urban development

How big is your city? Growing up in Chennai, my knowledge and therefore idea of the city extended possibly between school, home, and a few other places I frequented. While this has expanded, I don’t think I realised how big it actually was. In October 2022, the media reported that the Tamil Nadu government had cleared a 5-fold expansion of the city - from 1189 km2 to 5904 km2. I was a bit shocked that my city was already 1189 km2 big and now had gotten even larger. 

What is in a name?

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody”.

In 2015,the Modi government announced that 100 cities had been shortlisted to compete for funds under a new urban development initiative called the Smart Cities Mission. Since then, 20 cities, including Chennai, have won the first round of funds based on their proposals for smart projects in their city.  The idea of a smart city is a global idea with no universally accepted definition.