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Volume 1 Supplement 3

Global and Local Challenges in Non-Western Heritage Conservation

The Rationale for Reviewing Current Concepts of Urban Planning and Developing New Ones in India

Built Heritage volume 1, pages 34–43 (2017)Cite this article

Abstract

Urban planning in India is heir to a colonial paradigm that imposed practices developed from the experiences of Western urbanisation to the local Indian context. This paper suggests that this paradigm exacerbates the complex problems of contemporary urbanisation, but there is little attempt among Indian urban planners to acknowledge and address the consequences of their colonial legacy. The forces of globalisation are reinforcing this postcolonial intellectual malaise by reposing greater faith in capital- and technology-intensive solutions to solve problems instead of reforming the inherited processes of urban management. This paper argues that the nascent field of urban conservation in India offers the potential to review the dominant paradigms of urban planning and develop more context-specific and appropriate strategies for tackling the problems of Indian urbanisation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Architecture and Urban Design, School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India

    A. G. Krishna Menon

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  1. A. G. Krishna Menon
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Correspondence to A. G. Krishna Menon.

Additional information

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Workshop on Urban Transport: Today and Tomorrow, held on March 22–24, 2007 at Agra, India, convened by the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Programme of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India.

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Menon, A.G.K. The Rationale for Reviewing Current Concepts of Urban Planning and Developing New Ones in India. Built Heritage 1, 34–43 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03545673

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03545673

Keywords

  • historic space
  • historic metropolitan context
  • evolution
  • reflection