Neha Sami studies urban and regional development and governance in post-liberalisation India. Her research focuses on the governance arrangements of mega-projects, regional planning and on environmental governance questions in Indian cities, particularly around issues of climate change adaptation. Her earlier work focussed on the way local urban stakeholders, both within and outside government use their personal, social and political networks to shape and facilitate large developmental projects and governance initiatives that are rapidly emerging in contemporary Indian cities. She is currently studying industrial corridor development projects between Indian cities like the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, focusing particularly on governance issues. She is also interested in regional approaches to land use planning. Other ongoing research focuses on questions of environmental governance at sub-national scales, focusing especially on planning for climate change at the city and regional scales. Her writing on some of these issues has been published in the Economic and Political Weekly, the International Journal for Urban and Regional Research (IJURR) and Land Use Policy, as well as through contributions to several edited volumes.
Neha is currently faculty at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements in Bangalore, India where she teaches on questions of urban and regional governance and sustainability, and research methods and ethics. She also anchors the Research Programme at IIHS. Neha is also a member of the Editorial Collective of Urbanisation (published by SAGE).
She holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan, a master’s degree in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Mumbai. Prior to beginning graduate school at the University of Michigan, Sami worked with the Boston Redevelopment Authority as an analyst with the Economic Development Division, as well as with the Environment and Sustainable Development Division of the UN-ESCAP (Bangkok).