Artificial Sonic Urban Environment to break the monotony of City!

By - Anoop Jha

Talking city - With endless possibilities

Even in the big vibrant city you live, you go through the same old repeated pattern of daily activities in an outdoor urban environment, same street, same mode, same people, same noise, and same monotony of everyday that a city presents in spite of all its somewhat varying activities. To break the monotony of city some dynamic and catalytic surprise element need to be introduced into the functional and ambient system of city. Let’s take “artificial sonic environment” as that surprise element; it has some inherent characteristics which makes it one of the best possible and commercially viable solutions to be an experimental tool to create rich user experience in the city.

Imagine you are waiting at a bus stop to catch the bus to your office like any other working day and suddenly you are greeted by a pleasant light sound of the flute blended with some hilly region tune, emerging from the background which enveloping the ambient environment of that particular bus stop and subsequently every passenger leaving that bus stop with pleasant memory and a bright smile. What a pleasant start of the day.

Imagine a situation where you reached a busy local fruit and vegetable market to buy stuffs. While you are busy negotiating the price with vendor you suddenly pay attention to the light sound of morning chorus of birds and munching buffalos or roaming heard of cows blended with sweet ethnic rural song which is again emerging from background speakers concealed at strategic public urban spaces which encloses the local market. This particular buying experience would be so different and pleasant than any other day that next time you would be inevitably encouraged to walk down the street from your home to re-live that similar experience, only to find out more sonic surprises in terms of changing songs and tunes, listening to morning news right into the middle of vegetable market, you can even listen to your favorite songs and tunes or can dedicate it to whole market or to the entire population of public plaza or square or even to entire city from right there and then through city level network of speakers and stereos installed by governing authorities by paying a token amount which goes into the expansion and maintenance of the sonic infrastructure of city itself and collectively becomes an additional source of income to municipal authorities. Sounds Good, isn’t it??

Creating Ecological Infrastructure for a city

By – Anoop Jha

Urban green with radiating river canal as a sustainable urban planning model

River provides ample opportunities of growth but it appears that majority of cities have not taken advantage of this dormant potential, most of the cities throughout the world have not even been able to handle the issues related to river like recurring floods, water pollution etc. forget about the utilization of river potential for the benefit of city. Thriving lush green riverfront has become a luxury which very few cities have been able to afford till now while rest of the world seems either totally engrossed in solving other urban problems and internal issues or they are content doing beautification of Neighborhood Parks. Greener Neighborhood Park is a good idea in short term but not a sustainable environmental solution for city in long term.

Cities can trade in carbon credit but unfortunately cannot trade in quality of environment of a city. What they need to do is to create a tangible ecological infrastructure for a sustainable urban environment. For a river city it is very crucial to understand the need of exploiting the possible opportunities as well as tackling the grave problems of recurring flood and river water pollution.  River system with all its tributaries is like arteries of a leaf which carries all the minerals and nutritious content mixed in water from root to leaf tip. Cities with its built mass present an obstruction in the natural direction of flow of river. Cities can be built to facilitate the natural flow of river and should be planned to dissipate the extra water from the city fabric causing flood, as quickly as possible.

A model of sustainable ecological plan for a city can be like a leaf with its arteries’ alignment opposite the river flow, Green streak emerging from river bank, nurtured by river water itself which is carried through the narrow canals in the middle of radiating greens from the lush river bank. Radiating canals into the city fabric will not only help reduce the impact of flood by providing extra water holding capacity in times of flood hence giving extra time and cushion to tackle flood problem, but it will also provide space to create lust green natural and recreational zones all along the urban canal, giving breathing space up to the unreached recesses of cities where it is most required. Aligning radiating canals in somewhat differing direction of river flow will help reduce the possibility of city flooding due to these canals to reinforce the protection mechanism, control gates can also the added at the junction of canal and river. It is like having multiple canal bank development inside the city fabric radiating from river rather than having one riverbank development or rather ignored and polluted river cutting through the city. 

Urban Planning and development: finding solutions from chaos itself

By - Anoop Jha

City Constraint is the mother of urban Innovation

In architecture and planning we face different challenges every day, unique constraints for every individual project. Necessity is the mother of invention but “Constraint is the mother of Innovation”. More challenging the constraint more innovative would be the solution; more unique would be the outcome. 

Urban planning constraints can be of different natures like constraint imposed by site profile and contours, high water table constraint, extreme and unpredictable climate, congestion chaos, manpower constraints, and material unavailability, land availability constraints, shortage of energy etc and solutions which emerged from these constraints were driven by these constraints only, e.g. site profile and contours help formulize the form and pattern of city, high water table forces engineers to design buoyant and floating foundations, extreme and unpredictable climate required planners and engineers to manage task in most efficient and least time possible and invent speedy construction techniques, traffic congestion showed ways to innovate in mass transit and public transport mode, manpower constraint called for automation, material unavailability forced to utilize local material for construction and to innovate with local material, land unavailability forced to go high-rise, shortage of energy inspired to innovate and use renewable energy.  

Each one of these challenges gave a reason to mankind to move forward, to innovate; a reason not to stagnate, a reason to search for some solution and thanks to this inherent inquisitive and daring nature of mankind planners, architects, engineers and scientists have always succeeded to find out a unique solution for every unique constraint imposed by nature. So one should be very optimistic when it comes to urban planning and city development, that no matter how challenging is the site for new development of no matter how bad the current situation of an existing city of town is it can be resolved and interesting part is that the solution will emerge from the chaos of city itself, a very unique, localized, and innovative solution of urban planning which once accomplished can reposition the city on an altogether different level of functionality and character never thought of earlier.

How it is to be done should be left to the creativity of planners backed by visions of city administration, voice of city population. Few thoughts on urban redevelopment which emerges from the chaos itself can be - Retrofitting city nodes and transit arteries while retaining the basic historic character and pattern of streets, organizing loose street edges, reinforcing green nodes, defining “influence envelop” of each nodal activity and strengthening localized support infrastructure for that, networking of missing transit links, it’s also time to reevaluate age old Landuse of city etc.

Biological Clock of City : Collective Dynamism of Population

By- Anoop Jha

Relevance of City Dynamism in Urban Planning

Biological clock of a city can be understood as a collective activity of resident population across the hours, days, seasons, and decades. These varying patterns and shift in activities depend on the characteristics and collective traits of cities or urban settlements like – Character of city like historic, metropolitan, ecological or place of tourist interest, industry type i.e. service, manufacturing or agro business, Economy and business of city, Trade and commercial activities, Religious activities, rituals, Public transit system availability and regulations, political stability and governance.    

A city or town metaphorically behaves like a living organism and hence each one of them has a unique signature activity pattern. In spite of static nature of cities it has lots of innumerous dynamic activities going on within it’s envelop and beyond. Pace and extent of these activities are cyclic in nature and varies across days and hours in somewhat predictable ways and seem synchronized with diurnal variation i.e. cycle of day and night, e.g. two visibly distinct peak hours of activities in any given particular day across the cities. Cities also seem synchronized to different seasons and show different patterns of daily activities as per that season, e.g. Majority of population getting off to sleep early in winters and shops being closed early, accompanied by lesser traffic and activities on street in winter w.r.t. summer.

The reason studying “biological pattern of city” can be an interesting and important are for planners is that till now, while planning or developing a city they have historically and inevitably always assumed that city is a static entity and then they prepare a Masterplan for that city, While it’s a fundamentally wrong assumption and process of planning for a city. Let’s take a fresh look on any random city, you will find that it’s a living, thriving and dynamic entity. The word morphology which is synonymous with mutation, when used in context of urban pattern itself states that city characteristically resembles a living and dynamic entity.

Challenge for the new age planners is to recognise and accept the fact that they are planning for an active, constantly changing and mutating dynamic entity called “City” rather than the past and contemporary notion of city as a static built mass, with some activities being marked in static zones of Landuse in different color on Masterplan. Urban planners not only have to consider the character of the particular city to be built or redeveloped but they also have to consider the present or future activity pattern as well as temperament of the city. 

Environment centric view of Planning and architecture

By - Anoop Jha

Creating  green value chain for projects

If we observe closely, apart from the obvious socio economic benefits and unavoidable demand needs of the development projects they have some questionable effects on our environment. Any development project affects the the ecological balance of nature through its resource exploitation and project externalities, which in most of the cases seems inevitable to prevent, but its effects can be mellowed down and an attempt can be made to neutralize the negative impacts of development on the environment.

Environment centric approach is the process of planning which revolves around the aim to conserve and minimise the effect of development project. It is applicable to any scale and nature of project whether architectural or planning.  Its a process of integrating green design and planning principals as well as adopting green strategies across the different segments of, project lifespan, implementation and operational value chain of any planning or architectural project.

There are ways and means to formulize greener value chain for new planning projects like new township or business district, introducing and reinforcing green retrofit for the existing functional value chain like any random city, there are also principals to plug in green principals into the value chains into the dilapidated value chain like old cities or uncontrolled megapolis. Planner’s role is to analyse the situation and propose green and sustainable environmental friendly strategies for the city.

Geofencing : Emerging Management Trends in Urban and Regional planning

By- Anoop Jha

Exploring Virtual Technology for Physical Planning

Geofencing is a fascinating technology which virtually defines the domain of real world. They do not have to build a fortress to keep the physical domain of any scale and type safe like the old world, now it can be done with a virtual protective blanket. Domain can be anything from a home or yard or shop to an agricultural field, to a region.

Geofencing are satellite Global positioning system (GPS) based technology concept which demarcates the boundary of a given area and monitors any to and fro movement from and within this delineated boundary. Geofencing tracks dynamism within the static boundary and give alert to concerned authorities and individuals regarding any suspicious or unusual activity through different modes like alarm, sms etc. Geofencing can prove to be a very useful tool for security management, fleet tracking, dockyard operation, individual business owners, farmers, Construction sites, etc. and likely to be a regular feature of projects and properties in near future. 

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.  

Dilemma of Technology: Resistance to adoption of emerging Urban Infrastructure Technology

By- Anoop Jha

Choice between proven technologies of past & tempting future technology

Lifespan of any particular technology is so short that people tend to miss many steps of development. Take for example, cell phones - by the time people know that a new sophisticated technology has arrived in market and they make up their mind to go for it, they realize that a more advanced version of similar technology is waiting around the corner, which is going to make the present technology outdated very soon. This ever-changing flux of development makes it harder to make a choice. Though the pace of change varies across the sectors and scale of operation, but is an inevitable phenomenon of 21^st century. And its acceleratingly fast.

Can we match the pace of planning with the fast pace of technological changes? Can we afford replacing urban infrastructure at the pace we replace our cell phone or laptop? So when we plan an urban infrastructure today with age old technological components there is always a fear that very soon this infrastructure and technology is going to be obsolete, and some new method, technology, or component will be in market, and by that time it would be too late and expensive to replace the installed infrastructure, take example of any emerging technology which is going to take over old one like – Faster building Lifts, Gas insulated Switchgears, Online UV Treatment of Water, Vacuum based waste disposal, District Cooling, SCADA, Automated MLP, ever growing sophisticated Surveillance technology, etc.

The challenge for planners is to choose between the age old proven infrastructure technology and latest or upcoming advanced technology. The problem here is the additional cost of new technology as well as unproven lifespan and performance of technology during its lifespan.

Role of an Urban Planner in the light of technological advancement is to plan a flexible, scalable, and modular state of art sustainable infrastructure, which further allows a smooth transition to the next functional technology in course of time with the minimum intervention, effort, time and cost. 

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 

Pedestrian Desireline - Significance in, Landscape Architecture, Transport and Urban Planning

By - Anoop Jha

Desired natural and organic Pedestrian Movement Vs Planned synthetic and rigid Transit Network

Pedestrians are a very important element and regular attribute of transit-scape and landscape of any city, they often assume secondary position when it comes to transit plan of the city. transport models revolves around the vehicular dominance, transportation plans are prepared for smooth flow of vehicular traffic and after that pedestrian facilities are integrated rater retrofitted into the vehicular movement plan, through pedestrian underpass and over-bridges, with discontinuous patches of footpaths which is not suitable and safe for even healthy and active city dwellers, not to speak of physically challenged, differently abled and old aged population. Pedestrian circulation and their movement desire-line should be mapped and considered at the beginning and throughout of transport planning process. 


When it comes to landscape planning or outdoor public spaces, again pedestrian desire-lines are often ignored, result can be observed  everywhere  across city- broken fences, walls and barriers to avoid longer route and vehicular traffic, impression of casual pathways made by regular shortcut movement of pedestrian on the otherwise planned green fields and formal landscaped areas. All this because of ignorance to pedestrian desire-line and lack of comprehensive walkability plan for the city, neighborhood, and public spaces which should be otherwise vital and compulsory part of Transport, landscape and Urban Planning process. 

Transportation Viscosity - Resistance in Collective Travel

By - Anoop Jha

Understanding Qualitative aspect of Transportation

Transport Viscosity and bottleneck 

Transportation viscosity or transit viscosity is a resistance faced by commuters while travelling collectively in any given urban or regional setting; it can be sophisticated qualitative criteria to understand and judge the congestion level of any city and can help improve the life of city. Transit viscosity is made of many tangible and intangible elements like, No. of Vehicle per unit length of Road, Surface Material, Condition & Texture of Road, Street Edge, Manmade or Natural Obstructions on Road, Ongoing Development work in Process in the corridor, Ongoing O & M of Road of other infrastructure concealed within the road or corridor, Transport Signage simplicity, visibility and condition and location, Driving Behavior of individuals, pedestrian behavior etc. Most of the characteristics stated above are related to socio-economic condition of city, efficiency of administration and education level of community. Role of planners here is to understand the nature and reason of these frictional elements of transportation which causes transit viscosity and to plan accordingly to reduce the friction.    

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.

Changing Scale of Innovation – from Architecture to Urban Planning

By- Anoop Jha

Next generation of Urban Planning inspired by Architecture Evolution

Evolution of Construction Technology and new construction Materials inspired the Architects in past to experiment with the form, scale and aesthetics of buildings, technology fueled the growth of architectural innovation and the broadened vista of modern architecture. Complex and sophisticated simulation tools and software, advanced construction equipments, advanced structural engineering and emergence of new stronger and flexible construction materials combined with creativity of Architects made this architectural revolution possible. Urban planning was of relatively much larger and complex nature, incorporating architecture as one of the element. For the long period of time technology was of little importance in urban planning except the transportation revolution of Mass Rapid transit systems and emergence of steel as high-rise construction material which shaped the development of urban planning to some extent.

Technology in recent past has made tremendous development like satellite images and advanced mapping technology, Geographical Information System (GIS), sophisticated analytical tools and software, new resource management techniques, modeling prediction tools, automation, integrated infrastructure systems etc. and it is growing exponentially, which is giving tremendous possibilities for urban planners to experiment in the field of urban habitation, buildings of near impossible height and scale, urban transit systems, environment, and core urban infrastructure, utilizing resources, use of previously untapped potential of region and inaccessible terrains, and planning in extreme climate. We can see the impact of state of art technology manifesting itself in the new planned cities, future urban development proposals, emerging revolutionary thoughts on next generation of cities. The kind of innovation which was only visible in architectural domain till recent past is now have become a regular feature of urban planning processes an proposals.  

Missing active layers of master plan

By Anoop Jha

Mapping of Active Layer, a new way of planning Cities

Layers in City Masterplan  

Master planning process through out the recent past has remained somewhat similar across the regions and continents in spite of technological advancement. From the technical point of view (apart from creative side) development of city master plan needs a totally new approach. We need to use the technology, tools, and resources available in a best possible and creative ways. 

There are two sides of Masterplan one is creativity, other is logic. There is always some logic that goes into preparation of masterplan. Masterplan is outcome of logical interpretation of gathered data related to city and region, based on the inferences derived from the analysis of data, hence richer the data-set more sound would be the masterplan. Planners talk about smarter cities but there master-plans look like same old conventional map, most of the city planners do not understand that its high time that master planning process need to change.

Either Planners are unwilling to take a new approach to develop masterplan by exploiting the potential of available technological resources or possibly age old development guidelines are so lenient and flexible that they do not feel the need to do so. 

Its high time that Urban planners should understand the significance of active mapping layers

Apart from usual layers of masterplan like Landuse, Infrastructure, Transport Network, Settlement, Built mass, there are numerous other possible layers which can prove vital for the city planning and which are currently being ignored, Lets call them "Active Layers of Masterplan". Theses layers are dynamic and qualitative in nature in a sense there behavior keeps changing and locations shifting, but after analyzing for certain period of time a recognizable pattern emerges which can be further act as an additional layer and criteria for developing a holistic and realistic masterplan. similarly we can have many more layers and criteria to further articulate the masterplan. These no. of active layers tend to increase as we understand the significance and impact of such criteria on city planning and lives citizens, as well as when we mobilize the resources to collect as much data as possible, no. of layers also tend to increase with the advancement of mapping technology like, GIS, satellite image interpretation, etc. one Very crucial thing to understand related to these layers in totality is that all of these layers can be directly or indirectly related to and influencing each other. thence all the permutation and combination between these layers in terms of impact, should be carefully studied to logically  arrive at a holistic situational analysis and furtehr prepare masterplan. Some of the possible "Active Layers" which can be included in planning process can are as follows - 

MISSING ACTIVE LAYERS OF MASTERPLAN

- City Noise Layer /  Decibel map of city - (for livability assessment, landuse and transport planning) 

- Heat / Temperature mapping (for livability, built mass  orientation and location of city axis and public spaces, plazas)

- Day Shadow land Light Layer (for livability, built mass orientation and location,  public spaces location, walkability)

- Night Light mapping (desirability, safety and security, walkability, nightlife, understanding cold public spots,)

- Tecom and Mobile Signal mapping (accessibility, density flux analysis, concentration and movement pattern of population) 

- Time series density mapping

- Movement and Density pattern in seasonal variation

- Social interaction mapping

- Accessibility mapping,

- Mapping of Public Semi-public and private domain

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

By Anoop Jha 

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.

Caught in the process: Urban and Regional Planning process requires a fresh approach

By - Anoop Jha

Flawed bottom-up process in Urban and Regional Planning

Too much focus on  process and micro management poses many dangers in planning process and leads to content deficit, blurred vision and ignorance to outcome.

Scale of Urban and regional planning demands a macro level approach to begin with. It requires a top down approach which means, vision of the planning assignment should be stated and crystal  clear and outcome after the whole gimmick of  planning process should be defined, planners need to start from there backwards up to the conceptualizing the project and steps to be taken.

whole process should be oriented towards achieving the goal. but most of the corporations, consultants, planners, governing authorities miss this vital point. for example in a normal routine planning process, at preliminary stages of projects only few senior people are involved but as the project moves towards finalization more and more people chip in and give comments which lead to major re-adjustments in the project at the later stage of project which is not good for any projects health, idea is to urge as many senior planners, authorities and stakeholders in the beginning of the project life cycle for the process of review and feedback. Another example of wastage of time in the process is that some of  the corporate bodies often miss the objective of the project, because they are so much caught n the process of corporatisation, making presentation with fancy jargon words, decorating charts, quoting someone else's statistical inferences etc. Their process is bottom up kind, they are least concerned about the future outcome of the project. they want to en-cash the opportunity of present ignoring the future.

Focus of urban and regional planning should be on analytical inferences of gathered data in terms of trends, regional context, indexing of available social and physical infrastructure, resource mobilization strategies, preparing development matrix and and strategic proposal rather than micro managing the process.

How reliable are socio-economic future projections?

By - Anoop Jha

There are always some uncertainties of projections in planning process.

While preparing vision and development plans, planners heavily depends on socio-economic projections short to medium and long term. Based on such projections development plans are proposed for a region or a city, both strategic as well as physical plan. It is an effort to look into the future and plan according to that. For regional vision plan these projections are based on analyzing voluminous amount of social and economic data of the region collected over long period time and referring to survey data archive, which shed some light on decades of  growth pattern of the region. For urban and regional projects, projections are made based on samples collected over relatively shorter period of time.

There are number of theories, school of thoughts, methods and simulation tools which have evolved in course of time for the socio economic projection. Data gathering process are becoming more and more efficient, Simulation tools are getting faster and efficient as well capable of handling large amount of data in no time, Still there is an uncertainty of projections in current planning projections. Future Projections are as accurate and reliable as its tools are i.e. gathered data, sample questionnaires, size of sample, hetroginicity of sample, inclusiveness of sample, simulation tools- software & Computers,  apart from that there are  other factors like willingness and efficiency of of consultants/ surveying agencies responsible for the outcome, human error, time constraint, political influence. Under so many of environmental influences future projections are bound to be hazy, hence there should be certain provisions of  compensatory flexibility both in terms of tangible and intangible inputs in the planning model, especially in physical planning and development plans, to make plans as realistic and as accommodative and future proof as possible.

Intercity travel congestion - Need for a new regional planning approach

By - Anoop Jha

Too much focus on urban planning and too little regional planning

Intercity Transport

Regional Development Plans in terms of intercity mobility plan are long term planning process which are primarily Policy level decisions and most of the time such projects remain stagnant at strategic level. Very few of these projects gets implemented in time while situation keep becoming increasingly critical, for example- intercity traffic congestion.

Most of the proposed projects are capital intensive and hence undergo long review process and witness relatively less thrust from political arena, while other mounting  large numbers of smaller projects at urban level demands immediate attention at the same time and witness  more political willingness, due to relatively shorter implementation period and medium to small  investment in comparison to regional development project, particularly in Transport sector. 

At national and regional scale government has so many pressing priorities in terms of public welfare and social infrastructure like, health, education, water and sanitation etc. that they tend to push  back some elements of physical infrastructure projects like upgradation, widening of existing intercity roads, crucial regional transport junctions, new bypasses, and expressways link roads.  In regional transport plan another reason of choked intercity transport corridors and delayed project implementation is that regional plan are placed lower in terms of prioritized projects, because their immediate priorities are close to core of the city and as we go further from center of the city nature of project starts changing from urban to regional, and projects in regional category are part of later phases of the projects and mostly strategic in nature with some physical planning proposals. 

Need is to identify and prepare  exhaustive list of planning indexes like, demography, revenue, technology,  covering large spectrum of subjects and society, and based on those index a blanket matrix should be created to arrive at more realistic priority list of project.

Integrated Infrastructure for Sustainable Urban Planning

By - Anoop Jha

Integrated infrastructure is the key to sustainable infrastructure planning. Planning at Urban or Township scale involves an intricate system of utility infrastructure like power, water, sewage, drainage, HVAC. All these utilities and services need to co-exist together while every system plays a crucial role in proper function of city as a whole. 

Integrated decentralization for planning

Integration and decentralization both have their own advantages. Integration has some fundamental befits like - optimized resource, saved time, centralized supervisory and partial control, possibility of automation, less manpower requirement, wastage control, resource efficiency etc. while decentralization presents its own set of benefits like- better management and control, output efficiency, better understanding of the system, better control, modular unitisation, replication, last mile value addition etc. but for a sustainable urban infrastructure planning a hybrid these two systems should be used which we can call “Integrated decentralization”. It would advantages both the systems fused together for best results and optimization.  

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.