How to make Cities Great Places to Live

How to make Cities Great Places to Live

?????????????????????Jit Kumar Gupta*; jit.kumar1944@gmail.com

?Introduction

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Cities are known to have great potential?for?promoting quality living, productive working and?offering best?options for state of art infrastructures, employment, leisure and travel. Globally communities, states, nations, professionals, planners, managers and parastatal agencies are looking at the innovative options to make cities great place to live and work. Unfortunately, all cities donot offer quality infrastructures, amenities and facilities to all its residents. Accordingly, cities donot become inclusive which generally makes them chaotic and inhospitable places to live and work. In the emerging scenario, in addition to being places of excellence, innovations, creativity and doing great business, cities have also become places which are known for their exclusion, dualities and contradictions. They are known to have both strengths and weaknesses. If they are known to be promoter of large employment, they are also known to be storehouse of poverty. If they have state of art buildings, they are also home to the most derelict typologies of buildings in the shape of slums. If they showcase??wealth, poverty is known to rub shoulders with prosperity. Despite efforts made to make them inclusive, cities believe and promote exclusion. Despite attempts made for promoting planned development, unplanned and haphazard development have emerged as the preferred mode of development. These dualities and contradictions offer great challenge and opportunities to planners and administrators to look at cities, for evolving appropriate strategies to overcome their problems and build on their strength to make them great places for human habitation.

?World is urbanizing at a fast pace. Accordingly, 21st century has been called the century of urbanization. However, urbanization does not have uniform spread. With developed world already getting saturated, most of the nations getting impacted by urbanization are the developing nations, where still large population lives in rural settlements. With globalization and economic liberalization, developed nations are looking at the unexploited resources and cheap labour available in the developing nations. Considering large concentration of population in developing nations, providing for a great market for consumer goods, large number of obsolete manufacturing and economic processes are being relocated in the developing nations. These nations are now fast urbanizing in the face of relocated industry and economic activities.

Global Good Practices

Most of the studies made globally have revealed that by the year 2030, 60 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. Accordingly, economic growth, social and physical development of communities and nations will largely depend upon how they make their cities more productive, livable, effective and efficient.?That could mean, great things for economic growth—if the cities handle their expansion wisely and rationally. What?will make a?city great place to live and work is the greatest challenge facing nations, administrators and professional?planners, because?5 billion people—60 percent of the world’s population—will be making cities as their preferred place of residence by 2030, compared to existing 3.6 billion. Accordingly, developing nations will have to evolve rational policies, realistic programs and focused strategies to cope with??rapid urbanization on an unprecedented scale. Developed nations, on their part, have also to play active role in rationalizing the urbanization process due to rapid immigration, melting of cities, aging infrastructures and stretched budgets. To attract investment, generate resources and make their cities global destinations, all nations are trying to secure/maintain their competitiveness of their cities by providing better livelihoods to the urban people, creating options/opportunities for ease of doing business besides making cities more inclusive, resource- efficient, livable and sustainable. This paper makes an attempt to showcase various options which can help various stakeholders involved in city planning, development and management, to make cities a great destination for all. Few strategies and options suggested /followed /enunciated globally by research institutions/experts/researchers/ academicians/ practitioners/renowned urban planners etc. to make cities great places to live and work, are detailed below;

????????Smart Visioning--For making any city vibrant, productive, sustainable and a great place for human habitation, it will be critical and pre-requisite to define a smart, realistic and achievable vision for the city. Visioning of the city would essentially involve, lay-down?well defined objectives, specifying achievable goals and putting in place detailed agenda for the city to be achieved?during its journey to glory. Vision for the city has to be defined based on carrying out detailed study and in-depth analysis besides quantifying problems and identifying potential of the city duly supported by carrying out a SWOT analysis. Realistic visioning shall invariably involve local stakeholders, local communities, local resources, local manpower, local NGOs/CBOs, local intelligence and local institutions of excellence. In addition, vision has to be supported by well- defined mission.

????????Promoting State of Art Planned Development--Planned development has been recognized as the best option for making cities great places. No city can be made great and livable unless it is supported by state of art planning and development on continued basis. Unplanned, sub-standard and haphazard development has been found to be the major root-cause for making majority of the cities in-hospitable and unattractive places to live. Planned development has been found to offer major advantages to the city and its residents in terms of??creating appropriate quantity and quality of spaces for living, working, mobility and doing business; provisioning/meeting the basic needs of all the residents of the city; providing basic and essential amenities/services, infrastructures based on the defined norms and standards; creating appropriate services/travel networks; creating public spaces of appropriate quality etc. However, rational siting of the city defined by natural features etc will be critical for ensuring its success and making value addition to city and its environment and ecology. Quality of manpower, expertise, knowledge, understanding, commitment dedication and sincerity of the teams and systems identified for planning, development and management shall be vital for the success of the city. Acquiring land in bulk for the city planning and development will be pre-requisite and critical for?rational planning, making provision of basic amenities and earmarking dedicated space for housing, trade & commerce, institutions, industry, open spaces etc besides generating financial resources for funding the city. Creating supportive, simple, effective and efficient legal framework for city planning, development and management will help in achieving the objective of making city great place to live and work.

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????????Planning Cities in the Regional Context; --No city exists in isolation in space. It invariably has a regional context. Great cities support and share with its surrounding rural/ small settlements and are also supported by them in its basic and essential day to day needs. All urban settlements planned and developed in isolation have suffered from the disadvantages of uncontrolled urbanization, duplication/overlapping of services; over/under provisioning of services and infrastructures; malaise of conflicts and dichotomy between city and its periphery. All successful cities have made optimum use of settlements/ space existing in cities and their periphery. Accordingly, for making cities great, they have to be viewed, planned and developed in the regional context. periphery and peri-urban areas. This has not only made city development both rational and cost-effective but have also eliminated all overlaps and conflicts between city and periphery.

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????????Making Cities Compact-- Shape, size, structure and typology evolved and followed for the planning and development of the city has been found to have great role and impact on the success, failure and determining quality of life city provides to its residents. Compact city as a typology has been found to have considerable advantages as compared to conventional, ever- expanding and ever-melting cities. Such cities have been found to be most land efficient, energy efficient, cost-effective,?eco-friendly and people friendly human settlements. Compact cities are the outcome of planning inside and not outside; planning vertical and not horizontal; planning mix and not pure; planning flatted not plotted development; planning for people not vehicles; planning for accessibility and not mobility etc. Planning compact has the advantage of making city land efficient and energy efficient. In addition, it makes city development and maintenance cost-effective and economical due to limited size, extent and volume of service network. It makes city more sustainable and livable by eliminating pollution, noise and hazards caused by vehicular traffic. It redefines the order of mobility by giving first priority to pedestrianisation and cycling with least priority going to individual vehicles. Reducing area under roads &parking wth urban planning based on using land on the principle of 24x7x365 basis helps in economizing and saving of precious urban land, create opportunities for providing more areas under green and quality public spaces. It helps in reducing the carbon footprints and global warming caused by vehicular movement in the city. Compact cities eliminates the heat island effect by the provision of more open spaces, green plantation, landscaping etc reducing the energy requirements involved in the heating and cooling the built spaces. Compact cities promote community living by marginalizing the individual living and offer the best option for planning cities for the countries which are highly land stressed and over populated like India. Compact city concept offers enormous opportunities for making cities zero car, zero waste and zero carbon besides making cities more livable, sustainable and resilient as ordained by Sustainable Development Goal 11, enunciated by UNO.

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????????Making Cities Green -- For making cities to be great places to live, work and providers of higher order of quality of life, they shall have to be made and developed essentially as Green Cities in addition to be planned cities and compact cities. Green cities are known for their quality and capacity to make value addition to human living and resources. They are also known to be highly energy and resource efficient besides least consumers of energy and generators of waste. The operational mechanism of these cities does not revolve around or based on using and consuming conventional resources. They are essentially planned, developed and operated, making use of available natural/ non-conventional sources of energy. Their planning is based on the principle of planning with nature and making optimum use of natural resources, flora and fauna available at the local/regional levels. They are known for their capacity to make value addition to the human habitation. They make optimum use of nature and natural resources represented by Panchbhutas, comprising of Prithvi, Jal, Vaayu, Agni and Aakash. City planning is based on making natural triad of Sun, Space and Verdure(Greenery) integral part of city planning and development process.?Built environment created in the green city follows the mandate of?optimizing the site/ city/regional climate; best available orientation; existing flora and fauna; movement of sun and?air besides creating optimum indoor air quality; reducing waste and using minimum energy and water. In search for optimum solutions to make cities and buildings green, Indian Green Building Council has already evolved framework for zero energy buildings; whereas evolving framework for zero water building is on the fast track. Ultimately Green cities will be planned and designed as zero energy, zero water, zero waste, and zero pollution settlements with technological advancement graduating to make them resource/energy/water positive cities.

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????????Making Cities Inclusive; Despite making great contribution to economy, employment and infrastructure, cities are also known to be places showcasing dichotomy and contradictions on large scale. Intensity of contradictions goes on increasing with the increase in size and growth of the city and population. With rising cost of land and living, large cities believe in marginalizing vast majority of population which donot have enough resources. Cities believe in welcoming elites and people with resources. Cities remain largely stratified, duly showcased by areas having good infrastructures and bad infrastructure; good housing and bad housing; planned and unplanned development; excess and lack of open spaces/amenities etc.?Accordingly, rapid growth and mushrooming of slums, dilapidated housing, inadequate basic infrastructures, poor quality of life, informal housing; growth of informal trade and commerce; lack of open spaces, poor amenities and services?etc are some of visible signs of exclusions displayed by majority of cities. Cities must be developed to provide appropriate options of gainful employment to all its residents so as to enable them have decent wages/adequate resources to meet their day to day needs.?Cities should offer their citizens inclusive opportunities and a sense of personal pride, belonging and ownership for the place. Cities should make provision for adequate space, duly marked and developed, to enable all its residents, a place for living and doing business. No city can be great place to live unless it is?made inclusive and self-sufficient, catering to basic needs of the all its citizens, irrespective of their economic& social status, gender, sex, age, caste, creed, place of residence etc.?Accordingly great cities have to be inclusive by creating an inbuilt systems which would?provide basic amenities of life even to the poorest of the poor of its citizens, to lead a dignified life.

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????????Making Cities Safe; Safety remains a distinct feature and characteristics of great cities. For making cities great place to live, they have to be made safe against social/physical/economic discrimination; crimes; manmade and natural disasters. Safety has been found to have great connectivity and positive co-relationship with livability and prosperity. All great cities are known to be promoters, providers and assurers of safety and security to its inhabitants. Majority of declining cities globally have been found to suffer from the malaise of being unsafe. For promoting safety, cities have to evolve innovative people/area centric options. For safety against crime, all public spaces would require careful round the clock monitoring and surveillance. Using technologies and installing cameras at all public spaces shall be essential for eliminating any chance of crime at these places. Planning has a great role in promoting safety in cities. All introvert planning is known to be promoter of lack of safety in cities. Visibility would be crucial for promoting safety in city and making the public places safe. Avoiding dark and inaccessible corners will be crucial to promote safety in the cities. Safety has to be made integral part of urban planning/development and preparation of master plans/development plans of cities in order to make cities great places to live and work. For making cities safe against natural disasters, all low lying areas, floodable areas; derelict areas; areas under forest/ water bodies; eco-sensitive areas etc. have to be earmarked as areas prohibited for urbanization. Infact carrying out a detailed land suitability analysis for any area/city for determining the suitability of area for urban development and its use in the urban context will be crucial to promote safety against any natural and manmade disaster.

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????????Leveraging Heritage, Art and Architecture—Great cities are known to have always leveraged its available heritage, both natural and manmade, to make value addition to the city in terms of its growth and development by attracting visitors from home and outside. Heritage has also been used to promote economy and generate resources for the city besides generating gainful employment for the local communities. These cities have made numerous efforts to identify its valuable heritage, evolved policies and programs to preserve, conserve and promote heritage; made heritage integral part of city planning, development and management process; involved communities in identifying heritage and its management by evolving people centric policies to create local ownership. In addition to optimizing heritage, great cities have also made optimum use of art and architecture to make cities iconic. Many great cities are known for their great work of art and architecture. Globally, great cities are known for their great public spaces, with great pieces of art and architecture. Renowned artists/master craftsmen/professionals can be actively involved, on continued basis, in making derelict areas/public places as the most attractive spaces in the public domain by their creativity and works of art. Many cities have also become great by the existence of iconic buildings created by the master architects. Accordingly, profession of architecture and eminent local architects can also be actively involved to make cities a great destination.

????????Creating Quality Public Places-- Iconic?public plazas, green spaces, boulevards, streets, squares, people, food, outdoor environment, transit systems,?in-creditable art , architecture, museums, galleries and parks, which belong to and create ownership for people and community at the local level,?are known for their?capacity, role and importance to make a city great.?Minneapolis, Madrid and London, are the leading examples of creating amazing spaces in the public realm (Alex Garvin). ?However, for public spaces to become qualitative, iconic, amazing and great, they must be made universally accessible- identifiable, safe and easy to use, accommodating people of different goals, backgrounds and creating reasons to be there. Such spaces should also be made universal providers- offering something for all who visitor them- shops selling crafts and art, restaurant, entertainment, leisure etc. Have capacity to attract and maintain demand- by drawing?people from near and far; eliminating noise, pollution and cars; providing retail opportunities; cutting off the street from vehicular traffic; making space an open-air people mall etc. Defining a framework for urbanization, to promote development-- by aligning public spaces to lead?to?the city's iconic buildings/ conspicuous?landmarks . Making spaces People centric, Sustainable, eco-friendly---by involving communities, designing them for people based on basic human needs-- fresh air, lack of noise/trash, plenty of shade, unifying environmental remediation and economic development to promote economy and environment.?Nurturing?a civil society--for bringing out the best in people; involving people/ business/ communities/ parastatal agencies who use them; making them responsible for overseeing them--New York's Grand Central Terminal.

?????????Promoting Quality Leadership - Based on interviews carried out of the Mayors and city leaders besides analyzing the case studies of globally successful cities, McKinsey concluded that core processes and services from urban planning to financial planning and social housing besides benchmarks, that can transform cities into superior places to live and work, were largely the outcome of the great efforts made by leaders in improving their cities. No city can be made great unless it has great leadership which is knowledgeable, committed, ?sincere, focused and believes in performing and delivery. Leadership has to be essentially local, representing the local communities, duly elected by local communities directly, based on the???????pre-defined vision and detailed agenda for action for the growth and development of the city. They should be able to involve communities in the decision making and make optimum use of available resources. Leadership has to be accountable and answerable to the local communities for its action, performance and decisions. Leadership should have adequate time to??perform and deliver besides having freedom to raise resources and invest in the city development programs. Freedom from outside and state interference has to be guaranteed, based on appropriate checks and balances. Good leadership must be duly recognized and awarded for their qualities, performances and innovations. As per study made, McKinsey concluded that great leaders have to do three things really well to make cities great places, which inter-alia should include:

????????Achieving smart urban growth through identifying and nurturing the very best opportunities for growth; planning ways to cope with its demands; integrating environmental thinking, and ensuring all?citizens enjoy a city’s prosperity.?Good city leaders also think about regional growth because with metropolis expanding, they will need the cooperation of surrounding municipalities and regional service providers; integrating the environment into economic decision making; investing in city infrastructure to reduce emissions, waste production, and water use, as well as building high-density communities.

????????Doing more with less--?Great cities secure all revenues due; explore investment partnerships,?use technology; make organizational changes that eliminate overlapping roles and manage expenses and leveraging, rationally designing and executing?private–public partnerships, as an essential element of smart growth, delivering lower-cost, higher-quality infrastructure and services.

????????Winning support for change--?Considering the fact that change is no easy, and?its momentum can even attract opposition; successful?city leaders build a high-performing team of civil servants; create a working environment?where all employees are accountable for their actions; take every opportunity to forge a stakeholder consensus with the local population and business community; taking steps to recruit and retain top talent; emphasize collaboration, and train civil servants in the use of technology. Mayors are only too aware that their tenure being limited; no longer-term plans are to be articulate for gaining popular support. Short-term projects, more critical for successes, which can start a virtuous cycle that sustains and encourages a great urban environment.

????????Using Smart Technologies--Technology has a great role in making a city more productive, effective and efficient in terms of delivery/managing of services; maintaining the quality of services;?rationalizing traffic and transportation; promoting mass transportation;?promoting urban planning; creating base maps for the city; preparing and monitoring implementation of master plans/ development plans; urban governance; involving communities in planning, development, management and governance; creating a data base for?managing the city; granting permissions for building plans; networking of urban services; promoting transparency in decision making; managing disasters; monitoring operations; recording/resolving public complaints; determining operational status of infrastructures; controlling crimes; making cities safe; promoting energy efficiency; managing resources; monitoring waste etc. Globally all successful cities are evolving and devolving new systems for making optimum use of technology for managing their day to day operations besides looking for future options for making cities more livable and productive. Cities are being networked so that technology can be leveraged for promoting ease of doing businesses, creating employment and promoting economy of the city. However, use of technology still remains limited which has impacted the city planning, development and management. Making cities great places to live will gravitate around our capacity to leverage the technology in the domain of urban planning, development and governance.

????????Leveraging Landscaping; Most livable cities globally, are known for their achievements in the field of planning, designing and promoting quality landscaping, ?creating network of open spaces/parks, green belts, gardens, boulevards, city forests etc. These spaces not only make cities most livable but also promote quality of life. These spaces are known to make value addition to the city, communities, real estate and its residents in terms of promoting health; creating aesthetic value; creating interface between manmade and natural environment etc. Green spaces are known to promote physical activities and overcoming stresses and strains of daily life. Studies made globally have revealed, people living near green spaces are three times more physically active than those living away from them. The incidence of falling sick has been recorded lower in areas having large open spaces. Cities having large number of trees and open spaces are known for their health related advantages. Many cities globally are known for their landscaping and open spaces which attract large number of visitors, both from within and outside the city. Curitiba city has emerged as one of the most successful urban experiment due to creation of large open spaces and state of art landscaping in the city. Chandigarh also has emerged as one of the best livable city because of its unique landscaping. City planning in case of Chandigarh was supplemented with its landscape planning right in the beginning. Landscape planning has to be based on the local climate and climatic conditions; quality of soil; local flora & fauna; pattern of planning; pattern of land use; segregation of non-compatible landuses; making optimum use of derelict/low lying areas; creating a network of green spaces; creating area for shading?pedestrians; connecting man with nature; connecting nature with traffic and transportation; pattern and hierarchy of roads; promoting walkability; overcoming adverse orientation in designing ; locating and making value addition to the built environment etc. Promoting and planning landscaping would also require protecting, preserving and promoting the existing wealth of the flora and fauna in the city by creating an enabling legal framework besides creating a data base of the wealth, so as to monitor its status over a period of time.

????????Creating Vibrant Communities remains one of the major challenge and focus of successful cities. Vibrant city life flourishes only in neighborhoods that serve multiple functions having mix of compatible landuses to support mix of tenants and attract different people?throughout the day and night; having small blocks?with narrow streets interlaced with piazzas/open spaces for people to walk, meet, interact and chat. Vibrant communities offer great support to promote social living and making cities safe. For communities to become vibrant, they have to be planned as self-contained and self-sustaining entities, providing all the basic human day to day needs based on walkability. The size of the community is based on human scale and contents are defined so as to promote cohesion and diversity. These communities have mobility based on pedestrianisation with focus on safety for children and elders. All public places occupy central positions whereas all activities attracting mechanized vehicles are put on the periphery. These communities have dedicated open space available within the walkable distance and have well defined boundaries.

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????????Creating a Dedicated Local Agency- For making any city great place and creating a local ownership, it must have a dedicated agency responsible for planning, development and management for the city. Multiplicity of agencies existing at local level, with over-lapping areas?of operation and responsibilities have done more damage than good to make cities great places. Indian cities lack ownership, which has emerged as the major cause for their irrational, haphazard and unplanned development besides steady decay and decline of the Indian cities. City Planning remains divorced from development and management leading to emergence of dualities and contradictions in city growth. Despite enactment of 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992, mandating urban local bodies to be made institutions of urban governance at the local level, urban local bodies have not been recognized as the agencies for planning, development and management of urban areas at local level. These agencies remain under the perpetual shadow/mercy of the development authorities created at the local/state level in the area of planning and development. Lack of adequate financial and manpower resources have made urban local level agencies highly vulnerable,??functionally ineffective and operationally inefficient, incapable of leading the cities to become great places. Accordingly, for making any city great place, it must have a fully empowered?and dedicated agency having adequate capacity, capability, manpower/financial resources, structure, leadership, processes, functions, responsibility and authority to take care of its planning, development and management issues. For?creating an?fully empowered and dedicated local level agency, it will be critical to have a?comprehensive, well defined, simple, easy to understand, operate and implement, legal framework for planning, development ,management and governance of urban areas.

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????????Guy Parson- considers five things that make a city great place which include; they’re exciting-energizing, inspiring places to live; they’re tasty-- providing with known quality of food, bars and restaurants. They're worth exploring--having interesting places to live and explore. They take things a little easier--City putting in less hours at the office and having more spare time for socializing; they’re friendly- where people would like to chat to a stranger.

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????????Jeffrey Sachs -suggests that ?large natural resources donot necessarily lead to making cities great. He finds negative correlation between resource abundance and economic growth/urban innovations/employment, because resources not only fuel conflict but also create monopolies. Natural resources can also deter growth by lowering levels of education. Diversity would be critical to make a city great. Blessed by its harbor, New York became a great place, which gave it diversity involving worldwide connections leading to the growth of the garment industry, printing, publishing and financial services.

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Way Forward

??From?narrative given above, it can be visualized that making cities great places to live and work, remains both complex,?difficult and daunting task, requiring out of box thinking, adopting multiple` approaches and innovating state of art options for planning , development and management of cities. Rapid pace and massive influx of population in the urban areas offers enormous opportunities and challenges to innovate, experiment,?evolve and devolve to the?planners, architects, engineers, professionals, developers, administrators, politicians, urban local bodies, parastatal agencies, private sector and other stakeholders to make cities great entities and best place for living and working; meeting all basic human needs; promoting ease of doing business; promoting sharing; creating enabling environment and spaces for all?human operations. How effectively and efficiently we meet these challenges and make use of opportunities offered in the urban domain, shall hold the key to the sustainability, growth and development of the communities and nations. All cities can be made places to live and work, depending upon how residents, local communities and all stakeholders commit, involve, innovate and experiment to achieve the objective of making their city great place.

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Authored by-

????????Ar.Jit Kumar Gupta

????????Former Advisor, Town Planning, Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority & Founder Director, College of Architecture, IET Bhaddal, Punjab?;mail- jit.kumar1944@gmail.com

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