Title:

Going beyond the mundane: Alternative urban planning and design approaches for inclusive futures

Abstract

This paper seeks to address the need for an alternative public realm theory by going beyond the dominant western framings of ‘what is a good public realm design?’. We focus here on the everyday informal urban spaces in the peri-urban regions in Global South (Chennai city in India) which are largely “discontinuous, dynamic and contested” (Schindler, 2017). We argue that ‘the quality without a name’ (Alexander, 1980) embedded in urban informality here constitutes a distinctive ‘type’ of spatial quality and experience . And this  emergent quality which remains neglected in terms of its intrinsic value, and how it differs from the conventional expressions in global northern settings, warrants study to enrich our appreciation of, and ability to code for, diverse spatialities.Most of the existing research on peri-urban region is grounded in examining flows (e.g people, production, commodities, capital and information) and linkages (e.g. economic, social, political) that are physical and measurable; there is limited analysis of peri-urban as a ‘place’.Using a case study in the metropolitan city of Chennai, in India, we discuss how incorporating a place-based conceptualization allow peri-urban spaces to be explored as a dynamic matrix providing the necessary ground for everyday life, sense of identity and belonging, interactions and lived experiences for the people and communities. Through the findings we introduce four socio-spatial propositions -inclusive chaos, situated transaction,  negotiable transgression, and loose affordances.  Through these propositions, we discuss how everyday digital. corporeal performative practices and spatial practices interact and serve as an enabling environment, to allow the communities to co-develop resilience strategies to negotiate, adapt and engage in public spaces.