A multi-criteria decision making approach for the urban renewal in Southern India

India is witnessing rapid urbanization due to increase in population in cities. This poses a major challenge to the urban renewal process. This paper aims to provide an urban renewal framework for the development of cities in India under the ambit of smart cities mission, an initiative by the Government of India. To guide practices related to management of urban areas and advance policy-making decisions and scientific inquiry in this domain, we identify 7 criteria and 27 sub-criteria mainly from the literature related to socio-technical perspectives. To handle the inter-relations among the identified criteria and sub-criteria, we propose a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach based on Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory based Analytic Network Process (DANP). Moreover, the effectiveness of the proposed methodology for urban renewal in South India is demonstrated with a real-life case study. Finally, we establish how the obtained results will help the policy makers to initiate urban renewal in southern India.