Learning from Small Cities

(urban geography, smart urbanism and postcolonial urban theory, social justice)

This research dissemination animation, titled “Learning from Small Cities”, was commissioned by the Smart Small Cities project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and based at University College London (UCL). The project investigates how India’s smaller cities are being transformed into “smart cities”, how their residents actually live through those changes, and how urban futures might be made more socially just.

Small cities are becoming the testing ground for India’s smart urban future, often with big plans handed down to them from the national level. The research looks closely at three of them, Jalandhar, Shimla and Nashik, to understand the gap between how transformation is imagined by planners and how it is experienced on the ground by ordinary citizens. The animations were made as part of a “smart city asset toolkit” designed to help communities speak back to, and inform, the planners and policymakers shaping their cities.

I created two animations for the project: an overview introducing the research and its aims, and a closer investigation of Jalandhar, a city of around 800,000 in Punjab whose inclusion in India’s Smart City Mission sat in tension with its long history of emigration. I worked in whiteboard animation for its clarity and knack for holding attention. The format suits dense, evidence-based material, letting complex urban policy arguments build up step by step in a way a general and policy audience can follow. Making rigorous research legible to the people it affects is the heart of my animation work with academics and researchers.

The work reached audiences beyond the screen, too. The project’s animations were shown as part of its public Learning from Small Cities exhibition at the Building Centre in London, displayed alongside photography and storyboards and accompanied by a two-day academic conference. The project was a substantial international collaboration between UCL, the University of Birmingham, Birkbeck (University of London) and the Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi, and you can explore the wider research at the Smart Small Cities project site (now archived).

If you’re a researcher or organisation working on urban policy, international development or social justice and you’d like to turn complex research into clear, engaging animation, I’d love to hear from you. Get in touch.