The emerging role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in urban and regional planning in India

Abstract

Urban and regional planning faces unprecedented challenges in the 21st century, ranging from rapid urbanization and population growth to climate change and resource depletion. In addressing these challenges, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative toolset for planners, offering advanced analytics, predictive modeling, and optimization capabilities. In this paper, the author discusses how artificial intelligence can be integrated into urban and regional planning in India’s socio-economic landscape. It highlights the use of machine learning to predict future trends and interpret complex data sets, geospatial analysis using various AI-powered tools for spatial planning, as well as Natural Language Processing for data mining. As a way of understanding and improving urban infrastructure, deep learning techniques can be used in urban image analysis and agent-based modeling along with urban simulation for better prediction and decision-making. Nevertheless, a great number of actors make it difficult to implement such techniques locally such as the absence of valuable local data, limited infrastructure facilities, professional knowledge gaps among employees and their poor integration into existing planning processes. The article strongly stresses institutional capacity building, interagency cooperation through governance structures and open data initiatives. Importantly, there has been an indication that the Indian government is committed to artificial intelligence based on various initiatives and policies showing its willingness to embrace these technologies despite their minimal direct application in Indian urban and regional development so far .

Keywords

• planning
• artificial intelligence
• geospatial analysis
• machine learning
• governance and capacity building