Smallest base unit of urban planning!

What has to be the smallest base unit of urban planning? Sector, cluster, zone, block, plot, dwelling unit or a hypothetical grid. Above are convenient measurement units but fundamental "human" element is missing there. Add "people" into the equation and each of these unit becomes dynamic pulsating living being having spillover effect, missed in current brownfield planning and development approach.

"People" for whom & from where urban planning should start and where all the benefits of planning should culminate.

Community, being a considerably large, heterogeneous and multicultural entity

is too big to be considered the smallest unit of urban planning; while Individual, having a limited set of attributes and prolific in numbers is rather too small & cumbersome an entity for base unit.

"Household" with its autonomous demographic, cultural & socioeconomic quality, gender mix, age range, embodiment of community ethos & manageable scale should be the most logical & obvious choice of smallest unit & assessment tool of urban planning. Household's data attributes should go beyond economic, demographic & census checklist & must factor in parameters of it's social and ecological footprint, commute profile, debt & liabilities, pursuits and aspirations etc.

Author: Anoop Jha

Human limitation of multi criteria assessment!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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Computers seem to be more reliable and accurate in running algorithm and doing assessment compared to human for the reason that computers are programmed to process  numerous "if this"-"then that"  scenarios, while human being have this innate limitation in processing multiple criteria and  "what if" Scenarios; a dozen criteria and handful of scenarios and most feel this is all that is there which was needed. Until computers completely master the art of attribute selection and scenario building themselves and learn to take judgmental decision on their own, their assessment and outcome shall also be limited as they are still being programmed by very human being having prejudice and limitations of many kinds.

To illustrate, while deliberating with individual client or a family to design their dream home, how many architects  for instance consider the sun sign traits of client, inquire about their past, their medical history, their travel history, their bucket list, their life philosophy, their spiritual inclination, musical preferences, cultural orientation, their sensitivity towards light, their daily routine, sleeping pattern, their food habit, their environmental commitments and children's future aspirations, child's favorite game and comic character, their idea of space and scale  etc. Unfortunately most of these variables are purposefully or by conditioning or out of hesitation being missed out during client's need assessment, but all or any of these can add immense value to architectural design process and outcome. If architects won't ask, client won't tell, then without considering such variables which are integral to one's life and true personality, how will architects  produce truly personalised, holistic and humane design for example.

Likewise, when government is collecting census data or demographic profile about individuals or households, they really don't find it worthwhile to ask about individual's hobbies, their skill sets, their unsettled and future liabilities of various kinds, health issues they are struggling with, their affiliations, what they are engaged in post retirement, areas in which they would like to volunteer given a chance, etc. which are equally tangible and crucial pieces of information and valid criteria of assessment, having potential to create a better society and conditions.

Capability to acknowledge, consider and process multitude of criteria and endless possible scenarios is what differentiates one individual from another, one organization from other, one city administration from other, one governance scheme from other and sometimes may even one nation from another.

Author: Anoop Jha

#Modeling  #financialmodeling #data #assessment  #analysis #algorithm #architecture #architect #governance #administration #nationbuilding #census #demography #survey #urbanplanning

Post-calamity socio-physical reconstruction: Untapped potential of urban planning!

It’s high time they should care for heritage values of shattered settlements.

Contemporary planning response : A wake-up call!! 

Any Natural calamity, An Earthquake, A Tsunami, A Flood or A Hurricane strangles the life of community and leaves a physical and emotional mark behind! Damage which is irreversible, but still people gather their spirit and strength and try to reconstruct that which has been shattered, their home, their neighborhood, their community, their village, their city, sometimes on their own sometimes hand in hand with community, with the support of government and with the aid and good wishes from around the world. It’s a collective effort of those who care to rebuild, those who feel responsibility to reconstruct, everyone contributes their bit!

A relevant question to ask here is that what an urban planner, an architect, an urban designer, a conservationist or a policy maker can do to restore the faith, hope and dignity of that community, How they can better contribute in the socio-physical reconstruction after an unforeseen natural calamity which physically shatters the settlement, a settlement which might have evolved in course of centuries whether it’s a village or a small town or a metropolitan city. Of course such situations demand a quick immediate response, a fast solution, a resettlement plan, a re-construction effort, a physical master plan to absorb and protect the affected population as quickly as possible; an infrastructure fast and techno-economically optimized enough to be viable. But in this race of providing the immediate comfort and amenities to the affected population we usually tend to forget or sometimes purposefully ignore the very basic need of community, the settlement itself, the fabric of settlement with which community has intimately remained attached throughout its life, probably they have grown together help shaping each other and hence the highly emotional bonding of community and settlement cannot be ignored neither its legacy of heritage value and learning.

In a neighborhood or community affected or devastated by natural calamity, an individual is not just bothered about his or her own loss, their own damaged house, but they are subconsciously also moved by the loss of others in the community and their very own settlement and neighborhood which has been shattered heavily. Their memories of growing in that neighborhood, those winding streets, their facades and architecture, their community spaces, those lingering familiarities and so on. We can try to reconstruct the original face of settlement if the damage is low and concealable, but sometimes they feel it’s better to reconstruct the settlement in adjacent open lands if the physical damage is much, this phenomenon is more noticeable and even more a point of concern in the rural or small urban communities. Usually physical planning response form the government and planners after a natural calamity in most of the cases is generally a super-optimized techno-economic solution, an efficient physical infrastructure, fast paced architecture, but surprisingly lacking in emotional response and nativeness in terms of architecture, lacking in regional impression and heritage values of planning, alienated from urban/ rural design principles and practices of the region, a shear absence of conservationist inputs and above all lack of human touch. Outcome seems an efficient but emotionless physical planning response which can and are being radially justified in the name of constrained resources and urgency of demanded action. Image above speaks for itself!

Though a much needed temporary relief, imagine the emotional and functional pain this new mechanical re-settlement master plan causes to the inhabitants in longer course of time through its totally alienated new physical planning environment, fabric and architecture, by continually reminding them of the disaster which occurred in past, due to its ever-present imposed unfamiliar environment. Imaging the continual struggle to adapt to this new imposed “efficient but rigid” neighborhood plan which has no relation whatsoever to the original form and architecture of the village or town which was devastated in earthquake or else and the loaded feeling of never to return to a spatial experience in their lifetime which even vaguely resembles to their original neighborhood or to a locality with its regional character! Imaging the loss to the future generation who is going to grow up in these reconstructed integrated prefab concrete township or villages with identical kind of off the shelf household unit next to the fading ruins of their devastated ancestral village and who will never know how it is like to live in the vibrant settlements were their parents, their grandparents and their ancestors used to live!

It’s high time that the legacy of heritage planning values, unique and integral to specific regions need to be acknowledged and incorporated in the post disaster reconstruction efforts specially in physical planning of the settlement which will have a long term beneficial effect. Even the communities in crying need of immediate physical reconstruction support, in a post-natural-disaster environment, need a physical planning solution with a “human touch”! 

Architecture Satellitexted

Satellite view of architectural alphabet 

Elevating financial profile of a community is much easier than perceived.

By – Anoop Jha

Creating community potential inventory and building capacity

When it comes to economic development of a region or community, there are always two choices available for the governing authorities. First, to let the business go on as usual that is apparent in majority of cases, second, to take deliberate catalytic measures to enhance the economic profile of a community as a whole and hence elevating financial profile of the individuals and households. In the first case, all the efforts of government remains targeted to somehow sustain the past economic growth rate of the region, general governing psychology is to please the community with showing little increment in overall growth rate, hence securing the vote bank and if that is not possible there are so many tricks to present even weak economic profile and data in number of glorified ways. If you want to taste a flavor of statistical manipulation, a widely recommended book is “How to Lie with Statistics -by Darrell Huff”. Anyway, coming to the second case, it takes a vision, intelligence and determination of government and policy makers to elevate the financial profile of a community and individuals in a real sense, which is after all not that difficult as historically projected by government itself by blaming lack of resources or by policy makers, relying too much on age old economic theories, failing to understand and tap emerging possibilities, or by mainstream media which is more concerned about blaming administration and debating on trivial statistics rather than educating and helping community to find out other additional possible economic resources and options.

There is one fundamental flaw in the way government approaches the community economics. Their current method and thrust is to gather information form community, derive inferences from its analysis, propose measures to tackle it and allocate the fund to achieve the same for the given time period and done for a while. But this model is not sustainable because in this model community is totally dependent on external aid and support while their potential remains untapped. Community needs an economic model which puts community economic growth on autopilot mode; of course they need some kind of assistance from government also in terms of strategic structure, creating infrastructure and some monitory help in the beginning. A better model of economic growth for a region would be to extract the previously untapped potential of a community, every household, and every individual for their own development. A community holds key of its own success, they have huge unrecognised potential in totality, which if tapped and nourished can help them create a much better economic profile.

Census or community data are mostly related to demography and they are quantitative in nature. Here is a list of data items collected during survey by Census of India. http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_And_You/data_item_collected_in_census.aspx  

What is lacking here is the qualitative data.  Qualitative data is essential to understand the potential of individual and community as a whole, and to formulize a holistic economic strategy for the region and community which is beyond time or resources.  Government should also include qualitative items in census survey while asking questions to individuals and household like what is their strength, what economic activity they would like to peruse given a choice or if made mandatory? What are their economic aspirations? What are their hobbies or talent in which they would like to get training and government support to take it further as an additional household economic activity? What are the three immediate measures and assistance they are expecting from government as an individual or household to peruse their dream leading to economic development? What are they good at? What are the excess resources which they would like to share or transfer to society or community if needed, whether its material, time or knowledge?

Government need to prepare the inventory of potential and talent lying within the community itself. They have to find and create and nourish entrepreneur in every household and should provide every possible support and training for the same, if they want to raise the economic profile of any community, society or region. These entrepreneurial activities can be in addition to their primary economic activities. They need to create entrepreneur out of every housewife, out of every teenage, out of senior citizens. Each one of them have latent talent which need to be unlocked for they own sake and for the sake of better and autonomous society. All they need to do is to identify the potential, building capacity on that direction and create linkage between talent and market, rest of economic activities and growth will follow on its own.