Globalisation and the Management of Indian Cities

Cities in Europe and North America have been through three decades of innovation in institutions and practices as they seek to accommodate the new environment of global economic integration. Many have learned to facilitate the creation of new economies that have institutionalised incremental change with a changing political consensus, liberating themselves in part from those rigidities that make for extreme vulnerability in conditions of crisis. The same is also true of cities in Latin America and in China. However, elsewhere - including possibly India - the sovereign state is often still struggling to retain its monopoly control. In doing so, the state stifles the full potential role of cities to advance the world, to reduce the burden of world poverty. Liberating the cities is thus a key part of the agenda for the new century and for the eradication of poverty.