Most City Side Issues Can Be Tackled With Careful Urban Planning

With Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Smart Cities Mission, Indian cities can put behind a long history of neglect and become empowered with well-researched urban planning.

Ideally, a city should not be allowed to grow beyond its physical limits. Cities should be designed according to the given understanding of how it can accept the necessary changes for its overall development. For example, the floods in Chennai – the disaster that befell the city was man-made and could have been avoided. It is also believed that the downpour was a result of climate change. Worse is the fact that - climate change will only deteriorate the vulnerabilities caused by bad land use conversions.

The real estate developers in these regions are becoming extra cautious as this will result in heavy damage to the residential sector. They need to be vigilant for such natural calamities. Vikas Bhasin, MD, Saya Group points out, “Whenever a project is planned, proper monitoring of habitat and environment is done in the vicinity to understand the extent of damage it may put on the structures in case of worst case scenarios. Thus, all of the projects need to be planned keeping in mind the stability of the structure and added facilities with sufficient trained manpower that allows such disasters to be managed with utmost care.”

The urban planners should also be watchful about other natural shocks. Apart from heavy downpour that results into floods – failed rains in Chennai also invite heat waves, cyclonic storms and water scarcity. Thus, emptying rainwater to save the city from floods may increase susceptibility to water scarcity. 

Delhi and NCR aren't far behind.  Rakesh Yadav, Chairman, Antriksh India points out, “regions such as Delhi/NCR which sit on seismic zone IV along with the presence of Ganga, Yamuna and Hindon rivers, chances of floods and quakes are almost doubled. Thus, we must make sure that projects in these regions stand readily equipped with structural soundness to minimise risk caused due to strong quakes and features like rainwater harvesting, water storage and drainage systems to avoid water accumulation of any sort.”

Forecasting since the beginning

There is no harm in comparing a city with a living organism, more precisely to a human body. Like a human body is designed for a precise number of cells, a city must be planned for a specific number of residents. A city is a complex entity. At the phase of planning, it needs careful consideration of physical, climatic, social and cultural factors. 

The focus areas

• The local administration and the urban planners are required to tackle these subjects wisely and consciously. The Chennai government pointed out that it is building storm water drains, removing encroachments, de-silting waterbodies, widening and provision of supplementary anti-flood drain systems, and sprucing up its early warning and disaster response machinery. The rivers and natural drains flowing through the land should never be blocked.

• Apart from considering various other important aspects, the planner must consider the key part of geographical and topographical features such as natural levels, slants and contours of the land. Extra care needs to be taken in the case of low-lying areas and possibly it should be untouched.

Mistakes to avoid

Avoid constructing ill-designed bridges and roads, flattening dunes, and filling up salt pans and water bodies. Often, huge tracts of land, short of designed infrastructure, are developed and citizens also start getting on with their lives as such land and houses are less expensive in comparison to other residential areas. Regularisation of such unauthorised colonies is paid heed to only once in a while which means we are putting the health of a city and citizens at risk.

 Make the city sustainable  

Just like planning of the city, it is equally important to understand that for its healthy sustenance, the maintenance of a city is significant too. For the betterment and longevity of a city – it should not be allowed to grow beyond the physical limit that it was originally designed for. Mahatma Gandhi once said that India's progress starts from its villages. This is true in every sense.

The focus areas

• Large scale migration leads to resource crunch in cities. The rising amount of demand for built spaces will terminate the city's preventive planning limits.

• Instead of stretching the peripheries of a city, why not start developing rural India so that the urge to move into cities is kept in check. Migration of people from rural to urban areas can be halted only by the process of upliftment of their rural life and fulfillment of their urban aspirations. More job opportunities in the villages would be beneficial.

• When the time comes for city maintenance and preservation, cities like New Delhi are besieged by the crisis caused by air pollution. Promoting green buildings and maximum tree plantation can help in curbing air pollution to some extent.

• We, being the citizens of India, need to take the pledge for keeping our cities as clean as we keep our homes. It is then that we would be taking the prime minister's call for 'Swachh Bharat Mission' more seriously.

Mistakes to avoid 

To manage unavoidable migration, developers and urban planner start filling up open spaces with high-end building and other residential projects, this will choke healthy city life. This will also block the water escape routes and natural drains that will result in floods and come out as poor city management.

Formation and development of newer cities

As the population within a city continues to grow, the demand for more residential, commercial, industrial, institutional and open spaces grows too. By allowing a fully-grown city to 'reproduce', city management can be taken care of. A city's problems stem from its planning, inception and maintenance deficiencies. The need of the hour is to recognise such issues and address them at the planning phase.