Planning a City

Sunil Nagari
Look at the world today, technology has overtaken homo sapiens in all the spheres of life. This has given birth to an argument that there is no need of long-term planning because everything changes rapidly and whatever is planned today may become obsolete tomorrow – so plan just short term and go with the change. This argument should be totally unacceptable because a city is made of hard materials and natural resources like cement and steel. Building huge structures today and bulldozing after a few years under changed circumstances is silly. Planner should be sure about whatever is built today will last for a long-long time. Time should be spent on comprehensive understanding of the basic human needs. After understanding the basic needs and the needs of terrain and environment with farsightedness – answers will automatically appear. Cities based on exact data base with planner’s long-term vision should be able to last for a very long time.
Another belief that the sexy looking city layout and crazy looking buildings would result in creativity. In a city, the residents want calmness, tranquility, safety, feel of community and above all functionality. The plan should create a city which is enjoyable to live in and full of fun. Identify the functions that create fun for the people. Fun among other things would mean access to education, culture, art, environment, socialization, health and safety. Once the functions are identified, create a city to satisfy the functions and serve the fun.
The city must not provide the people housing alone but commercial and industrial centers as well, so that it is vibrant enough to create jobs. Schools, hospitals, police stations, play grounds and simple things like parks are the fundamental needs in a city, such that people in the city lead a healthy life full of fun and entertainment.
Almost everyone living in cities and towns is away from agriculture. The dramatic decline in the infant mortality and advances in the field of medicine have made deaths rare before old age. With the eventual increase in life expectancy, the earth may not withstand human pressures which would result in disequilibrium of earth and the sustenance of human race difficult. The cities should be planned for next fifty years population only because beyond that the whole world may have to control population seriously for scarcity of food and shortage of natural resources.
Every city is unique, therefore primary need for a planner or an architect is to understand the fundamentals which give a place its unique character. Apart from architectural heritage, different places have different climate, environment, eco-systems, cultures and customs which affect planning as well as design and come into play in formation of a final city plan. Every city has its own local conditions and influences, which should be protected and given place in the plan for its uniqueness.
Density is a vital factor in planning. Large cities may have more density and may be designed grand and small cities with less density may be more romantic, so, the need is to select the right density based on the size and population of a place. As a matter fact, to assign high density as an excuse to create unpleasant cities should not be tolerated. Despite High density there should be no compromise on liveliness and pleasant urban environment of a place. A city may have high density and yet have a nice environment by using the chessboard pattern. Chess boards have alternated black and a white square, so if high rise or tall buildings are placed in the black squares then in the white square – parks, schools, low rise shopping centers could be placed. If high density buildings are planned alternately and dispersed with low density development, the feel of the oppressiveness of the high density may turn into pleasantness. Oppressiveness of the high density cannot be felt if the sky around is visible. There is no need for miles and miles of high-rise buildings anywhere. From high density to medium density and then to low density then to higher density should be the philosophy which creates a variety of environment and gradual flow in activity makes it a better place to live and progress.
The city or a town should not be treated as a single body, but should be treated as a family. In a family a grandfather is mature enough to take care of the big issues and a father also is mature enough but cannot take care of as many things as grandfather but a son is not independent and depends on his father and grandfather. That is how cities should function as a family. If cities and towns are not subdivided and treated as one unit, then the problem would like putting the burden of the whole family on one person. That person may crumble and may not be able to move. That is what results in day-to-day traffic jams thus bringing cities to a standstill.
Parks green spaces are as important as lungs in a body and should be provided at all levels. In the region as regional parks, cities should have city parks, neighborhoods to have neighborhood parks and the precinct to have precinct parks. The location of the parks, the kind of park needs critical study and should be calibrated in such a way that it turns place to a garden city. All these things identify as basic human needs which should to be incorporated in the plan of a city. Cities are planned with the humanistic heart, scientific head and artistic eyes.
Humanistic heart in the sense to plan for people and land and create a plan where the residents find the city livable as well as lovable. For land the design should be highly functional and ecologically sustainable. The scientific head in the sense, the city should be treated like a machine and the knowledge of all the parts of machine is necessary. The parts are then to be put together and also put at the right place in a very precise and scientific manner, not as per one’s whims and fancies. This machine has to be positioned on land so that it complements the surroundings and will not dominate the area. To understand all this, artistic eyes for romance with the land are required.
Placing basic human needs ahead of everything may result in beautifully designed public spaces. In cities where millions of people live in slums, squids and squatters, where people probably even don’t know that their home is in a squatter or slum. For sustainable city compatible to the other developed countries, excellence needs to be achieved and the mantra of achieving excellence is through removing the slums and squatters by housing everybody in well-designed low-cost buildings. Since the people are poor – introduce good quality subsidized public housing with affordable rental or affordable price. The very key to the transformation of a city is to provide decent housing to all the people in public housing as well as in private housing. The transformation should be thorough, impressive and should become remarkable story of a place.
(The author is an architect)

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