Possibly solution to city's space and resource scarcity is within city limits itself!

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

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POPULATION AND DENSITY

How many people can peacefully and respectfully coexist within one Square Kilometer of a city without compromising on functionality and respectable individual social space. You have empirical examples and you can also make a simulation model of maximum density case scenario including residential, working and transitory population. Acknowledging that population density is never a correct indicator of quality of life. Acknowledging that 2 dimensional approach of population density should be revisited to include 3rd dimension as more and more people are being accommodated vertically, and as more and more utilities, mobility, asset, cargo can be accommodated underground in coming times.

CONSTRUCTION

How much Built Up Area (BUA) a City can technically hold within one Sqkm, given the limitation of existing construction technology, available sustainable material of choice and considering requirements of structural stability. You can build and test scenarios and models based on type of landuse including mixeduse case and you can also make digital twin/ BIM/vGIS model to check if model is workable as habitable. Acknowledging that Hong kong style housing was never an ideal architectural concept of creating more built-up area in a city and it was only a technological and financial constraint. Rather imagine constructing a Cubic Km of monolith Real Estate including private and public space like a perforated Swiss Cheese in form of space frame as a maximum BUA case scenarios.

BIODIVERSITY

How much Biotic Diversity in terms of native regional flora, fauna and wild meadows can be accommodated in a Cubic km of City along with humans without overwhelming, compromising or competing for space and other resources considering their growh rate. Acknowledging that way too much of biodiversity in a city was never a good idea, like some exotic species leading to biodiversity nuisance and like beehive on every corporate office and public buildings leading to severe pollination issues.

SUSTAINABILITY AND SELF-RELIANCE

How much self sustainability a Cubic km of city can achieve in terms of it's own

1) Food security,

2) Energy needs

3) Waste load management and

4) Water security, through range of means-

1.a) Urban agricultural, edible landscape, Food forest, community seed bank, school seed bank, vertical farm, rooftop greenhouse, bush food experience, kitchen garden, aquaponic, hydroponics, aeroponic, doomsday vault, extended shelf life solutions-

2.b) Energy education, energy aware lifestyle, energy conservation by design, interventions and appliances, energy load management, IoT and edge devices, building energy load management through solar passive architecture, building insulation/ ventilation, harvesting and storing energy from sun, wind, algae, river, stream, canal, organic waste; biofuels, heat recovery from process and thermal storage, Air Source Heat Pump/ ASHP, open window detection, micro turbine-

3.c) Waste reduction, circular waste economy, recycling, reuse, upcycle, repurpose, near zero construction waste,

4.d) Water conservation, treated sewage effluent, waste water treatment, IOT Sensors, water saving appliances, precision agriculture, mist irrigation, water from air condensation, extracting drinking water from air and others, flood water harvesting, storm water retention basin, cloud seeding,.

Author: Anoop Jha

#urbanplanning #cityplanning #townplanning #sustainability 

Burden and footprint of Packaging; a fair share of it can be avoided!

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

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Ready to consume edible products packed and collected or delivered to doorstep (burger for instance) still leaving substantial and growing inorganic packaging residual for good, as more and more people placing order online.

Edible products with little shelf life (Juice for instance) consumed or expired soon leaving it's packaging footprint mostly local but forever or for too long. Consumers must be informed that such products don't suddenly gets expired one fine day, give them the range and chart stating how consistency and taste may get compromised over time still in consumable range, also tell them how to increase shelf life.

Non-edible products coming with shelf life and consumed in numbers ( Shampoo for instance), have regional, sometimes national packaging waste footprint. Mostly delivered across regions by e-commerce websites.

Non perishable products having only expiry date wrt trend (shoes for instance) and consumed in bulk witnesses global packaging waste footprint.

Then there are another kind of packaging waste burden i. e. where individual or collective packaging weight and/or volume is rather more or many fold of product/s inside, and having huge market. (Gift hampers, festive gifts etc. for instance). In this category higher you go up towards luxury segment more wastage is witnessed.

Bulk packaging is being excluded from the discussion as they have relatively organised supply-collection chain and higher recycling percentage.

Author:Anoop Jha

#waste #urbanplanning #packagingwaste #landfill #recycling #swm #municipal #msw

Cities within city!

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

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These metropolitan cities are so big that many inhabitants spend their entire life without the need of visiting few other parts of city for any purpose be it business, socialising or recreation, and when they do visit that other part of same city for the first time, it's sometimes not less than a shocking experience, pleasant or otherwise - experiencing drastic change in built-up scale, a very distinct manifestation of architectural style, a juxtapose density, visible economic stratification, attitudinal and behavioural changes are observed, obvious difference in level of upkeep, city beautification and public services, varying degree of management witnessed, sometimes changes witnesses in regulatory enforcement, citizen compliance and level of citizen engagement; difference in lifestyle, life choices and opportunity landscape is worth noticing as well.

Several forces are at play here making different part of city very different in appeal and experience, like - chronology of development, different developmental vision for different city zones in an effort to create specialised nodes, different economic activity and status.

Silver-lining; Heterogeneity and diversity in a large metropolitan city was never an outdated idea, additionally possibility of intracity excursion and tourism is there. Learning opportunity from each other is also there. A city with multitude of experience is always welcoming anyways.

In all likelihood it can be safely assumed that there is critical mass in terms of a chunk of city with a cluster of habitation and segment of economy which makes it autonomous in many senses, making it a small city within a larger metropolitan, and metropolitan city can be perceived as agglomeration of several such smaller cities, of course huddled together with a symbiotic relationship.

Author:Anoop Jha

#urbanplanning #cityplanning #townplanning #habitat #urban #smartcity #cluster #neighborhood

Notion of good and bad Urban Streets -

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

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Notion of good and bad Urban Streets -sometimes it's mote than skill or fault of urban planners, urban designers, transport planners, road engineers and landscape architects! 

Broadly, there are only limited known ways a street can be designed from junction to junction, there are only finite ways street facade can be articulated and modelled. (Possibly 80% of street design work machine can do on its own, by running algorithm in near future) 

Then, what is the differentiator between a good and a bad urban Street design and quality of street experience? 

Some variables-

Outcome of Transport modelling

Quality of Development Control Regulations 

Compactness of neighborhood

Permissible adjacent Landuse 

Permissible Floor Area Ratio (FAR) 

Economic status of Neighborhood

Generosity of Landscape elements

Quality and thoughtfulness of Street furniture

Age of city neighborhood

Attractiveness of neighborhood

Locational context of street

Image and significance of city

You can see there more than 50% of variables from above list which are not in control of planners and designers; variables that influences and sometimes decides the ultimate outcome of urban street design exercise, and shapes the notion of street quality and experience. 

Author: Anoop Jha

 #transportplanning #urbanplanning #landscapearchitect #urbandesigner #urbandesign

 #design #transport #smartcity #municipality #municipalcorporation

Revisit existing scale and base assumptions to fix your city!

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

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WHAT ARE SOME KEY BASE STATISTICAL ASSUMPTIONS TAKEN TILL NOW FOR CITY PLANNING

City commuters:-

A number for algorithm and modelling

Walkability:-

A distance travelled by a healthy individual

Household:-

A demographic number as per census

WHAT IS TO BE CONSIDERED AS BASE ASSUMPTIONS FOR BETTER CITY PLANNING

Typical city commuter profile: -

A mix of individuals with different abilities, different travel needs, different travel purposes, different expectations

Typical walkable distance:-

A comfortable distance to be covered by individuals without the need of vehicle, by individuals with different abilities, at different pace with different ease or difficulty.

Typical household:- 

A family of varying size, with varying needs, varying abilities and health conditions, various liabilities, various expectations

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE ONGOING APPROACH? 

City commuters, households, walkable distance all are reduced to mere numbers for the purpose of planning and projections, while they are dynamic or complex entities. Hence, development plans with conventional numeric approach are easily solved on paper and looks promising in its proposal, but many a times cities in reality are found in mess.

WHY SHIFT IN APPROACH IS REQUIRED?

Few examples-

Recognition of many missed public transport trips by old age people, children, pregnent women who are there in footfall projection sheet but many actually either avoid public transport or postpone trips, given a choice.

500 odd meters of walkable distance that planners often mark on master plan to show how much pedestrian friendly city is or will be, they fail to consider that this 500meter distance is while an easy target for a healthy adult individual but this same distance means different things to children, senior citizens, people with different abilities and special needs, pregnant women, blind, wheelchair bound individual.

In many cases actual household status is very different than abstract idea of household considered in city planning, actual households come with unimaginable complexity and diversity in terms of basic needs, financial and debt status, resource consumption footprint, societal and economic impact. Imagine the complexity of needs and aspirations in terms of complete city population. 

TAKEAWAY

Diversity of citizen needs is no more an exception or luxury, it's prolific, and must be considered this way only in terms of planning.

There is no singular spatial definition in terms of city planning, distance means different things to different people.

Individual and Household is embodiment of exceptions, they are not just numbers.

Author: Anoop Jha

#urbnaplanning #census #transportplanning #urbandesign,