Planners tend to promote formal plans as the only game in town while diverse efforts of urban actors shape our cities. Tracking the development of American "neighborhood unit" concept in independent India's planning practice and literature-from the national level policies to on-the-ground applications in the city of Jaipur-Vidyarthi explains how a host of actors including neighborhood residents, squatters, politicians and developers made different kinds of plans that assimilated the design concept in line with their practical concerns and cultural preferences creating unique variants of...

Planners tend to promote formal plans as the only game in town while diverse efforts of urban actors shape our cities. Tracking the development of American "neighborhood unit" concept in independent India's planning practice and literature-from the national level policies to on-the-ground applications in the city of Jaipur-Vidyarthi explains how a host of actors including neighborhood residents, squatters, politicians and developers made different kinds of plans that assimilated the design concept in line with their practical concerns and cultural preferences creating unique variants of...