Villages of Delhi : towards inclusivity and plurality in the urbanizing countryside

Abstract

The idiom of urbanization driven by financialization of rural land is purported to bring development to rapidly developing contexts. However, the nature of the resulting urban realm, functionally, socially and ecologically dispute any concept of betterment. Delhi is a poster child of this kind of rural to urban conversion generating a sprawling megalopolis, which is increasingly fragmenting into islands of high-end gated residential enclaves and ghettoized villages. The resultant urban form is an archipelagic state that supports only certain types of urban citizenship, systematically removing and de-legitimizing rural modes of existence and citizenry. Following the trend of urbanization of peripheral metropolitan areas, the thesis addresses the current wave of urbanization in the rural periphery of Delhi. This move will lead to the conversion of 95 villages to urban areas, affecting about 30% of land in the National Capital Territory. As an alternative to the centralized, city-centered mode of urbanization for the rural belt, the thesis proposes an alternative framework of the network-territory that allows for urban exchanges while maintaining and transforming rural landscapes. This model of planning and design stems from the villages themselves, organized around the idea of village collectives that integrate social, ecological and economic values in the new developments in the countryside. Approaching the project at multiple scales, these village collectives would operate at the scale of districts in Delhi that plan and accommodate for new growth and sustain life forms of the villages as well.