Resilient Growth: Fantasy Plans and Unplanned Developments in India's Flood‐Prone Coastal Cities

Abstract

Academic and policy literatures on urban climate resilience tend to emphasize ‘good planning’ as the primary means for addressing the growing risk of flooding in Asia's coastal megacities. Cities have come to rely on disaster and climate resilience plans to future‐proof their landscapes and protect vulnerable populations. Yet while data is collected, models are built and plans are drafted, environmentally destructive development practices continue unabated and often unchallenged. This article examines and seeks to explain the contradictions between a growing awareness of the risks of climate‐induced flooding in resilience plans and the continuation of development practices widely acknowledged to exacerbate those risks. It analyzes these contradictions in the context of Mumbai and Kolkata, India's largest coastal cities, which are facing the severest threats from climate‐induced flooding. Based on analyses of key resilience planning documents and both planned and unplanned developments in some of Mumbai's and Kolkata's most ecologically sensitive areas, our analysis reveals that resilience planning, promoted by the central government and international consultants, and presented in locally produced ‘fantasy plans’, fails to address the risks of climate‐change‐related flooding owing to tendencies to sidestep questions of politics, power and the distributional conflicts that shape urban development. We conclude that efforts to reduce urban flood risk would benefit from the research, methods and analytic concepts used to critically study cities, but significant gaps remain between these fields.

Urbanization in the time of climate change: Examining the response of Indian cities

“…This is not simply a question of spatial planning, but also one of political economy of land and real‐estate (Chakravorty, ) and whether the increasingly speculative mode of real‐estate growth is compatible with climate objectives or exacerbates risks (Romero‐Lankao et al, ). The development practices in mega‐cities of Kolkata and Mumbai suggest the latter (Weinstein, Rumbach, & Sinha, in press).…”

“…For India, in the absence of central or state urban climate action, there has been a dominance of nonstate actors involved in urban climate efforts who play a crucial role in bridging the gaps of state capacity, data and finances (Sethi & Mohapatra, ; Sharma et al, ; van der Heijden, ). Nonstate actors range from large international and bi‐lateral donors explicitly focused on climate change and the consultants and research groups they fund, to local industrial lobbies, resident associations and small‐scale NGOs focused on specific issues (Alankar, ; Boyd & Ghosh, ; Bulkeley & Castán Broto, ; Castán Broto, ; E. Chu, ; E. K. Chu, ; Revi, ; Weinstein et al, in press). These actors seek collaborations with city governments and build alliances with sectoral departments, para‐statal agencies and state governments.…”

“…For example, in Coimbatore, the city government has to consider multidecadal growth patterns and impacts on water sources across jurisdictions, alongside immediate considerations such as transportation, drainage and sewage management, all while balancing industrial, ecological, social and political interests (Bhardwaj & Khosla, ). This also tilts the focus on climate change to the wider political and social drivers of urbanization such as political economy of land and infrastructure (Bhardwaj & Khosla, ; Romero‐Lankao et al, ; Weinstein et al, in press).…”

“…Indian cities have limited institutional spaces, capacity or incentive to reap such systemic benefits, or to identify climate synergies and trade‐offs (Bhardwaj & Khosla, ; Boyd & Ghosh, ; E. Chu, ; Doll et al, , p. 20; Revi, ; Revi et al, ; Sethi & Mohapatra, ). For example, Ahmedabad's heat action plan has no institutional influence over mechanisms that govern green cover and water bodies (Pathak & Mahadevia, ) and climate action plans in Kolkata and Mumbai have no influence over development practices, leading scholars to describe the documents as “fantasy plans” (Weinstein et al, in press). In fact, different urban climate actions can even result in conflict (Bhardwaj & Khosla, ; P. Kumar & Geneletti, ; Sharma & Tomar, ), as in the case of Coimbatore, where in the name of climate resilience there were simultaneous ambitions to dedicate the city's lakes to the contradictory functions of water storage and storm drainage (Bhardwaj & Khosla, ).…”

“…In fact, different urban climate actions can even result in conflict (Bhardwaj & Khosla, ; P. Kumar & Geneletti, ; Sharma & Tomar, ), as in the case of Coimbatore, where in the name of climate resilience there were simultaneous ambitions to dedicate the city's lakes to the contradictory functions of water storage and storm drainage (Bhardwaj & Khosla, ). In Kolkata, plans for transit‐oriented development are not co‐ordinated with flood risk diagnoses (Weinstein et al, in press).…”