‘Between the devil and the Bay of Bengal’: the Ford Foundation and the politics of planning in post-Independence Calcutta

Andrew Rumbach

Planning Perspectives, 2021, vol. 36, issue 5, 1025-1051

Abstract: From 1960–1973, the Ford Foundation and the Calcutta Metropolitan Planning Organization (CMPO) engaged in a unique partnership that produced the Basic Development Plan, a bold strategy for the development of the world’s ‘most troubled city.’ The Ford-CMPO partnership brought together leading planning experts from the United States and India and resulted in innovative and abortive development plans and programmes, and was beset by the economic and political crises that came to define post-Independence Calcutta. This paper provides a detailed history of the Ford-CMPO partnership and highlights the myriad of political dilemmas that challenged the project and that provide a window in the politics of planning and urban development in post-Independence India.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02665433.2021.1897032 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rppexx:v:36:y:2021:i:5:p:1025-1051

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rppe20

DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2021.1897032

Access Statistics for this article

Planning Perspectives is currently edited by Michael Hebbert

More articles in Planning Perspectives from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().