STATEMENT OF PURPOSE FOR BIRKBECK WORKSHOP

London and Delhi, both being one of the largest metropolitan cities of the world has a lot of
opportunities to learn from each other in the field of urban development. Being an urban design
student, I feel that London, being a developed city from the highly urbanized part of the world has learnt
a lot from its past developmental actions and has created a mechanism that integrates urban
development with local aspiration and demand of the citizen. What Delhi, a city which has seen an
authoritarian way of dictating urban development through masterplans, can learn is how to integrate
citizen participation or the voice of the local in the policy level framework which will further guide urban
development in terms of demand and supply of both physical and social infrastructure, therefore
creating the connection between the citizen and the government. It is also seen that when it comes to
implementation of developmental strategies in the local scale, the Delhi government is more concerned
with improving existing problems with technology driven solutions setting aside how humans or the
society is engaging with it, which ultimately results in further problems hence it is important to look at
the urban development model with which London works. Another important matter in fact is how
London has managed to keep a global image by focusing on the local needs of its citizen by bringing a
hybrid economical strategy which makes a city more inspiring and brings people together. Lastly,
London has a well-functioning system of managing several governmental agencies to act together where
a city like Delhi lacks which is a very important thing to be thought about. On the other hand, what a
city like London can learn from Delhi is how to manage with such a large population which bring many
such complex issues like urban poverty, poor sanitation facilities, societal conflicts, unequal distribution
of resources etc.

I feel that, the exposure that I will gain from this workshop will help me to get equipped with unique
methods and tools in researching on complex sociological facets and its relation with urban
development. It will also help me in understanding how urban design can become an essential tool in
implementing policy frameworks to bring a sustainable urban scenario. This would also give me a great
opportunity to further researching on local communities by getting familiar with the sociological
theories and possibilities in linking up principles of urban design with it.