Abstract
The steel city of Jamshedpur originated in a small company town in the backwaters of eastern India as a new experiment in urbanism in 1907. The article critically examines its evolution to trace the influence of the most significant twentieth century town planning ideas-the garden city and the neighborhood unit-on the industrial township. A reevaluation of the planning reports of 1911, 1920, 1936, and 1944-45 reveals the reworking and adaptation of twentieth century modern urban planning and the limited success it achieved in India. The planning ideals included open green spaces of the garden city as an antidote to industrialization, urban infrastructure adapted to local site conditions, neighborhood units self-sufficient in civic amenities, and street hierarchy as a means of traffic segregation. Regionalization of global planning ideals as well as the tension between planned development and organic growth is evident in the narrative of Jamshedpur evolving from a company town to industrial city to the present day urban agglomeration.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 263-281 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Journal of Planning History |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2011 |
Keywords
- Garden city
- Industrial town
- Neighborhood unit
- South asian urbanism
- Urban core and periphery
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geography, Planning and Development