The dualities of organic growth vs planned growth, formal economy vs informal economy, and environmental sustainability vs development, blur away when we get our hands dirty in the people-centric planning processes. We discuss our learnings from last two decades of community-oriented planning and placemaking efforts in Mumbai, India. Through our work with Reinventing Dharavi, fishing communities of South Mumbai, reclaiming derelict open spaces and other projects we highlight the need to do away with these dichotomies and balance the top-down/bottom-up systemic approach into a more dynamic humane approach. We conclude our presentation with an overview of the book titled 6 Metros – Planning and Implementation Compared which is set to release in June 2023 that details out our learnings through in-depth analysis of planning processes of 6 Metropolitan cities of the world and sets out recommendations for the Indian cities.
Located in Eugene and Zoom.