Fueling Smart Growth through intelligent Urban Planning

By - Anoop Jha

Principals and tools of Smart Growth

Integration

        Integrated Infrastructure and services

        Regional integration

        Integration of different strata of society

        Contextual development

        Integrated governance and single window clearance

Slum Integration

Urban growth 

Decentralization

        Decentralized responsibilities for better function

Decentralized risk allocation

Downstream benefits

Modular Planning

       Replicable and Expandable planning 
       modules

        Modular architecture

        Modular construction

Intelligent Management System

        Intelligent Building Management System (IBMS)

Construction Management System

Advanced Transport and Traffic Management System

Intelligent Transport

Parking and Tunnel Management System

Flood Management System

Disaster Management System

Resource Management

Automation

        Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)

        Automated Waste Collection and Treatment

Safety

        Intelligent Urban Surveillance

        Fire and Life Safety

        Post Disaster Recovery Masterplan

Centralized helpline

Green Development

        Renewable energy

        Alternative energy

        Smart grid

        Solar passive architecture

Education

        Optimum utilization of resources

        Better Health and sanitation

Better livelihood opportunities

Exposure to new plans, policies and technology

Public Policy and Governance

        Updating old policies

Participatory planning

        Inclusive planning

Roadmap of future development

Language of City - Study of population flux in a City

By - Anoop Jha

Fluctuating population density of urban public spaces

Urban eco-system comprises of to distinct layers one static built mass, and second, dynamic floating and moving population. This static-dynamic  interface can be an interesting subject of study. Imagin fast pace time laps photography capturing to and fro movement of colony of black ants targting an abandoned sweet candy lying spotless white floor. Now imagine movement of population (ant) in a sprawling city (floor) on any average day.

 

One of the ways to study the intracity population flux can be as follows.

Demarcating zones in the city based on functional characteristics like, offices, residential, commercial, educational, recreational, transit etc, further deviding zones in smallest possible zones to be covered by an individual, lets call it urban pixel , studying each of these pixels for a given sizable period of time using time-laps photographs, vedios and conducting survays, preparing index and assigning rating to each of these small zones in term of population flux, which means assigning a range of rating based on tentative number or quantum of population present at that particular zone or pixal, deriving matrix of population flux for the entire city and further preparing population flux plan for the city.  

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.

Urban Transport Surveillance in Indian Context

By - Anoop Jha 

Only Fraction of Technology Potential is being utilised at present in India

Transport Surveillance in India is at nascent stage,  though it is vital for Transport Management of any city.

The implementation process is slow due to resource constraint and wherever it is implemented either technology is old or underutilized. While Transport surveillance covers a wide spectrum of functions related to planning and monitoring, only fraction of facility provided by advanced technology is being used in India at present. Urban Transport Surveillance is capable of capturing, processing and analyzing huge amount of data in real time and provide timely information to manage the complex nature and unpredictable nature of urban transportation. 

Urban Transport Surveillance package can include many functional and analytical aspects depending on the needs of client, It can give real time traffic movement feed on map by collating all the data captured from different strategic locations like Junctions, Transit Nodes, Multimodal Hubs, which can be accessed online by commuters, It can give stress alarm in case of congestion level and can suggest alternative route to commuters, can inform relevant authorities and departments regarding the stress situations, like damaged vehicle, damaged road of facility, accidents, fire, congestion etc. These technologies have intelligent alalytical tool witch can identify the actual cause of transport stress, for example, it can identify and track the cause of transport conflict, like unidentified objects, Vehicle in stress or any intentional mischief like vehicle going in wrong direction or person crossing the road at wrong place and time, based on pre-installed object templates using size, speed and direction of object, and can warn manual surveillance unit to take immediate action.It can also do behavioral tracking with or without manual assistance, which includes identifying person in stress, or in danger, or tracking suspicious behavior etc. In-spite of such wonderful facilities provided by urban surveillance technology we are utilizing only a fraction of it , and mostly in the monitoring of traffic rule offenders, and to issue challan or fine, which should be tackled by educating citizens backed by strict traffic regulations rather than relying on expansive cameras. Camera and surveillance infrastructure if to be installed or in place, should be used for wider purpose of integrated traffic management and transport research, rather than just recording or monitoring small fraction of traffic rule offenders.

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.