Smart Economy in Smart Cities Varanasi India: Case of a Smart Traditional Economy of Knowledge-Based Institutional Services and Creative-Cultural Products

Abstract

Next to ‘Sustainable City’ and ‘Resilient City’, ‘Smart City’ is apparently the new buzzword in the discourse on development of cities across the globe. This is particularly true for India with the Ministry of Urban Development, Govt. of India taking up the mission to develop a hundred smart cities to guide planned urbanization across the country. The concept of ‘smartness’ in cities has largely meant to be driven by modern advances in technology, particularly in Information and Communication sector (ICT), and its interface with functioning of cities. However, besides such reliance on modern technologies and its implication on smart growth, scholars and governments have tried to recognize the power of traditional economies, which have been able to sustain over centuries, and appropriate them to present scenarios. This chapter on Varanasi (India) presents cases from the city which exemplify its strength on traditional knowledge system as a driver of its economy; and thereby, a driver for urban development. Accordingly, the chapter is being split into three sections. The first section identifies the development potential based on ecological innovation, particularly, for the Greater Rajghat–Sarnath Region in the Varanasi City Region. The study indicates that innovation hubs tend to cluster and form a network of innovation zones. Under this ambit of innovation-led development, the understanding of clustering has further been noted in the study of clusters of few cultural industries from Varanasi City Region, as noted in the latter section. In the final section the possibility of ICT augmentation for smart economy and smart governance in the city of Varanasi has been explored. Thus, the city of Varanasi highlights the strength of its economy, which is partially driven by ecological innovation and creativity, with a promise to drive a smart growth.