotomy
in planning has led to non-
implementation of Master Plans. This
calls for re-looking at the intent, content and scope of Master plans which need to be redefined to
bring in more flexibility, make them less consumers of time and manpower in their preparation ,
for imparting required level of dynamism to meet the emerging needs of the cities and making
them user friendly. Mechanism of preparing the Master Plans should be able to create local
ownership leading to its effective implementation. This would call for a new regime of planning to
be put in place for preparing better Master Plan by involving all the stakeholders in a transparent
manner to ensure better quality of planned development and better governance of cities.
3.4 Legal framework guiding the planning profession and practice also needs to be relooked into in
order to make it supportive of the new planning goals and better urban governance. Legal
frameworks needs to be simplified and redefined to provide numerous options to planners to bring
flexibility into the planning mechanism, minimize the time frame for plan preparation, plan
approvals and plan implementation. Multiplicity of planning laws needs to be avoided with unified
and comprehensive legal framework put in place. Multiplicity of agencies created to regulate
planning, growth and development of urban centres also need to be avoided and provided for in
the legal framework. Building bye-laws need to be reframed in order to make them promoters of
quality development. Existing laws have done more damage than good and have emerged as
major roadblocks in the construction of state of art, energy efficient and sustainable buildings.
Building bye-laws need to be simplified and made user- friendly.
3.5 Planning education also needs to be relooked, in terms of its contents, intent and syllabi in order
to make supportive of new regime of planning practice and profession. New subjects need to be
put in place in order to meet emerging challenges of urbanization. Planning education should be
able to contribute in training better town planners who are promoters of development and not
controllers of development; who are able to understand the needs, aspirations and requirements
of urban settlements and address them; who can quantify the emerging challenges/threats to
urban centres and evolve policy options for meeting those challenges/threats effectively; who are
able to redefine an agenda of futuristic vision and development for the urban settlements. Urban
governance should be made integral part of the planning education in order to enable the
planners appreciate and understand the genesis of planning and governance besides their inter-
relationship and integration

8. 3.6 For urban planning to be more effective and efficient, it will be important that local planning
functions must be devolved at the local level as envisioned in the 74th Constitutional Amendment
Act, 1992. In addition, it will be important that well resourced planning organizations are created
at the metropolitan and municipal levels. The agencies must be fully equipped to innovate with
latest planning options, technologies and models in order to answer any challenge posed by fast
changing urban world. Unfortunately, research and development is totally missing in the field of
urban planning which has led to the decay of the planning process and its getting outdated within
a short time span. Efficient research and development will hold the key to urban planning to
innovate, to evolve new models, strategies and options in order to make urban planning effective,
efficient and productive in the area of city planning and city governance. All Planning and
Development Authority must have R & D cells in planning departments to undertake the task of
research and development. Dedicated and exclusive funds must be allocated for research and
development in the budget of such agencies which can be used by research agencies or planning
schools based on specific proposals/projects submitted. In addition to creating efficient planning
agencies and research cells, it will be critical to ensure tight execution and putting in place an
enforcement mechanism for implementation of the city plans duly supported by a transparent
system of exemptions and sufficient public participation. Urban planning in India has largely
suffered due to acute prevailing shortage of trained planning professionals. In order to build large
reservoir of qualified urban planners, it will be desirable to create 6 to 8 world class planning
institutes on the pattern of IITs to train 3000 to 4000 planners annually. This would help in
meeting the perpetual shortage of planners faced in the country.
3.7 World Planners Congress, Vancouver, 2006
has defined a new regime of urban planning as
the underlying mechanism for promoting
effective urban governance. Position Paper
“Re-inventing Planning : A New Governance
Paradigm for Managing Human Settlements”
prepared for the Congress, calls for putting in
place a new urban planning approach to be
based on following ten major principles to
achieve the objectives of good governance :
i)Sustainability :Based on integrated, social, economic and environmental
considerations in human settlement planning taking into account impact of today’s
development on future generations.
ii) Integrated Planning: Involving economic, physical and environmental planning, set in
an institutional framework to deliver efficiency and effectiveness that support rather than
undercut each other.

9. Iii) Integration with Budget: Ensuring integration and providing appropriate linkages to
public and private budgetary processes for effective implementation and mobilization of
resources.
iv) Planning with Partners : Involving all stakeholders including government, private
sector, voluntary agencies and civil societies to foster voluntary collaboration. New urban
planning works on the premise that planning is less an instrument of government and
more a process of good governance; making city planning more participatory; making
planning accountable to public through public scrutiny; bringing objectivity and
inclusiveness in decision making; and making urban planning more rational,dynamic and
performance oriented.
v) Subsidiary: Through clearly defined rules of different parastatal agencies;
decentralization to enable local bodies to play the leading role; involving community
based organizations on matters that can be determined at local level and integration of
processes to create efficiency and effectiveness.
vi) Market Responsiveness: Through understanding of land related market demand
particularly of the poor; creating opportunities for private sector; anticipating impact and
reducing risks. Plans having credibility are bound to receive good market response and
succeed.
vii)Access to Land: By making land market more efficient, affordable and dynamic to
meet the needs of all sectors through the creation of an equitable system of land
ownership and land management by recognizing the reality of existing slums and informal
settlements and their right for upgradation and shelter.
Viii) Appropriable tools: Recognizing that rigid urban controls are not feasible/ desirable
in rapid urbanization. Controls must be made strategic, affordable, effective and sensitive
to meet the growing urban dynamism/ needs of the poor while conserving essential
ecological resources.
ix)Pro-poor and Inclusive: Through the recognition of rights to the city of poor, old,
children, women, homeless and the low-income group of people and changing from ‘area
based’ to ‘ area focus’ approach to protect and safeguard the interest of have-nots.
x)Cultural Variation: Through replacing uniformity imposed by existing Master’s
Planning Model by including cultural priorities and preferences; replacing outdated legal
regimes; and capacity building through skill development for professionals, community
based organizations and training of politicians
4 CONCLUSIONS
4.1 Urban planning and urban governance are both people centric and accordingly have their prime
concern and focus on looking at and promoting the welfare of the people, improving their social,
physical, economical and environmental conditions besides improving their quality of life. In

10. addition both aim at creating supportive conditions and environment which helps people to
perform their basic functions of living, working , care of body and spirit and circulation in the most
effective and efficient manner. Accordingly urban planning and urban governance are interlinked
and have close relationship. In fact both are supportive of one another. There cannot be good
urban governance without the input of good and rational planning.
4.2 Looking critically and objectively at the entire context of good urban governance, it can be fairly
concluded that effective urban planning holds the key to good urban governance. Poor urban
governance in the present context has its genesis in poor urban planning. In order to enable the
urban planning to play its desired and designated role in urban governance it will be critical that
operational mechanism of urban planning is critically looked into and made more responsive to
the emerging urban dynamism. Unfortunately in India, role of urban planners have not been given
appropriate recognition. Limited numbers of planning institutions have contributed to restricting
the number of qualified professionals. With urban centres holding the key, future growth and
development of the cities will be contingent largely upon the proficiency, efficacy and efficiency of
‘Planning Profession and Professionals’. Sooner this is realized and rationalized, better it will be
for the nation and urban centres to promote good governance.