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A Radical town planning approach, advantages and disadvantages

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Written By psaram42 - 11 August, 2009

Traffic Bangalore Planning environment Decongestion Analysis Society Others Everything else

There is a need to have some changes in the current thinking, as far as the town planning aspects of cities like Bangalore are concerned. Sustainability and the Global Environment are gaining more and more attention due to increasing human population upsetting a natural ecological balance. It may not be inappropriate to set a good example of a radical town planning concept, for the future generation, before it is too late. 

What is town planning? 

Town planning is the science of planning the cities which are basically non agro based, in nature. It involves comprehensive planning aspects of the physical and social development of a town, city or a mega city. A village on the other hand is agro based requiring large tracts of land for growing food. With the Industrial Revolution People were till now blissfully unaware of the inadvertent adverse effects on the environment. However a time has come for taking stock of the situation. 

Kalidasa, a well known name in Indian Context had a humble beginning. 

He was once seen to cut a branch of a tree on which he was sitting at the wrong side! Tis story perhaps puts the current malady in a proper perspective. 

The Traffic hassles faced by the Bangalore Praja are well known. This is borne out by the fact that traffic issues get maximum attention on the Praja site. Let us try to put various issues getting attention on the site: 

  1. Traffic
  2. Taxation
  3. Decongestion
  4. Health
  5. Public Hygiene
  6. Civic Amenities
  7. Public Toilet
  8. Public Transport
  9. Travel
  10. Water Borne Disease 

(My one paisa on: It may be a good idea to introduce tracking the indices used on the praja site) 

In this thread I would like to evoke some radical thinking in this direction. 

COMMENTS

Car free cities, suburb

sanchitnis - 14 August, 2009 - 14:27

 Here is the website corresponding to the book "car free cities" http://www.carfree.com/ .

Also reposting an article on Vauban: a german car free suburb:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/science/earth/12suburb.html

Sanjay Chitnis

I think the best way for

sarvagna - 11 August, 2009 - 09:13

I think the best way for India is identify new plots of land for completly new cities and plan the developments properly keeping even the smallest of smallest things in mind.

Lease the township plans to real estate guys to completly develop the facilities and allowe them a percentage of the land developed.

i don't see any other way where we can make our cities look even close to the looks of the other cities of the developed countries.

Needs strong political will - period

sanjayv - 11 August, 2009 - 09:45

I think the solution for all of this is to change the politics in the country.  For Bangalore to transofrm, there is a need for some strong, possibly radical decisions; an ability to stand up to vested interests, an ability to formulate a plan and stick to it, and the use of engineering and technology (not just IT).

None of this is possible in the current frame-work as has been demonstrated time and again.

The Radical Design approach for a future Bangalore

psaram42 - 11 August, 2009 - 05:40

 Let us try to enumerate the major design criteria:- 

  1. Limited cosmetic Smooth ground level Vehicular traffic
  2. Only Foot paths and cycling tracks at ground level.
  3. Increasing on ground Population Density with nearness to under ground Metro.
  4. Under ground Metro based commutation
  5. Primary Exclusive Under ground Rectangular non crossing multi level Metro Grid
  6. Secondary Rectangular Metro grid at 45 degrees to cater for better accessibility with increasing city extent
  7. RWH compatible community town planning concept (To be separately dealt later)
  8. Etc 

The above are simple but radical concepts. These are presented as a food for thought for the kind concideration of "Praja". 

High Time we saw the literature

psaram42 - 13 August, 2009 - 13:48

 Thanks Shastri and IDS. It is high time we saw the literature. I was postponing the armchair travel just to try and produce some new ideas. 

Here is what WIKI has to say:-

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“A sustainable city, or eco-city is a city designed with consideration of environmental impact, inhabited by people dedicated to minimisation of required inputs of energy, water and food, and waste output of heat, air pollution - CO2, methane, and water pollution. Richard Register first coined the term "ecocity" in his 1987 book, Ecocity Berkeley: building cities for a healthy future.[1] Another leading figure who envisioned the sustainable city is architect Paul F. Downton, who later founded the company Ecopolis Pty Ltd. The field of industrial ecology is sometimes used in planning these cities.

A sustainable city can feed itself with minimal reliance on the surrounding countryside, and power itself with renewable sources of energy. The crux of this is to create the smallest possible ecological footprint, and to produce the lowest quantity of pollution possible, to efficiently use land; compost used materials, recycle it or convert waste-to-energy, and thus the cities overall contribution to climate change will be minimal if such practices are adhered to.

It is estimated that around 50%[2] of the world’s population now lives in cities and urban areas. Essentially these large communities are unsustainable, but they provide both challenges and opportunities for environmentally-conscious developers. In order to make them more sustainable, building design and practise, as well as perception and lifestyle must adopt sustainability thinking.” 

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It is high time that we in Bangalore start dreaming about the modern Town planning concepts. Will not bother about cost factor for some time other wise we will wake up from a nice dream. 

Grand Designs: Sustainable City Task

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