City’s problem isn't congestion; problem is the way we approach to solve the congestion!

Majority of city's problems can be solved by simply restructuring policies, but physical infrastructure is more lucrative an option for many.

You can pump millions of dollars in augmenting and upgrading city infrastructure, of course you should, but city in its functionality will still remain a mess and increasingly convoluted unless you pause and think that what has been wrong with our planning approach, why it is that our planning solutions always seem to lag far behind the pace of growth, is it revenue constraints? No! Is it land constraint? No! It is nothing but common sense deficit. It’s simple, if it doesn’t work go back to the drawing board, put you approach up-side-down or whatever, something different need to be introduced; at least as an experiment.

Our conventional planning approach borrowed from industrial age has remained more or less the same since decades, that is to put it crudely "Planning means addition", more people - let’s make more housing, more congestion - let’s make more flyovers, more heat let’s put more air conditioners and so on.

Buildinganother affordable housing is not a problem but it’s also not the solution. Building another flyover will of course ease the traffic for sometime but it is also not the solution which cities are looking for. The single largest criteria of a livable city can be effortlessness of any city, but effort seems to be the mandate of our city life. 

Have we ever considered why such sheer number of people are heading to metropolis in the first place apart from recreational purposes, it’s not because metropolis provide better employment opportunities, it’s because we simply fail to provide livelihood opportunity in small towns and villages. Can we suggest something to calm down this vary pace of regional population flux, instead of simply focusing on making another housing colony here in every metropolis, can we propose something which will help people earn their livelihood in the place of their choice not only in the place where they often come to struggle and survive.

Have we ever considered before making another flyover that why so many people and car out there on the roads in the first place, is it really necessary in this so called wired era for every single individual to commute to work to accomplish a job, is it that being physically present at a specified location every work weekday is of such monumental importance in a time of century were everyone claim to be virtually connected to everyone and having access to the resources of whole world on their finger tip. Considering this can we suggest something to reduce the very need or frequency of people to come to streets, people who commute to work 5-6 days a week or 24 to 40 hour a week. 

Why people have to waste a substantial portion of their productive lifetime commuting on city roads or tracks, commuting long hours to work mostly doing nothing, may be listening to music or playing video game on their tab, why to commute to work unless they work in a factory like production environment.

You see we are so caught up in the debate of public transport vs. private transit vs. walkability that no one is willing to ask this fundamental question why does every one of you have to commute almost every day for the purpose of work choking almost every street of city, why have we created such system or business environment or society in general. We simply can’t seem to think of any other possibility than expanding infrastructure trying to meet the pressure of self imposed need of commuting for work.

Whether travelling through private or public transport or walking to work, it’s still a waste of precious time, energy and resources. Can you even imaging the lost opportunity cost of millions of people spending several hours commuting to work-home-work almost every day of their productive like. After decades of industrialization is it still so important even today for 200 employees of a random organization to agglomerate everyday at a specific place called office at a specific time to accomplish some work, majority of which can be done from anywhere in the world, majority of which on majority of days does not fundamentally demand physical presence of worker or employee in office. Can’t we instead of simply expanding the city and transport network think of reducing the number and frequency of trip to work? Can’t we think of increasing the share of recreational trip and reducing the work trip instead of aggressively focusing on increasing the share of public transport?

This conventional additive approach of planning is a vicious cycle of inefficiency perceived as virtuous cycle and promoted relentlessly without delving deep into the roots of problem and without pausing and questioning the inertia of planning process. Instead of this additive approach, a supplementary approach of planning is needed for fostering and supporting equitable growth across the region, and at the same time conventional planning wisdom which is dear to many, needto be questioned!

There used to be character and stories associated with every city street in good old time!

Contemporary Déjà vu streets - the price of mechanization, optimization and efficiency. 

Though green, well groomed, with cool informative signage and everything in place, contemporary city streets lack something, possibly lack of identity, lack of character may be! Every street looks the same more or less, you see from streets of your housing society to the neighborhood to city arteries, apart from little exceptions of some filth some beautification. What has gone wrong with the planners, landscape architects and urban designers today. You should first visualize the impactful streets of historic cities and meandering streets of untouched villages and then have a look at today's super functional streets, speed corridors rather, these are impressive indeed with all its robustness, but these are not impactful, at all, not something leaving lasting impression on our mind, not something to be remembered, not something to be praised by our future generations. Functional but industrial. Templates of supposedly best practices. But we forget that best practices lose their significance the moment we start, duplicating, imposing and transposing them. some of the mass public housing are the best example of how best practices can go wrong. 

Is it that there is no incentive left today at all to plan or design a street with character, is it that cities, public administrations and private clients lack fund (a myth) or we are robbed of imagination, is it that there are some big loopholes and ambiguity in the planning and design guidelines giving planners and designers an excuse not to be creative, is it that we have become so much efficiency oriented that we forgot we are not machines, is it that land is so scarce (a myth again) that we cant afford to have luxury of building streets with a memorable character, is it that after reading all those wonderful street characteristics in school we finally resort to the super efficient mechanized street templates, has it something to do with our optimized geometric city grid and complex infrastructure requirements, is it our drafting software to blame which has almost replaced our dear drawing boards, is it that scope of creativity is increasing being confined to the pedestrian and bicycle streets only, is it that urban designers role has been limited to the extent mentioned in their design guide book which either don't exist or is too vague for the cities of developing countries or too standardized for developed country? You see those bizarre public sculptures and momentous in the streets at places, those are nothing but helpless reactions of creative urban souls who are not being able to create a place called street in the way it should be, due to much propagated and regularized contemporary templates of streets. 

Can we dare to show some creativity amidst this long list of incentives and loopholes for "not to be creative". Can we as a planner, urban designers and landscape experts show them our humane side keeping cities monetary limitations (A myth) aside for a while. Can we design a street with an innate quality of "place" where you would often want to spend your time or something which you would like to appreciate while you driving back home?

What planners of urban environment can learn from online environment?

Radical possibilities if they get it right!

The single largest advantage of online environment over urban environment is that online environment is spontaneously morphing and mutating. It’s a spontaneous collaborative environment with user generated content, individually conceived collective community efforts, within a larger set of easy to understand rules with basic governance and minimal intervention. Best part is that it all comes unasked. All you need to do is to create an online platform intuitive and sticky enough to appeal to masses, leaving rest up to user’s creativity. Users are motivated and willing enough to spend their own time and money and whatever it takes to contribute to this global phenomenon, mostly unasked mostly free, they are even willing to pay for it in some cases, be it social or professional networking platform (Sharing/ Facebook/ Twitter/ Linkedin) or cloud environment (Storage/ Backup) or virtual collaborative tools (Building/ Sharing/ Docs), open source programming environment (Building Blocks/ Learning/ Sharing) or just a platform to share their own piece of mind or simply converse (blogs/Forums). Amazingly this ever-thriving virtual environment with apparently intangible inputs even gets translated into tangible outputs. A self-sustainable virtual community environment with little bit of nuisance andchaos which can be managed and currently being managed through series of governing and control instruments! Wonderful!

Let’s talk about urban environment a bit, parallel to online environment. Let’s identify the obvious constraints and major differences. Urban environment is tangible in nature, things like - raw material, physical infrastructure, resource intensive, capital and labor intensive and then there are governance and management issues since resources are limited and stakes are high. Let’s see some common somewhat overlapping traits; both urban and online environment needs basic physical infrastructure in place some of which are common as well (Power, Water, transport VS Telecom infrastructure/ Wi-max/ Wi-Fi etc. with common later part), both environment require serious manpower to build, sustain and grow, they both demand control and security, both need a heterogeneous mix of business models as well and so on. What comes to mind now? What you are thinking right now absolutely makes sense - with so much of similarities while having “people” and “community” at center stage in both cases, why haven’t we explored the mutual learning possibilities and why we haven’t been able to translate the online functional learning experience into building of physical community called “City”.

Can we do it? Think so; at least we can give it a try! By establishing a logical, statistical, mathematical and philosophical co-relation between the two, leaving possibility to weave the city fabric and its functionality further in future! This analogy of physical (urban) and virtual (online) environment presents a model of self-evolving self-sustainable community further translated into urban community where every member of community is contributing to build the “physical environment”, though they are already doing it “Socially” well at present. Can we give a community or region enough flexibility to shape its own environment, customizable up to their personal needs and choices without hampering the public interest, with basic infrastructure built in place to start with, a set of basic rules to play with, some basic building blocks to kick-start, with flexibility to select platform and tools of their choices to build, with a governing, supportive and helping hand, watchful eyes as well as security and rescue mechanism in place, with some kind of layered public, community and personal finance model and so on, all this flexibility within a controlled and transparent environment. Reinforced by supervisory control and incentive instruments! Building with a vision of “sustainable community” and “fairness ofopportunity” at center stage! Fortunately we have analytical tools, informative resources and accumulated experience of mankind today which can help extract and derive and establish useful correlation between the urban and online environment paving a way for better and sustainable future!

Making places - That street corner…

Traditional planning approach and values - being lost in transition?

Any random street corner of any random city, corner at the junction of streets, streets busy or calm, chaotic at times, still having its own order, order in transition, transition of daily commuters, transition of shifting daylight, transition of shadows, glitter of street and neon signage light, LED shop window and synchronized traffic light, that flux of casual traffic light, that changing activity landscape across the day across the seasons with occasional pause. But peculiar are the streets of old and heritage cities, cities with history, those streets and corners evolved from the centuries of planning and urban design experience, tailor-made to the local needs of community and neighborhood, with varying characteristics across the region across the city and across the world. Wisely adapted for local climate, some designed for extreme harsh summer, some for tons of snow, an ancestral legacy of planning and design up-to the last fine details of drain cover and cast iron light-pillars and articulated bollards.

Though respected, preserved and encouraged in some cities, that example and inherited legacy of urban design and planning is fast deteriorating and disappearing, sometimes out of ignorance sometimes purposefully ignored, in several parts of the world and almost in any upcoming new city in any corner of world, that local wisdom of traditional planning is increasingly being lost and being mechanized, being templatified. Traditionally those streets and corners were designed to protects commuters from harsh sun, from icy wind, and from pouring rain and sudden snow, those meandering streets used to have a texture of character with those spaces to pause and relax and in the comfortable safe niches, a place to chat and socialize and a place to engage oneself in that active buzz of street, corners reinforced to give it a distinct recognizable character. That legacy of traditional localized planning is calling for justice and revival.

Thinking about fabric ofcity especially within city boundaries, a natural question comes to mind, why a vast country with extremely diversified heritage and climatic regions and special needs should have only few standard templates of streets sections and junctions and street corners with little bit possibility of urban design integration mostly for sake of localization formalities? Templates though give advantage of planning execution, better control and cost efficiency; it tends to encourage deterioration of heritage characters and inherited values and learning mostly in the name of infrastructure and technical feasibility, commercial viability, changing lifestyle requirements, uniformity, standardization, international acceptance etc. Of-course needs are different today, speedy transport, higher population density, quantum shift in lifestyle and technology, higher latent demand, etc., hence the different planning approach visible and practiced today, but we should ask ourselves, can we incorporate those learning experience from our past generations into today’s planning process and can we infuse them in today’s “easy way out templates”? With all the technological advancement and possibilities and centuries of learning experience, one thinks that it’s somewhat possible to strike the balance between traditional learning and present planning approach preserving the character and dignity of that specific city that specific core and that neighborhood, starting right from the careful planning of that street and that street corner. All it needs is a tender heart, logical brain and collective will of planners, urban designers and policy makers and may be few extra bucks!    

The only sustainable retrofit whether it’s a product or city environment

To leave scope for future retrofits in the moment you conceive the idea of product or vision of a city.

Today you realize after 5 or 20 or 30 years that this product or system or infrastructure which you had planned back then with the most sophisticated tools and technology available at that time, with the best brains at disposal and the best hands available, that robust system of past desperately needs a technology overhaul and efficiency retrofit today, just to validate its contemporary relevance and to drag itself for few more miles in the tomorrow, but it would have been quite difficult for you to confront and accept this apparently unpleasant fact that this product, infrastructure, system or even strategy which you claim to be the most advanced and avant-garde today is very soon going to be outdated, very soon indeed!! Acknowledge it or not, that’s how it works, especially when technology, planning and policy is concerned only thing which remains eternal is aesthetics and nostalgia associated with such technology, possibly that’s why many people still prefer analog watch over digital one, that’s totally a personal choice.

Change is not only an integral law of nature but equally a law of technology, inevitable like growth of humanity, because humanity is curious and that’s why innovation and hence need to replace and retrofit old technology. Problem with the contemporary approach of planning and product design is that we tend to conceive and create a system or product which is 100% complete in its form and design “today” leaving no scope for future integration except few exceptions, even knowing that need for retrofit is waiting only at the next turn of system or product life-cycle  You see those overly stuffed embedded products, jam packed conduits, circuits and channels, overcrowded service corridors, saturated underground utility trench, suffocating right of ways (ROW), chaotic narrow streets, thousands of unventilated unlit city rooms and residences, all of this have two things in common, one, is the shear lack of vision and second, ignorance to change. Change which is inevitable, but we are happy and content with what we have planned today, who cares for tomorrow? Meanwhile, you enjoy all the attention and praise because of your new product and system. They might even have bagged few awards for best innovation and work in the field, but it all doesn't really matter if that product or vision fails in next couple of years. The single largest criteria of product or planning judgment and evaluation has to be sustainability, which means your product or system or vision have to have an inbuilt scope for absorption of future technology and efficiency integration for sustainability, to keep up with future pace of life and lifestyle.

Lets talk something about "sustainability" here. The word "sustainability" has been exploited much in recent years  increasingly assuming a very narrow meaning just revolving around "anything green". Lets keep in mind that being or doing green is just a piece of sustainability. Sustainability is much more, it is vastly inclusive a phenomenon, it is about the whole life cycle of product or system or plan. if you make a greenest product on earth which has a life span or tech-viability span or people-acceptance span of one or two year that is not sustainable when compared to a product which is though not so green in its DNA but which has a larger life span or acceptance span of may be half a decade or so or more. All the resources  which has gone into making of that short lived green product goes to vain at the end of its functional or acceptance span but the similar resources  which has been consumed in making that not so green product with a much longer life span seems more sustainable an option.  Using 5 most "greenest" products of same use one after another in just five years is much less sustainable than using 1 single "not so green" product for 5 years.

Now today you realize that environmental laws have become more stringent, people have become more educated, aware and choosy  technology has become more and more complex and sophisticated, every coming tomorrow product or system of yesterday is becoming obsolete, what to do. We can’t really plan for something which has not been invented yet, but we can always try to leave some scope for future integration, for the time when it is invented. It might add to few percent of capital or man hour but it’s worth giving a thought. Acknowledging the need for future retrofit and leaving some scope for it today will make our life easy tomorrow, products more relevant and cities more sustainable.   

Planner’s Dilemma – A case of developing nation.

Choked Public Drain, Whose fault? 

Repeatedly choked public drains, is it due to under capacity drainage Infrastructure, an unplanned network, inadequately planned disposal system, underestimated growth, unexpected demand, immigration externalities, over exploitation of resources, lack of vision, out dated technology, inefficient management, uneducated population, citizens with low or no sense of public responsibility, lack of willingness, lack of database for timely assessment, no early warning system, underreported occurrence, over hyped issues,  diverted attention, prevalence of corruption, discrete tax structure for usage of public infrastructure, lack of maintenance, insufficient funds, absence of relevant law, loophole in policies, or may be implementation failure?

Drainage/ sewage disposal issue is just an example to illustrate; there are innumerable examples and issues like this in an urban setting whether its inadequate water supply, transport chaos, interrupted and poor power supply etc, and innumerable reason for the each of these issues.  It’s a very common phenomenon in towns and metropolitan cities of developing nations, but what’s the solution.

After some time of tolerance people start losing their patience due to public infrastructure system failure like this, then some hue and cry, some demonstration, followed by media coverage, then suddenly public agencies wake up, some blame game, then some investigation committee, followed by months long survey, then few months of compilation, then some kind of outcome and recommendations, by that time people already start losing their interest in the subject, by that time there are  other hyped issues to deal with, and this show goes on. Somewhere in this cycle of events planner or some planning consultancy firm gets introduced to assess the situation and resolve the issue. Do you wonder how much or how little a planner can help to resolve the situation at least bringing down the scale of chaos.

Do you see how many vulnerable points can be there in the value chain of any system as we saw in the blocked drain example? More the number of elements more the chances of failure of system.  A system with a long operational or value chain can only work efficiently, if all the possible elements of interest work efficiently individually and cohesively together as well. When an urban planner or similar is approached by public/ private agency to resolve such development or redevelopment issues, they expect an out of box magical solution. Planners can of course suggest a wonderful infrastructure solution at some reasonable cost; they can propose some implementation and regulatory strategies as well, but one has to understand that a “multifaceted urban issue” needs an “inclusive solution”. Planners need to be empowered to have a say on any or rather every element which might affect the proper functioning of any urban or regional system, even if it’s an aspect which is tangential to the core system but which can impact the system in future. Planners have to address or at least talk about each and every tangential aspect of any core issue while suggesting a solution blueprint for development redevelopment projects. For example, one might argue how a drainage problem can be related to education of citizen, they can always say while problem like this demands infrastructure solution why to talk about education? Let’s consider this.  No matter how well you plan the infrastructure, if there are uneducated users, infrastructure is not going to work as the way it was perceived and planned. Even simply being educated is not enough, there has to be education with a sense of responsibility, a sense of citizenship.

What a planner can do in this situation for example. A planner has to talk about the relevance of educated citizens in proper functioning of the public infrastructure in its strategy report; he can go to the extent proposing restructuring of school curriculum, so that users become responsible enough toward public infrastructure while they are still in school. suppose If people are educated and responsible as well but still not using public infrastructure as intended there might be flaw in signage design or placement, planners need to talk about that in its development report, they might need to talk about the role of education through technological infusion to masses through different communication channels before they are about to introduce a new technology in public domain along with ways of infusion. Similarly they need to propose some short to long term strategic inputs for all the ancillary aspects revolving around the core public system or infrastructure issue no matter how distinct they appear.

Feeling pressed against time for getting products or services of daily use?

By – Anoop Jha

You need a better landuse plan and new typology of neighborhood hubs

Specialized service and commercial hubs have advantage in case of volume trade and optimized choices with better shopping and services experience due to many options available to choose from while mixed Landuse development has advantage of convenience shopping and saved time.  Taking time off to visit a specialized market hub to get a small product or service of daily use which you cannot get in neighborhood shop due to its little specialized nature might be stressful for many, due to lack of time in busy city life.

There are two distinct categories of people in city one who will go anywhere and to any extent to save a single penny on any product or service, these are the people apart from wholesale marketers who go to specialized hubs so that they can negotiate on product or service pricing due to available market competition in such hubs, other kind of people are those who are ready to pay any amount in lieu of convenience and due to shear lack of time and motivation as long as price is in the acceptable limit and surprisingly it has nothing to do with laziness, it’s just because they don’t have enough time from their packed daily routine, it’s simply not worth sending time to go to some specialized market like electronic or electrical market or hub of mechanical goods or big car service hub located far away from your home just to buy a new exhaust fan for your kitchen or a new tap knob, or to get a minor repair work of your car’s fm radio set done.


[Handpicked Books]

The number of second type of people who value convenience over pricing in City is exponentially growing. There is an urgent need to consider requirements of this segment of people in Landuse planning; it has become necessity of time. They need to create small integrated specialized product and service hubs in neighborhood where one can go and buy variety of products and services in one place, products and services which are little specialized in nature and which you don’t generally get in neighborhood shopping centre or mall. An electrician or plumber provided to you by resident welfare association (RWA) of your society is of no good unless you have required basic electrical or plumbing products at hand which need  to be replaced.

How about creating a small “integrated specialized product and service hub” in every neighborhood of city which keeps all the basic household and daily use items similar to convenient shopping and those items which are specialized in nature like medicine and first aid materials, emergency products and tools, electrical and mechanical goods, and in term of manpower it can comprise of at least one doctor, one counselor, one security personal, one pet care specialist, one electrician, one plumber, one car and bike mechanic etc. etc.

Pinpointing accountability for smooth operation and better urban governance

By - Anoop Jha

Overlapping responsibilities: is it a reason for disorder?

Every now or that there are apparent disorders and visible chaos in different corners of cities due to unclear or overlapping allocation of responsibilities among different governing and implementing agencies of city, like for instance - any emergency situation where everyone is confused what to do next, whom to approach first, who is to take action first. 

Overlapping  responsibilities of Agencies

Like breakdown of a vehicle in right in the middle of a road stretch or busy road intersection, what next, it can be a nightmare for the vehicle owner; it can happen to anyone, anytime. Vehicle can be in a stress situation while on road due to several reasons, may be due to badly maintained car, may be bad roads with deep pothole, ongoing underground infrastructure maintenance work on road without proper warning signage, rash public transport driver, faulty road signal, improper unmaintained signage etc. Who is accountable for that traffic pile up and chaos following that vehicle breakdown? Is that vehicle owner, is that traffic management authority, is that maintenance department, is that some other department whose maintenance excavation is going on or someone else? No one is clear what immediate measures to be taken and who is to come forward to normalize the situation. No backup plan. Everyone shedding their responsibility, No accountability

To avoid the urban operational chaos and disorder in day to day city activities or in emergency situation a proper accountability platform has to be created where every governing agency and stakeholders would be made aware of their assigned responsibilities in every possible urban scenario whether it’s usual day to day or event specific function or an emergency situation. Role of an urban planner is to stipulate different possible urban event scenarios beforehand as well as assigning responsibilities to concerned agencies to tackle such perceived scenarios with the help of governing authorities.   

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.