Localizing India’s global smart cities: a multi-scalar analysis of cities yet-to-come

ABSTRACT

“Smart Cities” have been positioned as a global digital paradigm addressing challenges in urban service delivery and governance. Recent debates have suggested the possibility of localized forms of smart intervention, however, we argue there is a need to first analyze the entanglement of actors through which urban narratives must pass. A granular examination of three small, “smart” cities within India’s Smart City Mission reveals structures and storylines produced at the intersection of transnational, national and local stakeholders, complicating attempts to unravel the “local” and “global”. State narratives reproduce a “smart” subject as part of “modern”, global, nation-building, demarcating who does and doesn’t belong in cities yet-to-come. Municipalities mediate between transnational narratives and local needs, but localization has become primarily a means to create a distinction within inter-city competition. Therefore, while local activism can function as a node of resistance to Smart City redevelopment, vulnerable city residents remain precariously placed.

KEYWORDS:

• India
• localization
• narrative analysis
• small cities
• smart cities

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the participants for their time and insight, the reviewers for their valuable feedback, and our colleagues on the Learning from Small Cities project for their support.⁴

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See the Smart Cities website for full details of the selection process: Retrieved 22 July 2023. https://smartcities.gov.in/selection-process.

2 It is not always possible to reference direct quotes as several informants continue to work for government and corporate agencies and did not wish to be identified.

3 https://www.smartsmallcity.com/blog/2021/7/2/smart-jalandhar-storymap.

4 Read the full project report here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b43ac82a9e028ba6f3bad07/t/617fc5534b60646515e057e8/1635763556586/11197_LearningFromSmallCities_web.pdf.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Newton Fund, UK, and the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), as part of the ESRC-ICSSR “Urban Transformations” Programme.