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突显了快速城市化和城乡人口迁移在规划可持续未来方面的挑战。在印度，这一挑战的解决方案设想在两个相互关联的项目--数字印度和100个智慧城市--中，这两个项目声称为管理城市未来提供了一个新的“确定性”。该项目首先假设“小城市”是“未来”实验的试验田，因为目前大多数智能城市计划都是在拥有300万人口的城市。这些小城市在我们对城市未来的认识中呈现出一种“双重缺口”，因为a)它们将在应对印度城市时代的挑战中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空白。这个为期两年的项目将从小城市被智能技术和基础设施转变的过程中学习变化的动态。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--希姆拉、贾兰达尔和纳希克学习。从概念上讲，我们将“小城市”视为具有特定社会、文化、政治和历史背景的“普通城市”，而不是人口统计学上定义的实体，这使得它们远离城市研究的“地图”。该项目将通过以下研究问题聚焦于三个相互关联的尺度--国家、城市和公民：1.小城市如何以及为什么成为印度城市未来国家想象力的试验田？在全国范围内，我们将通过数字印度和100个智慧城市计划，探索国家的“未来”愿景如何以及为什么使小城市中的特定“资产”值得孵化这些想象力。具体地说，我们将调查印度城市化进程中“未来”的谱系，以及它与当前智能城市愿景的联系。2.小城市如何将国家想象中的城市未来转化为实际存在的智能城市？在RQ1的基础上，我们将通过特定的智慧城市项目，探索小城市如何想象自己的城市未来。具体地说，我们将研究小城市如何通过在竞争激烈的国际环境中支持它们的“资产”，同时谈判在管理它们的未来中发挥更多自主作用来学习创新。3.小城市市民如何适应智慧城市建设带来的变化？在上文第一题和第二题之后，我们将调查在邻里层面上作为这些项目目标的市民对智慧城市项目的看法，以及这些项目是如何得到体验、谈判、挑战和支持的。这将“未来”作为一种活生生的变化体验，其中关于社区资产、资源和基础设施的日常知识将被用于在更大范围内为智能城市政策提供信息。4.我们如何才能向小城市“学习”，为城市政策的“思考”和“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实践。具体地说，我们将专注于学习如何在州、城市和公民这三个相互关联的尺度上发生，以及这如何改变我们可能想象的全球城市未来的方式。该项目将使用一系列跨学科、数字化、可视化和参与性方法。在这些城市中，我们将通过物理和社会变革的纵向测绘和分析、众包数字和社区资产测绘以及与智慧城市项目的利益相关者和“受益者”的访谈，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、当地语言的政策简报小册子、专门的网站、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.