City profile: Kochi, city region - Planning measures to make Kochi smart and creative

Abstract

Kochi is a versatile city. An emerging bustling cosmopolitan and commercial capital of Kerala, it also has a deep history, variety of ethnic communities and an old-world charm. Kochi has a style statement that distinguishes it from the rest of the state, in terms of lifestyle, dressing, diversity, market and opportunities. A travelogue describes Kochi as ‘magical without any trace of trickery’. It is among the 100 Indian cities selected to be transformed into a smart city. The population of the city region is expected to reach 2.27 million by 2031. This drastic increase calls for an urgent examination of several key aspects of the city infrastructure in order to ensure that Kochi is able to live up to the standard of a smart city. It is important to ensure the quality of urban development by studying the city's location at the junction of several ecosystems. Further, this paper looks beyond the smart city vision to making Kochi a creative city as well. Kochi has a unique mixture of ethnicity, culture, architecture and cuisine owing to the influence of traders from around the world as well as various parts of India. Thus, Kochi possesses the potential to push creative, knowledge-based economic activities. Strategies should be developed to encourage education and employment generation such that a creative class of people and occupations can flourish in the city.