Learning from small cities: Governing imagined futures and the dynamics of change in India's smart urban age

印度城市时代的到来凸显了快速城市化和城乡人口迁移对可持续未来规划的挑战。在印度，这一挑战的解决方案是在数字印度和100个智能城市两个相互关联的项目中设想的，这两个项目声称为治理城市的未来提供了新的“确定性”。本项目首先假设“小城市”是“未来”实验的试验台，因为目前大多数智慧城市建议都在人口低于300万的城市。这些小城市在我们对城市未来的认识上存在“双重差距”，因为a)它们在应对印度城市时代挑战方面所扮演的角色存在不确定性，b)在理解如何将它们的未来转化为印度“实际存在的”智能城市方面存在研究差距。这个为期两年的项目将批判性地学习小城市的变化动态，因为它们被智能技术和基础设施所改变。它将使用城市、社会和文化地理学以及社会学和地理信息学的跨学科方法，向三个小城市——西姆拉、贾兰达尔和纳西克学习。从概念上讲，我们认为“小城市”不是人口统计学上定义的实体，而是具有特定社会、文化、政治和历史背景的“普通城市”，这使得它们“远离城市研究的地图”。本项目将围绕国家、城市和公民这三个相互关联的尺度，通过以下研究问题进行研究：小城市是如何以及为什么成为国家对印度城市未来设想的试验田的？在全国范围内，我们将通过数字印度和100个智慧城市计划，探索国家对“未来”的愿景如何以及为什么使小城市的特定“资产”值得孵化这些想象。具体来说，我们将研究印度城市化的“未来”谱系及其与当前智慧城市愿景的联系。2. 小城市如何将国家想象的未来城市转化为“实际存在的”智慧城市？在RQ1的基础上，我们将探索小城市如何通过特定的智慧城市项目想象自己的城市未来。具体而言，我们将研究小城市如何通过在竞争激烈的国际环境中捍卫其“资产”来学习创新，同时谈判在管理其未来方面发挥更自主的作用。3. 小城市的居民如何“适应”智慧城市发展带来的变化？继上述RQ1和2之后，我们将调查作为这些项目目标的居民如何看待智慧城市项目；他们是如何经历、谈判、挑战和支持的。这将“未来”视为一种变化的生活体验，其中社区资产，资源和基础设施的日常知识将用于更大规模地为智慧城市政策提供信息。4. 我们如何向小城市“学习”，为“思考”和“实施”城市政策的实践提供信息？这将上述rq集合在一起，将学习作为城市理论和政策的反思性实践。具体来说，我们将关注学习如何在国家、城市和公民这三个相互关联的尺度上发生，以及这将如何改变我们对全球城市未来的想象。该项目将使用一系列跨学科、数字化、可视化和参与式的方法。在这些城市中，我们将通过纵向测绘、物理和社会转型分析、众包数字和社区资产测绘以及对智慧城市项目的利益相关者和“受益者”的采访，对想象中的城市未来进行分析。调查结果将指导产生影响的具体途径，包括智能城市资产工具包的动画信息图、当地语言政策简报小册子、专用网站、博客、项目会议、展览和目录。

The coming of an Indian urban age has highlighted the challenges of rapid urbanisation and rural-urban migration in planning for sustainable futures. In India, solutions to this challenge are imagined in two interlinked programmes of Digital India and 100 Smart Cities that claim to present a new 'certainty' of governing urban futures. This project begins with the hypothesis that 'small cities' are the test-beds of experiments in 'futuring', since a majority of current smart city proposals are in cities with population < 3 million. These small cities present a 'double gap' in our knowledge of urban futures since a) there is uncertainty around the role that they will play in delivering on the challenges of India's urban age, and b) there is a research gap in understanding how their futuring is translated into 'actually existing' smart cities in India.This two year project will critically learn from the dynamics of change in small cities as they are transformed by smart technologies and infrastructures. It will use interdisciplinary approaches from urban, social and cultural geography, as well as sociology and geoinformatics to learn from three small cities - Shimla, Jalandhar and Nashik. Conceptually, we approach 'small cities' not as demographically defined entities but as 'ordinary cities' with specific social, cultural, political, and historical contexts of 'smallness' that has kept them 'off the map' of urban studies. This project will focus on three interlinked scales - state, city and citizen through the following research questions: 1. How and why do small cities become the test-beds of state imaginations of India's urban futures?At a national scale, we will explore how and why state visions of 'futuring', through Digital India and 100 Smart Cities programmes, make specific 'assets' in small cities worthy of incubating these imaginaries. Specifically, we will investigate the genealogies of 'futuring' in India's urbanization and its links to current visions of smart cities. 2. How do small cities translate state imagined urban futures into 'actually existing' smart cities? Building on RQ1, we will explore how small cities imagine their own urban futures, through particular smart city projects. Specifically, we will examine how small cities learn to innovate by championing their 'assets' in a competitive international context while negotiating for more autonomous roles in governing their futures. 3. How do citizens of small cities 'live with change' induced by smart city developments? Following on from RQ1 and 2 above, we will investigate how smart city projects are perceived by those citizens who are targets of these projects at the neighbourhood level; how they are experienced, negotiated, challenged and supported. This takes 'futuring' as a lived experience of change where everyday knowledge of community assets, resources and infrastructures will be used to inform smart city policies at larger scales. 4. How can we 'learn' from small cities to inform practices of 'thinking' and 'doing' urban policy? This brings together the above RQs to take learning as a reflective practice in urban theory and policy. Specifically, we will focus on how learning occurs at three interlinked scales of state, city and citizen and how this transform the ways that we might imagine global urban futures. The project will use a range of interdisciplinary, digital, visual and participatory methodologies. In each of these cities, we will undertake analysis of imagined urban futures through longitudinal mapping and analysis of physical and social transformations, crowdsourced digital and community asset mapping and interviews with stakeholders and 'beneficiaries' of smart city projects. The findings will direct specific pathways to impact including an animated infographic of smart city asset toolkit, local language policy briefing pamphlets, dedicated website, blogs, project conference, exhibition and catalogue.