As 2024 begins, there is some good news in the urban spectrum. After almost 38 years there is another urban commission, this time in the State of Kerala. The first, i.e., the National Commission on Urbanisation, was formed by the then Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi, and was headed by Charles Correa, one of the finest architects of the country. However, with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, some of the important recommendations were not taken into consideration. But the 74th Constitutional Amendment was one of the positive outcomes. Since then, there has been a shift in policy paradigm for more private initiative and investment in urban development
Necessity of an urban commission
Currently, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities (56%). When Capital was written by Marx, and cities were considered to be centres of industrial production and capital accumulation, there was just over 5% of the global population living in urban centres. The process of urbanisation has led to phenomenal changes across the world. Not only has it impacted climate change but has also created spatial and temporal changes such as massive land use, building typologies, iniquitous cities, duality, informality, crisis of pollution, housing, water and sanitation challenges, and some of the most unequal city spaces. One of the major processes of capital accumulation is the process of city development.
