ABSTRACT
This chapter continues the discussion on how the smart city narrative is rendering second tier cities of India as laboratories for experiments with far reaching impacts shifting focus on planned historic cities. Based on a detailed case study of Jaipur it argues how second and third tier cities of India are the emergent urban reality of India with growing levels of consumerism, widespread use of digital technologies and satellite communications, global linkages and growing aspirations. The smart city plans in second tier cities of India have ushered in new possibilities for these cities often neglected in the urban narrative of India. However, examination of ground realities present haphazard patterns, fragmented spaces and random initiatives, often not connected to the complex urban realities that in turn throw new challenges for the discipline of urban design. It delineates the role of Urban Design in understanding and articulating contemporary urban phenomena and in particular discusses how it could be effectively used and plugged into the smart city narrative.
