Towards Re-Imagining Infrastructure and Urban Development

At CEPA, we use our annual symposiums to engage with a wide audience on the various themes and topics that we research. The aim being not just to share our research but also to learn from others and engage with policy and practice. Since its early beginnings CEPA has been looking at urban poverty and how the manifestations of poverty change based on the urban-rural dynamic. We have questioned the broad-brush approach of treating all households in under-served settlements as poor. We have also looked at different aspects of urban development such as evictions and re-settlement with the aim of promoting inclusive and socially just urban development. We have examined the processes through which development is delivered and how it impacts people; the types of livelihoods and related lifestyles that determine people’s ability to move out of poverty; and how disasters such as floods affect people and how they cope with it. More recently we have concentrated on how the urban poor are served by the city planners and how they are included (or not included) in city making – with the emergence of plans and concepts such as the Megapolis. We have turned our focus to how people themselves shape or adapt infrastructure and the space of a city. Hence over time we have looked at diverse topics, with diverse researchers contributing to the growing body of knowledge.