The road to prosperous cities

The world stands at a crossroads. Humanity is facing profound challenges in the form of wars causing destruction, climate change, loss of biodiversity, etc., often termed as a polycrisis. This has imperilled the future of people living on the planet Earth. Yet cities have become central to thinking about addressing these issues, as most of the crises originate there. However, there is a change required in the way we think about cities: how cities are to be redesigned for the better? Amidst all the chaos happening, the book Cities Rethought: A New Urban Disposition offers hope, respite, and the possibility of meaningful intervention in cities. It encourages policymakers and citizens to safeguard humanity’s future. The book draws on the experiences of authors from both the global South and North, presenting a new framework for understanding urban change and envisioning improvements in the complexity of cities. It distinctly draws out innovative ways of living and working in cities. While the literature on cities has ostensibly focused on how top policymakers can redesign cities, the authors take a different route. The work emphasises the importance of collective collaboration, which involves open discussion and debate about shared values and methods.

The book presents a clear three-step process to redesign cities to minimise ambiguity. The authors’ choice of vocabulary effectively conveys the urgency of the crisis and the necessary changes required. The first step involves asking fundamental questions about the desired ends to be valued, what should be redesigned, and why, referred to as ‘normative locations.’ It encourages open debate and emphasises the need to include diverse voices, which sets it apart from other books. Asking such questions becomes all the more important because viable futures are being erased for cities in low- and middle-income countries. One normative question relates to the role of digital innovations in cities. They could potentially lead to structural urban inequality, which they refer to as spatial inequality. The work urges policymakers to rethink how digital spaces are designed and distributed. The book stands out for its critical analysis of contemporary urban challenges. A new urban disposition looks at how such innovations would affect the future of cities and how global collaboration could be pathbreaking in ensuring the cities are equitable. ‘Analytical redescriptions,’ the second step, looks at how to make changes and how cities actually work. It is searching for ways to move towards the desired ends postulated earlier. The authors draw out case studies to inspire policymakers that even in places with corruption, change is possible. The book uses Durban, a city in South Africa, as an example. Despite corruption and poor service delivery, the city improved its infrastructure by focusing on green initiatives. The city used a programme to restore rivers, which involved local communities in cleaning up the area. It shows how community involvement can lead to better outcomes for cities. Gender and disability quotas ensured that these groups were included, which made the programme more inclusive.

The author critically looks at the role of social protection in times of crisis. The book uses India as a case study to show how social welfare services are often poorly designed, especially for workers who move between cities. It argues how social protection needs to be rethought to better cover the underprivileged, to make cities inclusive. It introduces a new approach to urban science, one that is innovative and unconventional. It is interdisciplinary in nature, calls for the active participation of non-academic stakeholders, is context-driven, and is oriented towards addressing societal and environmental problems, selected by both policymakers and citizen practitioners. It draws from the experiences of various nations, making it transnational. ‘Operationalisation’, is the final step, which focuses on implementing the planned strategies. It involves identifying the operational ecosystem of a city, as in who is doing what, where the winds are blowing, called pulse, and evaluation of the measures taken. The operational ecosystem analyses the delivery of services such as water and transportation and suggests improvements. Identifying global events called pulses helps in determining where attention is needed.

This helps in identifying gaps in the delivery of services and ensuring effective institutional reforms. It is rich in its theoretical content, for succinctly drawing out three aspects of the implementation. However, it could have explored the role of challenges in the implementation of urban redesign programmes, such as local resistance, geography, finance, etc. The standout characteristic of the book lies in recognising the role of the impact of global pressures on cities and how cities could respond to them. Change, innovation, and stability are what authors strive for. What makes it important to readers is its attempt to engage normatively with cities at each step of the process, which makes it a humanistic project at large. It gives a detailed account of how, after everything is done, evaluation is to be done. Evaluation also involves asking normative questions about what one values, what trade-offs one is willing to work with, and what practise one would prioritise and defend. Indeed, the originality of the work lies in its recognition of the collective role in institutional reform and collaboration. It emphasises the importance of capacity building to address the impact of future crises. At any step, there is little scope for ambiguities left in the work, which makes it special. Data science is a disruptive innovation that would change the future of cities. Recognising the role of big data makes it highly relevant in today’s hyper-globalised world, with digital innovations coming up.

However, the book’s complex language and comprehensive scope may make it difficult for some readers to fully comprehend. It fails to distinguish between the different challenges faced by cities in the Global South and Global North, which may limit its global applicability. While lack of full industrialisation is called out as a major challenge for the poor countries to move toward green energy, it does not look at the issues facing the western cities. The book also doesn’t explore financial infrastructure in detail, which could have made it more realistic, especially for poorer countries. It could explore the role of inequitable distribution of opportunities and their impact on cities. However, it actively engages with the reader’s mind and compels them to be involved in the redesign of the cities. For me, living in India, where cities face issues like urban sprawl, slums, and environmental problems, this book is especially relevant. In this context, it is useful, especially to cities of the Global South. There is an urgency to engage constructively with the design of cities, given the hyperpolarized world that we are moving toward. Overall, Cities Rethought: A New Urban Disposition is a must-read for anyone interested in improving urban design, particularly in a world where the challenges cities face are growing.

The writer is a student at Delhi University.
Views expressed are personal