15. Urban Rejuvenation and Social Sustainability in Smart City: An Empirical Study of Community Aspirations

Sustainable environment is the need of any society. Urban renewal in Smart Cities is the major concern for incorporation of sustainable environment in cities. Significant increase in population and lack of proper planning strategy has led to the series of problems of urban decay in metropolitan areas intimidating community wellbeing and security. To seize urban decay, rejuvenation is normally an adopted move toward regeneration of rundown areas. Rejuvenation often results negatively and may lead to bother existing social networks. The success of the renewal practices mostly depend on active participation of residents. The approach of sustainable development in urban rejuvenation should balance the interests of stakeholders in different socio-economic and demographic class. According to Ease of Living Index 2018, Pune ranks highest among 111 cities in India while in Smart city ranking by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in 2019 Pune stood 11th with 213.50 marks. For ranking purpose MoHUA considers a variety of factors like performance of civic institution, spent expenditure, and implementation of different projects in five years. On the one hand, Pune is considered as the most liveable city in contrast its ranking being a smart city shows negative effect. Pune is selected for the present study that is governed by Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). PMC governs 331.26 km² area comprising 15 administrative and 144 electoral wards. The total population of PMC is 3,371,626 where, 452,240 are SCs and 37,630 are STs. The present study explores the preferences and aspirations of citizens in regard to urban renewal through smart city mission. The questionnaire survey is been used to collect the responses of citizen from Pune Municipal Corporation. This paper aims to assess how residents perceive the urban renewal strategy through smart city mission and to identify the responses in view of individual's socio-economic and demographic structure. The results show that how age, educational level, employment status, etc. changes the perspective of responses.