The idea of Entangled Urbanism looks at cities as networks made up of diverse: social; economic; political; cultural; and spatial relationships. This challenges the way researchers view different urban spaces as being separate and independent of one another. The interconnectedness of different urban areas, such as slums, gated communities, shopping malls, informal settlements, and business districts, allows us to see how those areas rely on each other for their survival in the same way that any one of them cannot exist without the others.
Key Characteristics
Interconnected Urban Areas :Urban areas that appear to be separate from one another are actually connected through: labor, goods, services, governance, infrastructure, social relationships. For example, many gated communities benefit from the existence of domestic workers, security personnel, and other service providers who live in informal settlements.
Beyond Urban Dualism :Challenges to the traditional dichotomy of: “formal” versus “informal”; “modern” versus “traditional”; “developed” versus “developing” urban areas. These characteristics are interdependent and cannot be understood on their own.
Power and Inequality:How urban inequality is produced through the complex relationships that exist between the state, the marketplace, and local citizens. Evidence of these entangled networks can be found in myriad processes, including slum demolitions, real estate development, and urban beautification.
Multiple Urban Actors: A focus is put on the interaction of different groups, such as residents, local governments, developers, businesses, migrants, and civil society organisations in making urban life.
The Work of Sanjay Srivastava
The book “Entangled Urbanism: Slum, Gated Community, and Shopping Mall in Delhi and Gurgaon” by Sanjay Srivastava helped spread the idea of entangled urbanism to both academics and practitioners in various fields. In it, Srivastava explains how, through everyday practices, citizenship, consumerism, state policies, and urban development slums, gated communities, and shopping malls in the cities of Delhi and Gurgaon are interdependent on one another and interwoven into one greater urban network rather than treated separately.
Contemporary Urban Research
More current studies have extended the notion of entangled urbanism to include social, ecological, and technological networks. Urban scholars today argue that cities are complex systems in which human services and environmental processes interact with one another constantly. Understanding this relationship is critical to the understanding of climate resilience, sustainability, and the governance of smart cities.
The use of the term entangled urbanism in an academic sense means it is an approach for understanding cities that underscores urban spaces, actors, institutions, and processes that are interconnected. By recognizing that seemingly distinct types or forms of urban space, such as a slum, gated community, or commercial space, are all part of the same interconnected whole as a result of the unique economic, political, social, and cultural relationships that exist among them, we can begin to understand the complexity of contemporary life in urban areas.
Source(s), Link(s) and Inspiration(s):
Inclusivity in Cities: Dimensions of Urban Inclusion
Urban Spaces are Consequential
History of Urban Growth: Factors for Development of City States
Pros and Cons of Living in Gated Communities
The City is Built Layer by Layer
Rashid's Blog: A Place for Inquisitive Souls 