Cityform-India network: Urban social sustainability in India's rapidly growing cities

印度城市地区的快速增长是其近期经济发展的一个明显迹象。印度11亿人口中有三分之一居住在城镇，这些城镇正在以各种复杂的方式发展。印度城市及其周边地区的快速人口增长正在改变城市的物理维度，如其规模、形状、密度、土地用途、布局和建筑类型：包括基础设施和交通在内的众多特征的复杂混合体。城市发展的加速给现有的城市基础设施带来了巨大的压力，以支持居民的生活质量。快速的城市增长可以采取高密度的城市形式，而高密度的城市形式与恶劣的生活条件、严重的污染和高犯罪率有关。城市增长和与之相关的城市形态变化显然是不可持续的，农村人口进入城市地区的区域性流离失所和局部社会不平等等问题进一步加剧了这种变化（并助长了这种变化）。虽然印度对这些问题的认识日益提高，但城市政策存在差距，而且在地方一级执行发展和规划政策的机制缺乏明确性。造成这种政策差距的主要因素是缺乏对城市环境如何影响社会可持续性（即印度城市居民的福祉、生活质量和日常生活）的知识和理解。因此，印度迫切需要研究社会可持续城市形态的经验证据，以制定基于证据的政府战略和城市发展政策。CityForm-India是一个积极主动的研究网络，旨在解决这一需求。CityForm-India是一个由城市可持续发展领域的学者、政策制定者和主要利益相关者组成的网络。该网络的目的是在文化、社会、经济、环境、基础设施、城市发展驱动因素和城市政策等方面建立并保持国际知识和专业知识的交流，这些方面与为印度城市居民提供社会可持续的生活环境有关。该研究网络由多学科牛津可持续发展研究所（OISD：可持续城市环境（SUE））领导，旨在促进网络成员分享经验、专业知识和知识，以确定在印度快速发展的城市背景下出现的研究挑战和机遇。网络成员在城市经济学、住房政策、城市设计、基础设施、交通、健康和福祉等领域拥有广泛的研究专业知识和经验。通过在印度和英国举行的一系列网络活动、知识交流和传播活动，该网络将成为英国、印度和国际学术和非学术成员之间长期研究合作的基础。在整个网络中，将开发一个网站，作为重要的通信和传播手段。这将包括公众进入讨论论坛、网络广播和活动介绍、定期向网络成员发送电子邮件、通讯和提供安全的在线空间以共享工作文件。通过这些和其他知识分享和传播活动，网络成员将对社会可持续城市形态领域的知识作出重大贡献，最终为未来的实证研究提出赠款建议。

The rapid growth rate of India's urban areas is a clear sign of its recent economic progress. One third of India's 1.1 billion people live in Indian towns and cities which are growing in varying and complex ways. The rapid demographic growth in and around India's urban areas is changing the physical dimensions of the city, such as its size, shape, density, land uses, layout and building types: a complex mixture of numerous characteristics including infrastructure and transportation. Increased urban development is putting intense pressure on existing urban infrastructure to support residents' quality of life. Rapid urban growth can take the form of high-density urban forms which are associated with poor living conditions, high levels of pollution and high incidence of crime. Urban growth and associated changes in urban form are clearly unsustainable, further exacerbated by (and contributing to) problems including regional displacement of rural populations into urban areas and localized social inequality.While there is growing awareness of these issues in India, gaps exist in urban policies and there is a lack of clarity in mechanisms for implementing development and planning policies at the local level. The main contributory factor of such gaps in policy is the dearth of knowledge and understanding of how the urban environment affects social sustainability, i.e. residents' wellbeing, quality of life and everyday life, in India's cities. There is therefore an urgent need in India for empirical evidence examining socially sustainable urban form to develop evidence-based government strategies and urban development policies. CityForm-India is a proactive research network aimed at addressing this need now. CityForm-India is a network of academics, policy makers and key stakeholders in the field of urban sustainability. The aim of the network is to create and sustain an exchange of international knowledge and expertise on aspects of culture, society, economics, environment, infrastructure, drivers of urban growth and urban policies which are relevant to the provision of socially sustainable living environments for India's urban residents. This research network is led by the multidisciplinary Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development (OISD: Sustainable Urban Environments (SUE)) and aims to facilitate the sharing of experience, expertise and knowledge of network members to identify the arising research challenges and opportunities within the context of India's rapidly growing cities. Network members have extensive collective research expertise and experience from a range of disciplines including urban economics, housing policy, urban design, infrastructure, transport, health and wellbeing. Through a series of networking events, knowledge exchange and dissemination activities held in India and the UK, the network will be the foundation of long-term research collaboration between academic and non-academic UK, Indian and international members. Throughout the network, a website will be developed as an important means of communication and dissemination. This will include public access to a discussion forum, webcasts and presentations from events as well as regular emails to network members, newsletters and the provision of secure online space for the sharing of working papers. Through these and other knowledge sharing and dissemination activities, the network members will make a significant contribution to knowledge in the field of socially sustainable urban form culminating in the generation of grant proposals for future empirical research.