Urbanization and Environment

With more than 50% of the world population now residing in cities since 2008 (World Urbanization Prospects, 2007), we have reached ‘the urban moment’ with huge implications of planetary urbanization on the environment. Urbanization is not a new phenomenon; the ancient cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, Ancient Greece, Rome and Mesopotamia are strong evidences. However, with our entry to the era of the ‘Anthropocene’, rapid urbanization with its rate, scale and shifting geographies (with intense urbanization in the ‘global south’: Asia, Africa and Latin America) is upsetting the ecological balance complemented with rising inequity, displacement and loss of livelihoods affecting the urban poor.

 What is the solution? Should urbanization be perceived as the key challenge and strategies must be devised to halt it, if not reverse it (as it is irreversible)? Can there be other innovative alternatives that do not perceive cities as consumptive spaces swallowing ecological resources and generating highest ecological footprints, but also as contributors to ecological sustainability?

 While policy prescriptions laid out in the UN ‘Sustainable Urbanization’ framework or ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) offer technocratic directions and guidelines, it is extremely important to empirically investigate the relationship cities and their wider environments to not only identify challenges but also map potentials and learn lessons towards the development of a robust resilient urban environmental matrix that will not only be technically sound and feasible but also informed by socio-economic and political realities and determinants. With lessons from emerging urban social sciences frameworks such as urban environmental history and urban political ecology and with the empirical focus on South Asia, the course will shed light on cities as complex socio-natural-technical assemblages, encompassing elaborate technical apparatus and intricate social arrangements evolved along shifting temporal scales and development imperatives. Finally, by capturing “storylines” in the making of urban nature involving multiple stakeholders (government, foreign agencies, civil society and communities), the larger agenda of this course is to transcend theoretical research on the relationship between urbanization and environment into practical actions towards a just, inclusive and resilient (urban) world order.

 INTENDED AUDIENCE: Natural sciences and engineering disciplines with a focus on built environment and urban (ecological) infrastructures like architecture, civil engineering, environmental engineering, etc. Humanities and Social Sciences (including but not restricted to) sociology, geography, history, anthropology, etc. The course will be beneficial for urban planners and practitioners along bureaucratic and technocratic circles. Apart from policy circles, for NGOs and grassroots organizations catering to urban (ecological) goals like slum development, WATSAN services in non-networked urban (peri-urban) patches, and urban research labs, the course will be meaningful.