Humanising urban development in India: call for a more comprehensive approach to social sustainability in the urban policy and design context

Abstract

Social sustainability is gaining importance in the international urban development context; however, in India, the concept is unclear and under-represented. New approaches and tools at the level of urban policy, design and implementation are highly biased towards environmental sustainability focussing on "smart" technological innovations. This scant focus, coupled with massive and inequitable urban growth, is resulting in social crises that not only pose danger to the country's stability but also represent some of the fundamental challenges to its sustainable future. Based on a detailed review of the literature on social sustainability, this paper explores its meaning and sets out its core components. It calls for humanising Indian cities and argues that a more comprehensive approach to the constituent but neglected "social" dimension of sustainable development which goes beyond the technical aspects of solving infrastructure-focused social issues to creating built environments that nurture strong urban communities is necessary. Analytical findings are translated into the social sustainability framework, which suggests a combination of (micro-level variables of) bottom-up and (macro-level variables of) top-down approaches in its implementation, because nurturing social sustainability in cities needs both, planned context and emergent actions.