Rural market urban goods – Why rural commodities haven’t succeeded to make niche position in urban market

By – Anoop Jha

Breaking the inertia of urban business dominance over rural communities

In the developing countries like India, when it comes to consumer needs the urban rural gap seems to be disappearing, which was not the case a decade ago.  The rural reliance on urban goods have been an increasing phenomenon in recent past due to higher standard of living, increased affordability, choosy customers etc. Take for example a very essential commodity of daily needs i.e. “Milk”, which is supposedly product of villages due to usual abundance of cattle, buffalos and cows, but imaging the growing dependence of rural population on “packaged milk” which is produced in some remote dairy farm and travels thousands of kilometers before being consumed in this particular village, which is quite ironical. 

Urban  dominance over rural  business 

There might me many reasons behind this particular scenario of using packaged milk in spite the availability of local fresh milk like - readily available - on demand goods, local small storage facilities for perishable goods, direct linkages to urban market, awareness to quality of goods, similar hierarchical product packaged for different affordability group, either manipulated by monopoly of big dairy owner or trying to break the monopoly of local milkman who at times manipulates with the quality of milk, availability of goods to cater to seasonal bulk demand etc. etc.

 
Question is, why the urban commodities have been able to penetrate the rural market but rural products except agro products have only been limited to the small urban cultural markets, like, Pragati maidan, Delhi Haat, seasonal artesian mela etc. Are there any utilitarian perception attached to the rural goods in urban context or has it become a showpiece item to be decorated in the drawing room or to be worn on occasional events or is it that urban merchants are way smarter than the rural counterparts? Is it that rural community has been deprived of knowledge of cunning and manipulating business skills of urban nature, which seem to be a common survival practice expansion strategy of urban businesses?  Is it that rural business lack the skill set to sell their product in quantum. Is it that intermediate agencies involved in the urban rural dynamics are taking the advantage without rural community being aware of such possibilities?  Whatever it is, this issue can be dealt with little business motivation, rural community participation, capacity building and involvement of public agencies.  

Policy makers and administrators need to strengthen and expedite urban rural forward-backward linkages along with providing business education, training related to workmanship, strengthening local art and craft, teaching ethical value of quality control, asking for community participation to benefit rural market. 

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

By – Anoop Jha

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.

Untapped potential of Public Infrastructure

By- Anoop Jha

Public Infrastructure – from Liability to Asset

In the majority of cities and towns of developing countries like India, developing and maintaining public infrastructure are perceived responsibility of governing authorities and it is usually a major source of expenditure in municipal finance. Though to make any infrastructure sustainable in the long run, whether public or private it has to be a source of constant or recurring revenue generation to at least partially meet its operation and maintenance expenditure or to reach the breakeven point. Collective public infrastructure in any city should ideally pay for its own operation and maintenance requirement to make it sustainable. There might be varying dynamics of income expenditure for individual public infrastructure but collectively they should take care of themselves in not immediately may be in long term.

Public asset for alternative revenue stream 

It’s high time that public infrastructure should acquire the status of asset rather than liability or a financial burden to state, that does not necessarily mean it has to become private venture or property. Governing authorities like states, municipal corporations and municipalities have to be little aware towards what precious assets they own and have to find out the innovative mechanisms to exploit the previously untapped revenue potential of these assets, for example they own the most precious chunks of properties in the strategic locations which are spatially scattered throughout the city and beyond, with no or negligible income from them.

There are enough resources within any given region, need of the time is to recognize the potential, identify the resources and formulise a mechanism for revenue generation. If governing authorities or anyone else thinks that this is a difficult task or vague assumption, they should approach any random businessman- small or large, any developer, any architectural, planning or consultancy firm, any resource management firm, any thinker or business guru or even any common citizen with that asset and they will find innumerous ideas, proposals, business plans and even willing investors. 

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. 

Need for Dining Masterplan of city: most of us will agree!

By - Anoop Jha

From Hmmm to Ymmm 

When you feel hungry, when you don’t want to have homemade food, when you are tiered of cooking, when you are looking forward to a wonderful weekend break or planning for a New Year party or simply want to hangout out with your friends and family, you immediately do either one or more of the following things –

·  You turn to your location based smart phone to find nearest restaurant

·    You google a happening restaurant in your city, resulting lots of confusing results with too much of hassle to filter information

·   You open an online map with innumerous popped up restaurant locations

·    You go to food critic site and find too much about taste and too little about route, location, public transport connection and parking facilities.  

·     You turn to visitors reviews only to find out there are two distinct groups one “for” and other “against” the restaurant sharing their biased opinions, leaving you without any clue what to do.

And in the course of exploring the dining possibilities you are really getting late and getting frustrated while your wife or girlfriend is getting disappointed. What’s the solution?

Structured & Informative dining masterplan

Leaving taste and ambiance reviews to food critics and users, someone has to take the responsibility to create a comprehensive dining map of the city to avoid all this confusion providing relevant details for resident of the city and tourists as well, since intracity leisure trips comprises of a major chunk or travel numbers. Responsibility of providing timely and accurate information related to city amenities whether dining, leisure or other should technically lie with city for providing a hassle free transport and living experience for city population and urban planners can definitely contribute in consolidating and presenting a comprehensive “Dining Masterplan of 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.

Morphology of Greenfield city projects

By - Anoop Jha

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.