¹û¶³Ó°Ôº

Dr Pushpa Arabindoo was invited to discuss her work in the Indian city of Chennai with , Senior Fellow of the French thinktank,ÌýLa Fabrique de la Cité, as part of its round-the-world tour of "cities in crisis".

They discussed the situation in Chennai, one of the 100 nominated cities in India'sÌýSmart CitiesÌýmission, during the Covid-19 pandemic. The city’s essentially informal activities face acute challenges, dependent as they are on the perceived benefits of crowds, density and informality.

‘The crowd’ is nowadays also often seen as generating big data, lying at the heart of all urban digital business models, supporting various aspects of the sharing economy, including crowdfunding or crowdsourcing

But how can such economic and social resources be engaged during the Covid-19 pandemic? How can the digital crowd on which the smart city depends be sustained while also observing the public health requirement limiting crowds as viral reservoirs?

Are IndianÌýPandemic CitiesÌýandÌýSmart CitiesÌýstill mutually viable? In each case, are we even talking about the same crowd?

For the full interview (in English), see:

Vimeo Widget Placeholder

Ìý

See

• Pushpa Arabindoo,Ìý,ÌýCity and Society, First published: 22 April 2020.