Plurality of Voices: Emerging Pathways Towards Planning Southern Cities

Authors: Anjali Karol Mohan, Anognya Parthasarathy, Purnima Mahajan and Dr. Sony Pellissery

Abstract

This paper aims to explore alternatives to the dominant Euro-American planning approaches, which, while premised on the urban experience of the 19th and the 20th century, made passage to the global South through processes of colonisation and globalisation. The need for this exploration arises from the radically different contemporary (21st century) urban experience concentrated in the global South. Drawing attention to the diverse political, economic and
socio-cultural processes as well as attendant knowledge systems specific to the Southern cities, the paper relies on debates and discussions emanating from a two-part seminar series held in Colombia and India. In doing so, the paper makes two broad arguments. First, the dominant planning discourse emanating from the global North is both inadequate and irrelevant to address the varied and diverse experience of Southern cities. Rapid urbanisation
processes in the South have manifested and found expressions in diverse urban forms such as primates, peri-urban, sprawls and associated functions. The Euro-American models, given the lack of a similar experience in those
geographies, do not account for these forms and functions. Second, the rapid pace of urbanisation and ensuing urban forms of the South should draw on learnings emanating from within the diverse Southern contexts that also
showcase similarities. In other words, South-South dialogues emerging from embedded knowledge systems constitute a fertile ground for mutual learning. Set against this background, the paper makes an argument for framing locally rooted urban practices as a pathway to Southern theory for urban planning