Are we really developing ‘Cities For The Future’ or are we commonly found developing ‘Cities of Issues’?

Does planning ever-expansive cities only involves managing its physical outfit and rest of the stuff is only to be seen as isolated structures or should they be planned in a comprehensively comprehensive manner not just for the namesake but in really real terms? To be a planner of human settlements is not an easy thing because there is no scope of leaving any subject in isolation if we really are eyeing upon a future that sustains and help us progress collectively at all levels - may it be physical comforts, aesthetics of the eyes, sociological presentation and their lifestyle, a human’s natural needs in terms of requirement of the ecological system around and also in terms of its spiritual needs which are nearly completely forgotten in this so-called developed world of ours which in reality has merely become a case of developing duplicate copies of each other just to put it in some words in the lack of any other metaphor. And to understand the entire spectrum of human existence and its settlements requires dedication, devotion, passion for the upliftment of the human race which unfortunately is completely out of discussion especially in the times of ever-increasing specialisation and specialised experts who are not even given a wholistic view to say the least. 

The human race is doing many things to upkeep its own derived pace of development and in this ever increasing acceleration, nations are often seen managing stuff only on the surface, not necessarily due to filthy intentions but majorly due to lack of knowledge which eventually produces ignorance and lack of care. Every nation is talking about urbanisation, is talking about cities, but very rarely some of them understands the depth of these term/s or rather phenomenons. 

The structure of the cities is largely managed and visualised by the political outfit at first because it lays down the overall vision plan for the concerned nation and by the planning fraternity thereafter. Then comes the role of citizens. And nearly everyone would be acquainted with this nearly a factual data that politics is largely done to win elections and not to create or develop cities with a far-sighted empathetic vision. Above all of them comes various multi-national organisations who can be commonly found flooding the discussion table with their low-grade researches rather than providing a firm-rooted vision plan for the human collective. 

Cities all across are commonly found creating issues at first and then in attempt to sort them out, they are often found multiplying the issues rather than dealing with them in a thoughtful and wholistic manner. There is confusion and chaos all around not just in the developing world but nearly all across and we’re often handed over with heavy concepts like sustainability without it even being understood in its entirety by its own most determined professors. The tendency to escape from deeply lying issues is seemingly becoming prominent as the time is passing by and in this all big games of development, the small lives of the citizens has been nearly destroyed. 

Does a human being gets its birth to live afar from the natural system when it itself is nothing but a derivative of the natural system? Does a human being gets its birth just to eat, live and die? Does a human being’s highest goal is to maximise its physical comforts and not the comforts related with its other aspects of existence? The ideology from which the cities of present times are being visualised and developed has unfortunately become a case of following some cities as an example which may be lying completely in opposite conditions may it be geological, geographical, sociological, ecological, etc,. We as a collective global society cannot afford to stretch this predatory approach and we should become really serious about our cities, about our settlements, about our environment, about our animal and plant family, about our own wholistic progress at all the levels or else the history does not leave anyone behind and it will definitely reveal our shallow developmental approach someday and we would then become a case of mockery in the eyes of the generations yet to follow. 

Our entire pride of our advancements and developments will then be of not much use if looked in from a very long term perspective as we are not discussing to build a house for twenty-thirty years rather we are discussing about building cities, creating cities that usually lasts multiple generations if not centuries and a lot is needed to be put to place before we get to our collective pathway of wholistic progress and I’m pretty hopeful that we as the most advanced specie of this natural system will rise up once again as it has done several times in our glorious collective past. 

Image from theconversation

The Required Shift in the Ongoing Civilisational Focus

The race of humanity have made exponential advancements in the fields of science and technology - in the fields of space, biotechnology, communications, mobility, etc, but its unfortunate to see that we have interchanged the spot of comprehensive human development with human economic development with some patchworks related with environmental and societal aspects done seemingly out of compulsions or showing off rather than with the right frame of intent. A civilisation no matter how much technically it had/may become but if its not human centred than there is not much of the success achieved when compared to the worthy standards of human beings and the natural system of which we are part of. 

Issues like global warming, climate change and sustainable development are rarely seen being discussed through a concentrated and wide lens and are generally seen scratching just the surface - may be simply out of ignorance resulting into absence of inter-dependent knowledge or may be due to the absence of real concerned intent. These aren't just issues which could be dealt in from a narrow window of advancements being made by the human beings but rather are needed to be dealt in after understanding how the globally driven standards influences the lifestyle of the human society which eventually results into situations like the one we are currently in as a collective race. Architecture and urban planning are the most powerful weapons in the human weaponry to deal any of the existing issue related with human and its comprehensive development but they are rarely being used with some exceptions in the manner it should be done after realising the power which is beheld by the two subjects.

Various world organisations it seems are more keen on formulating various pacts and indexes rather than focusing on integrating the related sciences under a single umbrella. Communities across the globe are keenly discussing about the applications of ICT which prima facie looks very promising but if one attempts to give proper attention than a question would arise on its own - weather it'll take us towards comprehensive development of human individuals and our society, the answer which will reveal itself will certainly be quite doubtful. ICT may enable quite many things and bring in efficiency on some scale but will it cater to issues like social anxiety while cutting the society off from its very first friend - the nature. The questions will then intensify if one wishes to go further. Is environmental planning for instance just a case to be looked into as an after effect activity as can be seen being followed in present times or rather it should be given its due importance for sorting the overall underlying issues of humanity few of such as mentioned above?

Architectural and urban planning pedagogy is seem to have got lost somewhere in the forests of global trends which isn't a good sign at all if our race is really eyeing upon extending our sustenance. World institutions are needed to focus more on increasing the focus on academic development based on local conditions rather than on creating a carbon economy in general which has its own place in the entire system but these shallow concepts cannot act as the guiding lamps for the sustainable development of humanity. The time is to equip our generation with a deeper understanding of the subject of human development which will then guide humanity towards the real path of sustainable development. Short term goals are necessary to orient, sensitise and to mild down situations temporarily but they will not sort out the larger issues on the long term scale and it would be good to act upon it comprehensively now rather then coming up with some other short-term stint at a later period in our collective evolution. 

We're at a very important juncture of our civilisation and we should first deeply understand our present collective situation and then react to it as early as possible or before it will be too late. The ongoing civilisational focus should be integrated, inclusive and comprehensively productive and for it much of the work is still needed to be done by us collectively. 

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A Call To Remember For Urban Planners and Related Fraternity

Human settlements were built then. Human settlements are built now. But what has changed immensely is the nature of intervention - they were very very local then and they are seemingly becoming more and more dependent on external produce now. They were planned by realised beings then and they are now being planned by beings with no or very less realisation of the functioning of a human society within the natural realm whose primary focus should be an individual personal development as per his/her distinct capabilities. The number of relationships were less then and it can be said that it was a bit easier then to plan efficiently but the planners of the society should undergo at least that much of pain to understand the inter-dependent nature of a human urban ecosystem if they really are concerned about efficient and productive human urban development. 

The isolated nature of the various kinds of specialisation being taught to the budding planners leaves a very small ray of hope behind for real efficient human development - its the wholistic vision and implementation which is upmost needed in present times when there arises a new set of urban issue every now and then and we seemingly have forgotten that very old wise proverb - ‘precaution is better than cure’ and have been falling on the lines of ‘let the issue arise, we will sort it out then’. The latter has proved catastrophic across the Globe in various human urban settlements and we should be sincerely serious about planning the lives of human beings and the future of our planet simultaneously. 

We should stop hiding our spineless plans under some fancy words. As time progresses level of human advancements changes but that doesn’t changes the essence and purpose of being a human being for whom cities are planned and developed. The basic concepts are needed to be put straight back into their deserving places. To understand something as profound as human development only basics can serve as the foundation from where everything else arises. The perspective with which it is currently being taught at various universities and institutions is too limited to produce quality planners and planning isn't at all that one thing which the community can/shall compromise with - from the nature of planning exercise arises everything else - the nature and character of a human urban settlement and those of its citizens. 

The nature with which cities are being planned especially in the technologically developing nations in general is very disappointing which often superficially discusses big words like 'sustainable development' or 'safe cities' or even 'smart cities' without even understanding a real bit of what these words literally stands for. The fraternity related with urban human development shall understand the holy nature of the profession they are attached with as not only the lives of human beings are at stake but the entire natural system is also one of those influential things which would be heavily influenced by the ever-increasing perspective less human interventions in a phase when our race - the race of human beings is experiencing the most widespread urban revolution of all times of our collective existential history.

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A Losing Race or A Winning Opportunity - The Battle of Human Urbanisation

A human being migrates to an urban outfit with aspirations of increased living standard and enhanced overall quality of life. But what does he receive - suspicious water supply, polluted air quality, vehicles all around on the roads, residences nearly touching the sky and what not. The migrant accepts them thinking them as a transformed way of living one’s life till he realises the cumulative trap of urban issues and problems he/she has been trapped into. Exceptions are always there and therefore barring some cities nearly every city is overdosed by technological solutions to even a minuscule of an issue rather than eyeing them as a part of the human system which itself is a part of the universal natural system. The situation gets worse in cities which without even realising their own potential blindly follow the ideas of another in the absence of proper inter-disciplinary knowledge. The planning of human settlements can become one of the toughest jobs of the universe if perceived through isolated windows with a set framework or it can become one of the easiest works to accomplish if done with an inter-dependent understanding of an urban system. 

We are in the midst of one of the biggest or simply the biggest revolution of human history. The history doesn't give any other scenario of such large scaled widespread human migration and we shall understand the intensity of the situation with an unbiased inter-dependent perspective to further plan it more efficiently. Nearly all the discussions around sustainability across the Globe seems to lack either clarity or will and though it should be at the upmost focus like generally found in present times, the arena with which it is generally viewed is too small to fight the battle of ever increasing human interference in the natural system. The ever increasing urban issues along with their sub typologies shall be taken as a warning before the bigger catastrophe takes place. The sinking of coastal cities like Jakarta, the housing shortages of cities like Mumbai, situations of traffic unrest in national capitals like Delhi, the filthy conditions of Lagos, the ever increasing density of Dhaka, the waste emergency of Naples, the increasing smoggy conditions of Delhi or Beijing in recent times are just some examples to give some perspective of its spread across all directions and to quantify the intensity to a bit.

We have beautified our settlements like never before and technology has certainly helped us to achieve the heights of comfort and ease but we shall ask some questions from ourselves - are we building our settlements to enhance our overall physical, mental and spiritual well being or are we just losing out the race already by engaging our valuable human resource in a wrong/less productive/less efficient manner? Till when we will pass on the problems from us to someone else? Till when we’ll first plan unknowingly and then rely on cursing the ever increasing complexity? Educational institutes teaching such courses shall scrutinise their outlook and shall move towards an inter-disciplinary mode of imparting knowledge rather than imparting them in isolation under different specialisations. There are already some sparks where it can be seen being adapted though slowly & being realised by the concerned authorities and fraternities but its effects can be increased acceleratingly if the global human community of those who are directly involved in shaping human lives realises the intensity of the responsibility on their shoulders and act accordingly. The objective of the human race should be universal but the approach to achieve it shall be more towards being local with necessary adaptations as per the global scenario only then we can flourish as a system to the maximum of its potential rather than planning them as different sub-systems in an unsynchronised fashion. A winning opportunity lies ahead of us to create a more empathetic, inclusive & productive Global community to gift our coming generations a space to blossom to the new glories of human progress & natural development. 

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Coastal Cities - Our Glorious Past at Risk in its Future

Human Settlements of early and medieval times got shaped around water, may it be in the form of a river or of an ocean. The former saw development of big settlements along with the development of rich culture and the latter acted as a facilitator to transport culturally produced items to other parts of the world by means of Oceans and Seas in the absence of Airways or any connecting mode of transportation. A boat is said to be in existence much earlier than 3000 BC when the Egyptians knew how to assemble wooden planks into a hull. There are numerous such examples which got developed as a means of connection between two culturally different regions/nations. For instance - three out of four India’s earliest metropolitan cities are on the Indian coastline and reasons behind it are quite obvious - the then East Indian Company governing on some parts of Indian boundaries like any other company was doing its business and their business was closely linked to those of the importers and exporters. Coastal Cities got their existence majorly to boost the trading activities and nearly every coastal city has the same story - a story of cultural exchanges in various forms. And henceforth these acted as a source of connection between different regions of human settlements which were otherwise not accessible by any other available means of transportation. 

They have a rich glorious past & they used to help in shaping the identity of the citizens of a country in the minds of the citizens of another. Time has never been stagnant and will never be. It changes for everyone but it seemingly looks to be changing more for the coastal cities and their citizens in the coming decades of the ongoing century. The rise in the sea levels is known to many now and many knows about the effects of climate change & global warming but the direct effect it has on over 100 million human beings is generally less talked about. 

As per the third assessment report of IPCC, a global sea level rise ranging from 1.0 to 2.0 mm annually is being experienced by the oceans and seas depending on the nature of the region. Economically, as per a prediction made in a study conducted by World Bank and OECD suggests that the global flood losses will rise upto $52 billion annually by 2050 which was around $6 billion in 2013 and the figure only considers socio economic factors such as increasing population and ever increasing land value. This is comparatively an old news now but still no national government has took steps in this matter that will sustain in the longer duration of human developmental story and measures which are being taken are just eyeing on current conditions as if cities are just a case of a couple of year developmental process. Senior Economist at the World Bank Stephane Hallegate describes the situation as ‘coastal defences reduces the risk of floods today, but they also attract population and assets in protected areas and thus put them at risk in case of the defence fails, or if an event overwhelms it’.

The cities which are most vulnerable to are Guangzhou with an average annual loss of around 1.32 % of its total GDP, New Orleans losing around 1.21 % & Guayaquil 0.95 %. Mumbai has an average annual loss of around 0.47 %, for Kochi its around 0.29 % while for Surat it is 0.25%. If overall damage cost is taken into consideration then Guangzhou still tops the list while Miami comes at the second spot. Its just not about economics though - around 2.8 million people are nearly crammed into low-lying slums that flood regularly in Mumbai. Around 40 % of the population of the United States of America lives in the coastal counties which are affected by it in some way or the another. Natural Disasters are unpredictable but not that much that the government is there just to act once the calamity does its work. 

New Orleans

Chennai

Jakarta

Human Developmental Planning has seemingly transformed into mere an urban planning exercise and that too ironically more towards planning physical facets of human development and settlement and the results are very well evident of themselves - planning without considering cities as a part of natural system will eventually lead to an increase of such urban flooding situations in the times to come & rise in the sea levels will only add to it. Human Settlement Planning isn’t an exercise which can be done as per the plans of a term-based government whose vision is generally and logically based upon short-term gains and success. Planning isn’t just providing better amenities & physical comfort - its rather a tool that  shapes the lives of human beings not only of the living generation but also of those who are yet to touch this turf & it can only arrive when one understands the amount of collective hard work that goes into shaping a human settlement and that too many generations back to back building it brick by brick. 

When planning for coastal cities, planners should keep in mind that there once was a coastal city of Muziris on the west coast of India which was in existence at least from 1st century BC till the devastating floods in River Periyar in the 14th century AD which for centuries acted as the doorway to India for its varied culture & natural gifts. Every city is at the mercy of nature for that matter but the role of human development planners is to maximise the glory in its entirety in the best possible manner and not just enhance its glory in terms of the number of high rise buildings a city has or by doing things like building the tallest buildings in different categories out of lack of understanding of concepts and ideas of real collective well-being.  

Human Settlements are a testament of human generations and their collective creative & imaginative skills & therefore those shall be given their right worth and place in the overall human developmental process. There is a lot of economic & emotional cost that goes into building a human settlement and for situations like these the race of humanity shall learn to act as early as possible else all the intelligence which the human race has collectively discovered from time immemorial will be of no or very little use in the future to come.

Images from absolutemag, wikimedia, intoday & japantimes

Jaipur - The Planned Indian Heritage City Built on a Lake That Dried Once

In the early 10th century, the erstwhile ruler of Gwalior, Sodh Dev, a Kachchwaha king died leaving his son Dulha Rai behind whose throne was later usurped by his cousin Jai Singh forcing him to move out. He than started his search for a new territory to rule. During his search he met the chief of Lalsot (a small principality near Amer) who was a non-Badgujar Rajput - the Amer hills were than under the rulership of Badgujar clan of Meenas & Rajputs. The chief of Lalsot was looking for an opportunity to strengthen his position - he saw an opportunity in Dulha Rai and promptly gave his daughter’s hand to him along with a part of Dausa, a neighbouring territory, half of which was controlled by the Badgujars. He soon ousted the Badgujars in some parts of their kingship and declared Dausa as his ruling capital while giving birth to the Dhundara Kingdom which ruled for the next centuries to come over the region. 

This region was identified as part of Matsya Desh in the ancient literature as the shortest route between north India and the port cities of Gujarat and Malabar. After the death of Dulha Rai, his son Kakil Dev succeeded the throne and seized the hills of Amer from the Meenas and built the temple of Ambikeshwara Mahadev from where the etymology of Amber comes from. He built his capital city at Amber and the kingdom started flourishing. By the 17th century, the Kachchwahas strengthened their position by supporting the Mughal administration who was than ruling the central seat of Delhi of the Indian subcontinent. Raja Man Singh (who was the grandson of Raja Bharmal & made the commander in chief by Akbar of his army after his matrimonial alliance with Jodhabai, daughter of Raja Bharmal) in the 16th century and Mirza Raja Jai Singh in the 17th century contributed to the financial and cultural wealth of the kingdom through their political alliance with the Mughals.  

The death of Raja Bishan Singh on the last day of the 17th century left behind his 12 year old son Jai Singh who was declared as the ruler of Amber in 1700. He was than called during the same year by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb as part of the central throne legacy to support him in the Deccan war against the Marathas. He after uniting his army with the help of his ministerial counsels went to the war at Khelna & Panhala in the Deccan. The Emperor was impressed by this young boy-ruler and conferred him the title of ‘Sawai’ which literary means one and a quarter. The major shift came with the death of Aurangzeb in 1907 whose son fought with each other and Shah Alam declared himself the Emperor of Delhi as Bahadur Shah. He broke the alliance with the Kachchwahas and made Amber a part of the Mughal administration renaming Amber as Mominabad. Jai Singh with the help of the ruler of Jodhpur drove out the Mughals from Amber and recovered the terittory in 1710 and since then his power started gaining prominence. 

The town near the fort of Amber started getting congested in the 18th century and a need for shifting the capital city raised out also to improve the trading economy of the kingdom. He also wanted to make a strong political statement at par with the Mughal cities eyeing to make it a commercial hub of the region. The site selected for the same purpose was a valley located south of Amber and the plains beyond, a terrain that was the bed of a dried lake. The dense forest cover towards the north and the east also left him with limited options. The physical constraints of the city were determined by the location of the fort of Jaigarh towards the north and the sacred spot of Galtaji towards the east. Jaipur - the city of victory got its name from its founder Raja Sawai Jai Singh. 

Besides being a great builder, he was also a great scholar of Sanskrit as well as Persian and had a deep interest in the field of Astronomy; to fulfil this, he built five ‘Observatories’ at various places namely Varanasi, Mathura, Ujjain, Delhi and Jaipur using masonry instruments of his own design which were as accurate as the brass instruments used by Newton, Flamsteed and other European astronomers at the time and when it came to building a new city from scratch he decided to plan it formally. His vision was futuristic & it can be seen by the amount of vehicular traffic it can behold in, in this advanced world of todays around three centuries later. He consulted Vidyadhar Bhattacharya for planning the city who was a scholar of Mathematics and Science from Bengal. Vidyadhar referred to ancient Indian literature, books of Ptolemy and Euclid and applied them efficiently in the construction story of Jaipur. The city was divided into nine blocks, two of which consisted of the state buildings and the remaining were allotted to the general public to live in. To facilitate water supply to the new city, the Darbhavati river in the north was dammed to create the Jai Sagar and Man Sagar (that later housed the Jal Mahal) lakes. 

The city started expanding out of its walled boundaries in the 19th century with the arrival of Sawai Ram Singh II who adopted newer modes of technological development such as the railways. He introduced gaslights on the streets, modernised drainage system and piped water supply system. In 1876, when the then Prince of Wales was to arrive in the city, he decided to paint the city in pink (by virtue of which the city was later termed to as the Pink City of India) to offer a sense of welcome to him. The colour was chosen after several experiments to cut down the intense glare from the reflection of the blazing rays of the sun in an arid zone. The expansion continued in the first half of the 20th century with the addition of different colonies outside the planned old city which were developed organically.

With the arrival of freedom in India in 1947, the four largest Rajput states of Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer & Bikaner were combined together to form the Indian state of Rajasthan with its capital at Jaipur. The city has experienced an accelerated developmental story since then. In 1900, the city’s population has reached 1,60,000 which doubled itself in the next 60 odd years. The population of the city over the last five decades has increased over ten times which was around 3,50,000 in 1970’s raising to over 3.5 million in 2016. The city is expected to cross the mark of 4.2 million by 2025 and is predicted to shift to the 10th most populated city of India by then. 

According to the data released by NEERI, 70% of the city’s water supply receives water with a high concentration of TDS or contaminated by bacteria or both. The city whose water supply was dependent on the surface water has now turned to its groundwater potential with 90% of its total water demand being taken care by the water below the surface. As per the Centre for Science and Environment the city specifically faces problems of congestion in the old city areas, vehicular pollution, poor public transport, inadequate pedestrian and parking facilities and needs immediate solutions for these issues. 

The city has somehow tried to retain its symbolism & flavour and the future planning stints shall deeply understand the needs and aspirations of the city both on the platforms of its historicity and its future. The city beholds in a very distinct and rich language of urban sciences and efforts should be made more intensely towards integrating it with the modern mode of development. The local anthropology is a special character of the city and it should be given a worthy place in the planning exercise. The vision with which the foundations of the human settlement were laid shall also be considered and a cohesive layer of modern development shall be deciphered. The city provides a classic example of a human settlement imbibing in itself its rich cultural heritage in nearly every parts of its boundaries and it should be understood well by the fraternity concerned with human urban development. 

Images from colourbox, famouswonders, agingmodernism, airpano, pinterest & bknpk

Jamshedpur - The First Industrial Garden City of India

The birth of Jamshedpur predates the great urban planning experiments of the 20th century in the Indian subcontinent like New Delhi, Islamabad & Chandigarh. Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata was looking to build a steel plant in India in the early years of the 20th century after visiting & learning about the growth of industrial towns like Manchester, Pittsburgh & others especially in the western part of the world. While his visit to Pittsburgh he met a noted geologist Charles Page Perin and he asked him to find a worthy place for the same in the Indian subcontinent. The search began in 1904 and it continued for around three years when a small village of Sakchi was found blessed with rich mineral resources like iron, coal & limestone along with a scenic picturesque of the Dalma hills. The locational aspect was also very important while finalising the site - the quick means of transportation to Calcutta Port afforded by Kalimati Railway Station (later named as Tatanagar as a legacy towards the founders of the town & their company) lied on the Calcutta-Bombay railway line was only 3 miles away. 

The vision of the city was quite clear, comprehensive & holistic in nature. Jamsetji once wrote a letter to his son Dorabji Tata (who later continued with the development of the city after the demise of Jamsetji in 1904) in 1902 quoting ‘Be Sure to lay wide streets planted with shady trees, every other of a quick growing variety. Be sure that there is plenty of space for lawns and gardens; reserve large areas for football, hockey and parks; earmark areas for Hindu temples, Mohammedan mosques and Christian churches’. His vision wasn’t just to build  an industrial town, he rather was more focused on building a livable city especially in terms of the citizens’ relationship with green spaces while allowing people from all sections of the society to build one of the first modern cosmopolitan city of India allowing them to gel them by means of open spaces with a sense of belongingness. 

The city was given its present name of Jamshedpur in 1919 to pay homage to its founder and his vision by Lord Chelmsford of whose construction officially started of in 1908. The first lay-out of the town was prepared by Julin Kennedy Sahlin of Pittsburg of America in 1912. It was designed more or less on American lines with roads at right angles and as a small industrial town with alphabetically named east-west avenues and numerically named north-south roads. The city saw its first full fledged expansion into a big industrial town in 1920, when Frederick Charles Temple, who was then the Sanitary Engineer to the Government of Bihar & a Town Planner, was engaged as the Chief Town Engineer. Temple’s work was influenced by the lifestyle of the local tribal people and also by the garden city concept of Letchworth. His design principles were also influenced by the planning of the industrial village of New Earswick. 

Due to the expansion of the steel plant in 1930 the city started facing the shortage of housing more intensely than before & the city’s plan of action got shifted towards development of housing in 1936 when Major P.C Stokes, who was connected with Quetta Reconstruction after earth-quake, was invited by the Company to advise on town planning and development. His planning principles were influenced by the ideas of Earnest Burgess who suggested the outwards expansion of a city in 1925. In 1943, Dr. Keonigsberger was invited to advise on the planning of the town. His team prepared a master plan based on garden city principles and construction of neighbourhood units. 

It employed modern urban planning principles, ushering in modernity through new modes of spatiality & lifestyles associated with industrialisation. The planning ideals included open green spaces of the garden city as an antidote to industrialisation, urban infrastructure adapted to local site conditions, neighbourhood units self-sufficient in civic amenities, and street hierarchy as a means of traffic segregation. Regionalisation of global planning ideals as well as the tension between planned development and organic growth is evident in the narrative of Jamshedpur evolving from a company town to industrial city to the present day urban agglomeration. Unlike New Delhi (of whose development started off in 1911 with the shift of the British’s empires Indian colonial capital city to Delhi), an exercise in legitimating the empire in the eye of its colonial subject, Jamshedpur was an indigenous industrial development, initiated, financed and built by Indians, using local resources and labor albeit aided by foreign expertise. 

The population of the city was just over two lakh in 1951 which has increased to over 13 lakhs as per the Indian census of 2011. The urban agglomeration of Jamshedpur has now turned into the largest urban region in the Indian state of Jamshedpur and the city has experienced tremendous growth since its inception a century over now. The city presents an approach of urban planning of whose primary objective is to build a city which would increase the productivity and living standards of its citizens. Jamshedpur was awarded by the UN Global Compact city award in 2006. The city has been predicted as the 84th fastest growing city in the world for the timeframe 2006–2020. The city is one of the most greenest cities of the country with around 27% of its area under green cover.

The city is currently facing issues of availability of potable water, rising air pollution, worsening of waste management system, etc, and these shall be looked into through a more constructive lens that being viewed in present times. There are various steps being taken by the managing body of the city which is JUSCO (Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company) which included plantation of 1.2 million tress over the first decade of the 21st century. The city was named as the seventh cleanest city of India in 2011 which was pulled down to the lower side of the list (to the bottom 10) released by the Government of India  under its Swachch Bharat Abhiyan in 2016. The city is rated as the fourth in terms of the per capita water consumption in the Indian cities and it is now eyeing on to become India's first zero sewerage discharge city. 

The vision of the city is worth to cherish for the planning fraternity but the accelerated increase in the urbanisation levels of the state has led to the rise of urban issues and problems - the time has come to rejuvenate the city's system once again like it has done over the course of its developmental history on the platforms of inter-disciplinary perspective of human urban settlements and present a model of integrated industrial & residential mode of human development while maintaining its living standards and quality of life. 

Images from hlimg, wikimedia, Manfrin, researchgate & gurumavin

Bengaluru - A Garden City Struggling to Manage Its Garbage

The Hoysala empire was a prominent Southern Indian Kannadiga empire that ruled most of the modern-day state of Karnataka between the 10th and the 14th century. One of the kings of the kingdom Ballala, once got lost in a jungle. In the absence of any communication with his kingdom’s administration, he wandered across the jungle to find his way out. He began tiring off while hunger was ruling him. He then came across a poor old woman who offered him some boiled beans. As an expression of gratitude towards the kind woman, the king quoted the place as ‘bende kaalu ooru’ which in Kannada means the city of boiled beans. The space was already a human settlement then and there are other versions of the stories as well related with the etymology of the city's name. 

The modern day construction of the city can be said to have began by a feudatory ruler under the Vijaynagar empire Cempe Gowda who once while on his hunting boults saw a hare chasing his dog and he termed the space as ‘gandu bhoomi’ which literally means a heroic place. He built a mud fort in ‘gandu bhoomi’ in 1537 & built the little towns of Balapet, Cottonpet and Chickpet inside the fort premises. His son later erected four watch towers to mark the boundaries of the then Benguluru which can be found till today in the heart of the present city's boundaries. 

Moving ahead in the historic course of the human settlement, in 1638, Shahajirao Bhosle of the Maratha empire captured the city which later went under control of Aurangzeb’s army by 1687 who sold the town to Wodeyars for a sum of Rupees 3 lakh. Wodeyars built the famous LalBagh then in 1759 which is one of the most prominently laid out gardens of the city which later contributed in idealising the city as a garden city in the times to come. Wodeyars then gifted the city to the army of Hyder Ali who converted the city into an army town and when Tipu Sultan died in the 4th Mysore war, the Britishers returned it to the Wodeyars. British citizens continued living in the city from then on and the city saw its first General Post office in the beginning of the 19th century and the Army Cantonment was established in 1809. British in 1831 took over the administration of the Mysore kingdom alleging misrule and the city began blooming with modern facilities like the railways, telegraph, postal services and police departments. The first train was flagged out of the city in 1859 and the city saw its first motorcar with the onset of the 20th century. Bengaluru was one of the very first Indian city to get its electricity from hydro power.  In 1881, the British returned the city to the Wodeyars and Dewans like Sir Mirza Ismail and Sir M Visvesvaraya helped the city to attain its modern outlook. 

The area of Bengaluru in 1941 was 69 sq. km. with a population of just over 4 lakh which expanded a little over three times in terms of area to 212 sq. km. in 1991 while the population increase  was over 10 times to over 40 lakh. The area of the city as per the census of 2011 was recorded to as 716 sq. km. with a population of around 90 lakh. In terms of the population growth of Indian cities for the decade of 2001-11 Bengaluru is way ahead from it’s nearest rival of Delhi with growth rate of Benguluru being over twice than that of the city of Delhi. It was around 47% for Benguluru, around 21% for Delhi and 4% for the city of Mumbai. Around 15% of the total population of the Indian state of Karnataka lives in its capital city of Bengaluru. 

Bengaluru has 500,000 technology workers, about 20 per cent of India's total, according to the government. They mainly work in Whitefield, once a settlement for Britons - the country's former colonial rulers. The city's low wages and temperate climate have helped make it the world's fourth-largest technology cluster after Silicon Valley in the US, Boston and London, according to a study by Ernst & Young. The elevation of the city is 920 m above sea level which imparts the city with its mild climate making it one of the favourites to work for the working professionals. 

Rising levels of traffic mobility has increased the pace to the city’s life but also has helped in degrading the air quality making it the second most polluted city in India after Delhi in terms of the air quality. The increasing environmental related problems like increasing waste consumption, water scarcity, noise pollution, etc. In a survey conducted within the city it was found that 25% of the children are exposed to environmental pollution decreasing their capability to utilise their capabilities to the maximum of their potential. 

One of the most important issues of the city is the ever increasing rate of consumption of waste per capita which was found around 500 grams per capita per day in 2014. The waste consumption of the city was around 650 tonnes per day in 1988 which increased to around 1450 tonnes per day in 2000. Bangalore generates around 4500 tonnes of garbage everyday in 2016 and the majority of it was being dumped in the landfills at the outskirts of the city at three prominent sites of Mayallipura, Mandur and Doddaballapur until when it was blockaded by the local communities of the periphery after suffering from the declining environmental quality for over 10 years. The garbage began coming on the streets then in the absence of a well functioning solid waste management system. Besides strengthening the waste management system, there is also a need to create awareness amongst the citizens to utilise commodities in such a manner that it decreases the waste production above everything else. The accelerated increase in the population growth rate of the city will only help in worsening the situation otherwise and as quoted in some articles the Indian version of Garden city may get turned into a ‘Garbage City’. 

Bangalore was idealised as a garden city which gives importance to its green spaces and natural system but it has found itself indulged in various environmental issues especially over the last decade. Various steps are being taken to sort out the rising issues but the adoption of the sectoral approaches hasn’t proved much beneficial since now. A city is a space where human aspirations are fulfilled in partial if not in full and not the basic needs and requirements of them are curbed in the lights of economic development. The city contributes a worthy portion to the nation’s economy and hence the city’s long term future is needed to be decided by the concerned authorities in a more clear manner based on the inter-dependent nature of the urban ecosystem. 

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