Walking down the memory lane of city

Walking down the memory lane, may be way different an experience now than actually walking down the old neighborhood lane you used to live decades back, while you were studying in that town, while you were on a social visit to your aunts place or on a vacation to that place, or the narrow street you use to travel to and fro from the school in childhood days.



City changes its form, experience; attitude like a person changes his appearance, philosophy and approach In course of time. Impression and impact of time can be seen on the city as we see in the human life. City reinvents itself and reflects contemporary life. Comparing present and past impression and memories of city is an emotional affair. Hence extra care needs to be taken in revitalizing and redeveloping cities because millions of memories and hopes are attached to these. 

What with urban farming? Can we make it happen?

Urban farming, a real good concept, something which might save the humanity from starvation. How far we are from autonomous urban system, system which generates enough food for itself, food affordable enough to reach the lowest economic strata of urban system, food pallet diverse enough to suite the heterogeneous  appetite of cosmopolitan city.  Why it is that we started doing agriculture thousands of years ago, but basic principal of agricultural has remained same apart from high-tech agricultural  machines,  tools, pesticides, genetically modified crops etc., why it seems stagnated, while in the course of evolution world population is shifting more and more towards urban centers but the source of food which was in the rural areas have remained there itself, of course it triggers economic growth, employment etc. through to and fro movement of processed and unprocessed food between urban and rural areas, which perfectly makes sense, but have we done it purposefully, or is it that we couldn’t devise a full blown method to get our food produced in the city itself,  apart from small experimental efforts of terrace farming etc. dotted here and there on the city map. Of course, city chooses its own priority activities in its core while pushing and spreading less important activities towards periphery and surrounding rural  regions. Is it that we are  treating urban farming as a luxury lifestyle item like terrace farming which can be shown to our guests with pride, is it that urban farming has just become a formula to get noticed in the race of green architecture, or a green USP to convince the client and sell the project to a wealthy end user, is it just a tool to prove that you are environmentally enlightened or has it really a potential to feed the city.

Can we make urban farming a concept easy enough  to be grasped by an average city dweller since gardening and farming involves skills and knowledge which is not taught in school,  a process easy enough to be implemented in the every balcony and every terrace of the city, can government provide training and  motivation to its citizen with supportive policies to make widespread urban farming a reality.



Can we expect array of fruit trees along the city streets in the near future, can we expect orchard and vegetable farming in the public parks and abandoned land parcels as a sustainable urban landscape effort. Can we expect urban farming in majority of houses,  apartment and premises of any city, implemented through training, stringent bylaws, tax saving policies,  subsidies and persistent efforts.  Can we give our child an opportunity to witness agricultural life cycle in their own private premises to better understand the process of life.     

Have we ever thought that urban farming might not be a luxury to showcase but an inevitable necessity for every city, which we are delaying and prolonging somehow?  

Blue Infrastructure strategies for Green Infrastructure

Water and related infrastructure collectively plays a vital role in wellbeing of city. Urban quality of a city can be accessed on the attention given to its water resources by the city planners and authority which includes conservation measures, utilization strategies and quality of water resources.  Quality of Water is the scale on which urban health can be measured. Water has its whole spectrum of influence from drinking water to sanitation to micro climate to green cover and varies in scale and operation from pond to river to sea and flood. Conserving and creating and managing blue infrastructure of city is the way towards greener infrastructure  and sustainable future

Why we can't & shouldn't get rid of open spaces of city.

Holistic environmental economic view 

Open and Green Spaces have been integral part of the fabric of city historically and served as a democratic interaction place for citizens in the sea of individual private territories of a city. Though green landscape philosophy and clean ambient environment techniques have evolved and spread widely in course of time from open public realm to building interior, to terrace garden, to artificial air purifiers etc. but the material or psychological need of public open spaces in the city can not be replaced by any other present technology or method. So its not only the need of green spaces but the need of pubic space which validates the existence of such open and green spaces throughout the city and this need cannot always be evaluated on monetary terms. Government and municipal bodies  need to find out new innovative fiscal strategies to raise funds to operate and maintain such spaces rather than getting rid of green space for immediate economical benefit. 

Thin line between development works, social service and exploitation

By - Anoop Jha

A case of tribal communities and regions

We need to question our own intention of doing right and doing good thing to others. May be what we think is right for someone or some community might not be that good for them as we assume.

Who is to decide what is good for whom? Is it the job of government? or maybe the Highbrow society? Or socially, politically and intellectually established individuals with their idiosyncratic ideology and philosophy having their own idea of utopian society? Is it the job of little advanced segment of society to decide what is good for not so advanced segment of society?


[Handpicked Books]

What could be the hidden intention behind doing good to others or some community or some region, which we call development work or at times social service?  Let’s take the example of tribal community and tribal region. Is it the shear innocent intention of sharing existing wealth and knowledge to unprivileged or unexplored segment of society or is it to exploit the untapped potential of the previously unexplored tribal region for our own advantage, is it a sincere effort to understand and document the needs and social pattern of these tribal communities or is it just to get commercial advantage by exposing these hidden communities to mainstream society, is it to help them learn utilize their own resources more efficiently or the hidden intention to exploit rich tangible and intangible tribal resources.  Is it to provide them better health, better opportunities and better lifestyle or is it  just shear gratification of doing social service.  Has that road been built to connect those hidden tribal communities to the mainstream society and to provide them new age opportunities and facilities or the intention is to extract the tribal wealth of region and exploit the heritage and culture value in form of tourism and all. 

Shy and conservative tribal communities throughout the world need very little for their living; they are an autonomous society in themselves.  They have been adapted to their environment in course of evolution and their local environment usually provides them all they need- food, shelter, social interaction, entertainment, spiritual satisfaction. Now there are few choices to make. One is to let this situation of apparent equilibrium of autonomous tribal community go ahead as usual and second to interfere and change the equilibrium either for their good or for own advantage which seems to be the case most of the time. This is a sensitive and tender issue has to be dealt with much thought and compassion. Social behaviors, norms and needs of tribal communities are mostly way different then the mainstream, so simply imposing the rules of mainstream society on the said communities might not do justice to them. For example the concept of formal education might be something totally alien to many tribal communities, so simply introducing the primary and secondary education system to those communities might not be a good idea just because we want everyone in the country to be literate, may be they simply don’t need a formal education, may be they need a different kind of skill orientated education, may be they need an education system totally different from mainstream society.  There are many such issues to address and subject of discussion.

Until they all arrive at a consensus, role of government in the mean time can be to protect the tribal communities and regions from external commercial invaders,  and provide them the health infrastructure with emergency facilities.   

Why city forms are like the way they are?

By - Anoop Jha

Inspecting reasons of changing development patterns from core city to contemporary development.

Morphological Differences in old & new development

While issue of changing city morphology across time is being discussed its imperative to ask what difference does a time span induces which alters the physiology and psychology of urban development?

After analyzing several old and new city developments patterns, some catalysts which emerge as possible reasons of change since Old Town to New City Era can be as follows - 

Rise of Multi-nuclei development

Multiple developer entities

Multiple governing agencies

Rapid mass housing requirement

Stringent Fire Norms

Increased Building Height

New construction materials & technologies

Changed mode of private & public transportation

Landuse classification restructuring


[Handpicked Books]

Utility distribution requirement

Landscape requirements and norms

New active climate control tools for buildings

Easy exposure to international benchmarks

Increased requirements of privacy

Changed Living style and  social interaction  pattern

New trend of concept based development

Targeted development to please stakeholders

Breaking the monotony of planning

By - Anoop jha

Interesting twist to parking plan

Parking Grid

Parking lot circulation showing innovative approach of planning grid which serves two purpose

1)It gives a holistic touch to industrial style rigid  parking grid with main organic collector route

2)It puts a desirable physical limitation on speed of car in parking area due to its curvature and alignment

What is common between Ahmedabad and Paris?

By - Anoop Jha


Quite apparent similarity in transport network at places !!!  

Transport network of any city tells story of its evolution. 

Similar City Transit Fabric 

IMAGE DISCRIPTION:

First - Road junction near Saint Lazara Terminal, Paris, France

Second - Mithakhali 6 Rasta. Ahmedabad, India

City evolves in course of time; there are many factors which shape the form and fabric of city, it can be climate or natural physiological constraints, or economy of city or prevalent transit mode, or land constraint etc. though there are vast difference in the built form of city of Paris and Ahmadabad there great similarity in the city fabric in terms of transit network, which is more apparent in terms of “road junctions” where many road arteries are radiating from the junctions as high as 6 to 8 across the city, possibly it is due to common circular and radiating overall form of city with a river dissecting it from the middle in both the cases, which makes it difficult to plan city in grid iron pattern. 

Terrace Garden on Every Roof !!

Did they say their city is green? Don’t believe them unless you see that green yourself. Seeing is believing! Common man does not understand the intricacy of complex statistics that is produced to position a city as a “Green City”. 

Lay men do not understand the matrix, criteria and assumptions that goes into judging a city on environmental benchmark. They don’t know and even don’t care how much eco friendly materials has been used in construction of their skyscraper office building, they also don’t care whether hot water supply in their luxurious bathroom of a high star grade hotel is from solar water heater or conventional power heater, star rating of their home appliances have only become a thing to be shown off. Green criteria of common urban dwellers are very simple in nature, if they been able to breathe fresh air, if they see lush green surrounding their home and their streets, from the window of their workplace, if their children can run and play in sprawling green fields, if their children know what it is called an ecosystem from their own living experience in city not learned from the text books, if they look above in the sky and see glittering bright stars on a clear night and if they look down below into a satellite imagery and see City as Green patch of land then they should definitely approve that city is green.

Series of Terrace Garden in a City

Let’s start with our own home or apartments, wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing to enjoy a garden of your own which you can’t afford in your front lawn because you have to park 2 to 3 cars  there, larger the lawn larger the car and larger the paved area.  Community park of your housing society you anyway don’t want to use after long working and  travel hours, you lake time and energy, also you don’t feel motivated enough to use community or public park unless a doctor has gives you a good dose of advice recently.


How about climbing few steps in your own villa or taking a lift from your own apartment floor which leads to terrace where you would have found a lush green terrace garden where you would have done your daily meditation or Yoga and exercise while breathing in fresh air, spending quality time with family, only if they would have planned it properly as an approachable and inviting terrace garden, which is currently either not used at all or used as storage of discarded household stuffs in the midst of complexity of installed utilities and storage. So why not make terrace garden on every roof of the city. If governments across the cities shall make it either mandatory to have a terrace garden in every building with certain assistance or if incentivize this feature for being integrated in the architecture of building, that would be a great leap forward towards sustainable and greener urban future.   

Growth dynamics of Urban Rural Fringe: Role of Cities as Facilitator

Knowledge, technology transfer and capacity building

Urban Rural interface at fringe

Any city small or large seems to affect the dynamics of neighboring region through its constant growth externalities and internal dynamics, larger the city more visible the effects. These effects can be positive in terms of growing economic activities, enhanced affordability and quality of life, access to health infrastructure; enhanced social infrastructure etc. at the same time the effect of urban development can also have downbeat effect on communities of urban rural fringe in terms of deteriorated environmental conditions, shifting livelihood option from agriculture to business, imposed urban lifestyle and pace of living on rural fringe communities who are tuned for some other kind of lifestyle and pace since centuries.


City has moral and technical responsibility to facilitate inevitable growth of urban rural fringe in a controlled manner. It’s not only necessary for city’s own growth but also significant because cities have capability, finance, resources, knowledge, technology, technical skills, authority and experience to deal with such issues. Its city’s part responsibility to help built and nurture communities at the edge of cities through its wisdom, knowledge and technology transfer and capacity building and they should be encouraged to do that.

By – Anoop Jha

Morphology of Greenfield city projects

Finding urban and regional morphological context for a Greenfield Development

Deciding a spatial form for a new green field city is rather tricky than the expansion of existing city in terms of defining language of city. What makes difficult to perceive the future form of Greenfield city is the lack of immediate spatial context. So planners have to distinct choices to make in term of deciding built form of city, one is to create something out of imagination, experience, and knowledge which might or might not relate to the regional and cultural fabric and the other choice is to create some city form which is responsive to the regional fabric and climate, and which is contextually sound on different parameters like architecture, street network and form etc.

By - Anoop Jha

Future-proofing urban planning

By Anoop Jha

Understanding future dynamics of urban environment

Urban planning projects present a multifaceted and dynamics set of challenges over its project lifecycle and during its subsequent operational phase. Due to dynamic behavior, polycentric domain, complex cross-sectoral interaction, varying scale and time of execution and operation within urban environment it is difficult to perceive future problems, constraints and direction of growth.

Only possible solution to understand the future dynamics of urban environment is to extract static elements in terms of quantitative measurements from the array of dynamic qualitative urban environment and actions like climate, social interaction, active transportation, combining them with the static elements of city like urban built form, concealed infrastructure. Each element of this derived quantitative inventory need to be assigned some index based on its weightage, and based on these indexes a comprehensive urban vulnerability matrix need to be prepared.  After a thorough and periodic assessment of vulnerability indictors from evaluation matrix, relevant revitalisation, prevention and recovery strategies against each item of this matrix need to be listed to for future proofing urban development and environment.  

Neglected Urban River Stretches - an untapped potential

By - Anoop Jha

Ignorance to the very thing which initiated the settlement of city

River which was supposed to be the life of city has become a dumping yard of city and ignored like a backyard of house in the course of evolution of city. Most of the early civilizations evolved and nurtured on the banks of river, there must be some reason for that.

Historically City used to be a combination of human Settlement, built form and River, which used to be a complete experience in itself, and key to an autonomous existence, because people used to be utterly dependent on river for –

Agriculture,

Food,

Grazing Land,

Trade,

Business,

Transport,

Drinking water,

Other Daily Activities

Contemporarily most of the rivers in the developing countries are either polluted or ignored or both, the only activity related to that is -

Dumping Industrial Waste

Dumping city sewage and waste water

Retrieving water for drinking and other purposes

For majority of rivers in the cities of developing countries the case is that river is no more directly related to livelihood of residents of the city, insignificant business or trade activities related to river, dominance of surface transport, numerous other recreational activities and places other than river.  Even rivers are perceived as hindrance in Commuting from one part of city to the other (common feeling: God forbid the long route and traffic jams on bridges crossing river at rush hours!!!).

Need is to Understand the significance of river in forming the balanced ecosystem in the dynamics of city. Cleaning, nurturing and integrating the river stretches in to the fabric of city. There is an urgent need for Pro-river Planning approach integrating it with mainstream city life. Strict but sensible river conservation and integration guidelines need to be in the place.

Even if the Riverfront Development is not possible due to some constraints like revenue, resource etc. some of the strategies to integrate river to the city life can be –

River cleansing and maintenance through diversion and downstream disposal of city waste water and sewage

Streamlining, developing and maintaining optimum acceptable standards of clean and safe public spaces with public facilities at river banks

Providing access to “public transport nodes” from river bank at walkable distances,

Integrating every existing open and green space of city to the   riverbank    

24X7 Surveillance and easy help facilities 

Light Pollution - A nuisance seemingly out of control

By - Anoop Jha

Light Pollution propelled by shear lack of awareness


If you will conduct a survey asking city dwellers, including educated as well as  illiterate population of any developing country to name the types of pollution they know, they tell you water and air pollution, few of them might also tell you Sound pollution but, you will find only handful of population even aware of the phenomenon of light pollution. This is unfortunate that people don’t even know about the price they pay in the name of industrialization and development, not even aware of their rights to live in a healthy pollution free environment.

There is a very simple and straight reason for all this unawareness - there is no curriculum throughout the hierarchy of education ladder that teaches the existence, cause, effects and resolution of light pollution. At least it wasn’t included in course structure in recent past. Another reason of lack of awareness is that majority of young population who were born and brought up in city and have not visited or spent time in any rural area or outskirts of city, they don’t even know that how does a clear night sky look like. They haven’t observed stars in real, lying on the terrace of their home, or in front lawn of their home, because majority of them live in compact flats in the comfort of controlled indoor temperature, they have only vague memories of star filled sky from a movie or childhood imagination of stories that their grandparents used to tell them. Possibly Light pollution is more of intangible in nature and awareness, hence planning communities as well as city authorities are more concerned with the tangible issues whose effects are visible and well known by citizens like water and air pollution.    

Acute phenomenon of light pollution calls for strict urban lighting Guidelines and Regulations whether people are aware of it or not. Parallelly an education drive needs to be conducted throughout the country to make people aware of the illness of industrialization, massive unregulated developments, their rights, emerging global phenomenon.  

Local Ecosystem : Model for adaptive growth

By - Anoop Jha

An autonomous and sustainable model for planning

Understanding the intricate pattern of  local ecosystem of any region which is adjustable and adaptive to its constantly changing environmental parameters like micro-climate, inhabitants, pace of activities, external tangible influences etc. could prove to be the key to future sustainable model for Urban and regional development. 

There are ample of example of such ecosystem throughout the world with  its peculiar challenges and solutions. ecosystems can be as small as an small island or a patch of land on a river bank, or it can be as big as a regional watershed catchment area of forest of Amazon, but each of these autonomous ecosystems have some kind of  similarity  which is absorptive capacity of these ecosystems, they seem to have inevitable capacity to nurture and absorb the growth within its somewhat flexible envelop. 

Natural ecosystems try to maintain a unique environmental conditions necessary for its existence from its constant physical and chemical activities. For example, river bank of an urban settlement which acts as the only grazing land for  buffaloes and cows of the small villages trapped within the city fabric in the process of urban expansion, can be an interesting area of study related to ecosystem.It is more or less similar cycle of activity flux everyday in the somewhat flexible envelop of this river bank grazing land, though constantly being influenced and invaded by the development activities of city and natural cyclic activities like annual flood. another example can be the Large forest of Savanna, which apparently seem calm from a distance but  buzzing with life cycle activities of flora and fauna inside its dense green envelop, constantly nurturing, changing, adapting  and absorbing the growth, while maintaining its ecosystem. Urban and Regional Planner need to study, document, analyse, extract, and implement the similar autonomous model of growth and planning for a sustainable future of cities.

Every city has stories to tell - What planners can learn from them

Tender and holistic side of Urban Planning

Every city has past layers of experience covered under the veneers of present. There are mysterious and fascinating stories created by time, locked in the hidden recesses of the city waiting to be explored. Every corner of city has impression of time engraved on its surface, which tells stories to passers by. Stories created by the residents of city and told to residents of city.

Cities are like story book .Older the existence of cities bigger the story book. City is a cumulative experience of mankind; it is result of evolution of mankind as an efficient species. Cities have evolved and will keep growing and expanding like living organism, amidst all this evolutionary history there has been numerous experience gathered by city dwellers which has been passed on from generations to generations, some of which has even become myth.

Nature of Stories varies from region to region and as per characteristics of city. Every city with similar characteristics  have something similar to tell, for instance towns of hills have similar stories derived from the generations of experience emerged from somewhat common experiences of similar climatic conditions, similar terrain, similar lifestyle and available facilities. Modern fast pace cities have somewhat common stories to tell from the similar problems and opportunities available in cities tike, traffic, high-rise living, mass transport, entertainment etc.

Because of such mysterious and interesting characteristic of cities it has attracted attention of , writers, poets, film makers, artists etc. They either dig into the history of city or carefully watch the ongoing flux of life of city to get inspired.

Though all this is an glittering ornament of experience, made with cumulative effort of generations of city dwellers, molded and carved in the heat of time, Its an important role of an urban planner to dig into the history of city to understand the nature and temperament of city, to learn the lessons from the stories of experience and then only plan, expand and revitalize the city which can be readily accepted  by residents of city without their feelings of attachment with city being hurt, with which they have grown. This is an essential part of the holistic planning but unfortunately we tend to neglect this tender but vital part of city planning process.

By Anoop Jha 

Perception of space – a function (f) of Space

Regional and Locational shift in Perception of space

Space function and origin

Perception of space in terms of physical location of observer plays a crucial part in understanding planning of urban built form and is a vital part of Urban Planning, but the roots of such perception emerges from regional level. It is also related to conditioning, space perceived by residents of mountainous, hilly and undulating terrain are totally different from space perceived by person living in  flat terrain. Similarly space recognized by a person who spent most of his life in sprawling rural setting  can be totally different than a person living in an urban setting, It can be either” a not so pleasant shock” or “a surprise” or “an aspiration” for an individual while changing their location from hills to plain or rural to urban or vice versa. Usually what happens is that people constantly living in mountainous and hilly terrain witness only finite view due to restrained field of view by mountains,  hills and valleys, and when they occasionally come to plain and see that there is no limitation on the field of view, when they realize that they can see upto the horizon, it’s a pleasant shock to them.

Similarly when a resident of sprawling plain terrain goes for a vacation to some hill station or otherwise, they find it as a one of the finest moments of their life, primarily because of limited and ever changing field of view provided by hilly city,  they have a totally different experience of space that is finite which they have never experienced in life living in plains. Similarly a person living in a rural setting with sprawling, sparse and low-rise settlement when encounter with a city with medium to high-rise and dense built form and architecture, its not the rush of city that strikes him most, it’s the “Built Form” that strikes him dumb, he curiously looks out of the window of train and bus and cab, to see the buildings touching the sky, public spaces formed and enclosed by surrounding buildings. Suddenly he finds himself enclosed and restrained in the built form of the city which provides finite field of view with claustrophobic environment which is a paradigm shift in perception from the earlier experienced freedom of unlimited perceived space of rural setting. 

Conservation Projects: From Liability to Asset

By : Anoop Jha

Architectural conservation has traditionally been considered as public or state responsibility and very few private entities are interested in taking up such projects, though state like Orissa is having Public Private Partnership (PPP) Model for conservation projects. A country with rich history and centuries of traditions like India has also rich Architectural assets which are often neglected and difficult to conserve due to its sheer abundance, Though national and international agencies like “Archeological Survey of India (ASI), UNESCO, etc. are taking active measures to conserve the heritage of India, but it seems that it’s time that private entities and investors should come forward to conserve the architectural heritage of Nation. I think it can prove to be quite a lucrative option for private investors if government acts as a facilitator and if some relaxation is given in heritage conservation planning process along with some incentives. It would prove to be a win-win situation for both public and private entities.

This is how it will work. Architectural conservation projects have few elements in common –

●      TECHNIQUES – its technical aspects of conservations projects, there are technical guidelines, policy norms, etc. it’s simply art of engineering.

●      HERITAGE VALUE – every historic architectural asset has a heritage value attached to it, and if methodically and convincingly approached by private agencies, government or public agency will certainly come forward to facilitate the conservation project of any nature, because conserved and maintained heritage is an asset for any state, which they often fail to take care of because of other pressing welfare responsibilities and limited financial resources.

●      EMOTIONAL VALUE – It has high perceived emotional value for, a Nation, a State, a certain group, or certain individuals, this high emotional value can be translated into monetary value with certain effort and proper strategy

●  UTILITARIAN VALUE – This is the most important aspect of any conservation project because this is what makes it as a commercial viable project, to make this model viable government will need to act as a facilitator and will have to draft special policy considering the special and sensitive status of such projects, policy also have to incorporate privet participation and related relaxation in terms of some norms and subsidies etc. to attract the investment from private investors.

Critically polluted industrial clusters in India

State -wise Polluted Clusters No. and Location

Source: pib.nic.in