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. 

Images from sina, licdn, theatlantic & apnacomple

Delhi - The Capital of Medieval Era Which Also Became The National Capital of India

A village named as Inderpat was in existence since the beginning of the previous century which is identified with Indraprastha - the headquarters of Pandavas mentioned in the Hindu epic of Mahabharata explored by Cunningham and others in early 20th century. The transformation of this historic city since then has been phenomenal. In 1874, Swami Dayanand in his book Satyarth Prakash mentioned the etymology of Delhi for which he concluded that it was derived from the name of Raja Dhilu who he considered to be as the founder of Delhi in 800 BC. There are other versions of the story as well behind the adoption of the name but none can be substantiated with some concrete evidence. The history then moves to 736 AD when AnangPal Tomar laid the foundation stone for the Tomara Dynasty and built his capital city at SurajKund, the dynasty of whom ruled for over four centuries and also built Lal Kot when the Chauhans overpowered them and added another layer to Delhi as Rai Pithora from where the king ruled his region of supremacy.

The city has experienced different phases of different dynastic powers since then where several layers of human development were added supporting in making a city which can be said to be built by people assembled from all directions of its location. The Mamluks developed Mehrauli, the Khiljis built their fort at Siri, the Tughlaqs built their cities at Tughlaqabad and Jahanpahan & later also at Ferozabad, the Suris at Sher-Garh and the Mughals gave orders first from DinPanah (then Jahangir shifted his capital to Agra) and then later from Shanjahanabad during the reign of Shahjahan which is now called to as the Old City of Delhi after which the seat of British Indian Crown was shifted to Delhi in 1911 from Kolkata where they developed the  modern version of Delhi currently named as New Delhi or as Lutyens Delhi by some till 1947 since when it became the national capital of the Republic of India. The city has a long history and has been historically one of the most cosmopolitan cities of India both culturally & inter-nationally. 

The economy of the city has grown tremendously especially after the economic reforms of 1991 which opened the gateway for performance of more intrinsic economic activities. The GDP of Delhi is around 67 billion US Dollar which ranks itself 10th amongst all the Indian states and union territories in 2014-15 which is more than the individual GDP’s of the states of Bihar, Punjab and Kerala. The concentration of development and economic activities can be distinguished if areas of these three states is compared with that of Delhi - Bihar is around 65 times the area of Delhi, Punjab is over 30 times and Kerala is around 25 times. The per capita income of Delhi is around two and a half times than the national average. The population of Delhi was around 1.7 million in 1951 which rose to around 6 million in 1981 & to 16 million in 2011.

The city like any other has faced several urban issues over the period of its history. The central location of the city has allowed the expansion in all directions and the urban agglomeration has only increased over the last couple of decades with National Capital Region being the world’s second most populous urban agglomeration of the world only after Tokyo with over 25 million population. The city got its first master plan in 1962 and the planning process has become even more intense in present times due to several factors which are often left unseen during the vision development exercise. 

The increasing number of vehicles on road is increasingly adding to the existing situations of traffic congestion. Delhi has the highest number of registered vehicles amongst the Indian cities with around 88 lakh such machines (increasing over twice from around 35 lakhs in 2001) - on a comparative side, Mumbai has just 25 lakh registered vehicles in 2015. The pollution levels has increased and Delhi is amongst one of the most polluted cities on the planet despite being the greenest national capital of the Globe. Delhi’s air quality was found containing particulate matters around four times the national standards of Air quality and over 15 times the standard guidelines of WHO. Situations of seasonal smog are increasingly increasing. The noise levels of the city are also acceleratingly increasing - some of the nodes have been identified to be as stronger as to make a child deaf. The water logging of the city roads in the monsoon has also persisted which is also critical for maintaining the urban health of the city in a productive condition. The density of population of the city has increased from being 1176 persons per sq km in 1951 to 6352 persons per sq km to nearly doubling itself in the next 20 years to around 12000 persons per sq. km. 

No other mega city of India is as old as Delhi and it being the national administrative capital of India, its influence on the adoption of planning ideology by other Indian cities is huge. The adoption of metro train by other cities is one such example signifying the importance of the development approach carried out by the city of Delhi. Delhi metro started its functioning in 2002 and since then Chennai has become the sixth Indian city to have such kind of rapid rail transit system while cities like Chandigarh and Kochi are working towards it. Delhi however can not be set as an ideal example of development as the city structure and its functioning isn’t one of the best and neither two cities can have similar prototype approach. 

Delhi is a historic idealisation of rulers from different cultures and societies and this factor is rarely seen as part of the planning perspective making process in an era dominated by Recenticism. Delhi as a city has provided us with a tremendous story of physical development and in the lights of physicality the sense of belongingness and being ness can be found slowly diminishing from the life of the city. In a study conducted by Cosmos Institute of Mental Health and Biological Sciences in Delhi it was found that among the students between the ages of 18-25 years of age, 64.6 percent of students reported symptoms of depression and 51.6 percent of anxiety. 

The city development authority shall understand the significance and importance of integrating social planning along with physical planning which will eventually bring out a more streamlined development of natural system. The physical aspects are also needed to be checked and tested with an emphasis test by means of setting a hierarchy based on inter-dependent system of the urban ecosystem. The quality of life of the citizens shall be given a wider canvas to look beyond integration of information technology into their lives. Delhi presents a live example of a city with different stages of a city’s life and if the planning fraternity understands it well then the planning process for cities can be perceived through a much more magnified vision. 

Image from saibabaofindia, amazingindiablog, flickr, indianholiday, wikipedia, travelerrohan, indianexpress, breakingnews & thousandwonders

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The Urban Streets - Urban Spaces Which Imparts A City With Its Structure

There were natural pathways in the first phases of human developmental history, now there are different complex mechanised systems running on them in the current mode of development - this is a collective outcome of the previous transitions and it shall thus not just be looked into through the window of only human mobility and transportation. In the absence of well flourished marketplaces, streets have been traditionally used as a place offering different commodities timely - for instance, the Indian system of ‘mela’ which used to offer a place for various life usable timely or as per a given schedule. It has also acted as a meeting place for the local citizens which imparts the feature of being socially known to each other in the rural backdrop. As the mode of mobility was changing, the mode of interaction was also making its shift towards becoming virtual. The theory of modern urban planning failed to keep the pace intact with the increased acceleration of human advancements and inventions - for it is the job of the planning fraternity to make it more and more futuristic so as to achieve an efficient mode of progress, but the entire transition was more often tried to be realised correctly by focusing on sectors in isolation. Streets as an element slowly lost its shine to being an object helping in increasing the economic strength of the community which can’t be sidelined, but the other side of the picture also can’t be left ignored. 

There are various forces attached with the development of modern streets undoubtedly which are difficult to interpret - but one thing which can be easily understood is the difference between a street within the living area of the community and that outside it’s zone. The streets within the neighbourhood region are of upmost importance to achieve social confidence and safety if the interactions are strategically planned which eventually strengthens both social and economic development of the community. These shall be planned with the local interference and their know-how of the region while that of the other category shall be designed and planned by the planners managing the picture at large generally. This may not necessarily call for a mixed use of planning as community streets can’t have a prototype module fitting the varied global conditions. The street outside the zone of the community shall also give emphasis on the local conditions but the overall success of this system lies in its smooth connections within the city and with the other urban nodes and hence in an era with an increased regional dependence, planning should be done so as to decrease the rate of transportation which regulates the level of inflation thereafter of any city. 

Streets can be defined as the spine of a city and hence it’s health defines the well being of its citizens. Transportation has historically played an important role in determining the statuses of various human societies and it can’t just be planned based on some theorem or on some fixed principle especially in times when the human race is experiencing the largest human migration in terms of energy consumption and understanding of the science of streets will help the story of human urbanisation to experience new levels of glory and quality living. There always lies the other side/s of the picture and therefore the choice between designing a street live & safe inviting people for social interactions and in designing a street just to improve human mobility & increase his physical comfort shall be wisely made.

Image from wall321

New York - The Grand Old Modern City

A human settlement got settled following Henry Hudson’s exploration in 1609 as a colony of the Netherlands, a fort named as ‘Orange’ was established in 1624 by the Dutch at modern Albany as the first permanent settlement, the following year New Amsterdam got its birth after Peter Miniut, the then Dutch Governor legalised the settlement by paying 60 Dutch guilders to the Indians. The Dutch West India Company started issuing land patents to the residents i.e. a person can now hold title of the land, which was something not possible in Europe at that particular time attracting migrations towards an untouched land for writing their life history. When an English fleet sailed into New Amsterdam in 1664, Peter Stuyvesant, the Governor surrendered without a fight and the settlement got its new name under the legacy of the Duke of York as ‘New York’. The population of the city in 1698 was about 18,000 which grew upto around 1,63,000 by the eve of the American Revolution. 

The city of New York consisted of many neighbourhoods distributed amongst the city’s five boroughs - Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and the Staten Island each of whom had a different lifestyle one of whose main reasons was the issuance of land permits started by the Dutch and followed by the Britishers as part of their policy which resulted into a human society with one of the most cosmopolitan culture of all times. After being only the third largest port of America at the time of the American Revolution, New York experienced a major rise and soon by mid 1800’s it began handling more than half of the country’s international trade while ocean being the medium. It became the world’s busiest port in the twentieth century which it held by for decades after. 

Simultaneously, the haphazard pattern of streets raised the need for a commissioner of streets in 1798 which earmarked the beginning of urban planning as an official exercise. The site’s geographical age dates to about 100 million years back as found through the sections of the granite bedrock which allowed and suited for designing modern skyscrapers with firm base. The administrative structure of New York was shaped by the consolidation of the city and its neighbourhood in 1898. During the same time, the population of the city got doubled from being around 1,500,000 in 1890 to 3,000,000 in 1900 and city started facing huge gaps in human transit system. The first segment of the subway system was opened in 1904 which started handling more than two billion passengers per year by 1940’s. The subway system helped in changing the urban structure of the city and its progress. It also gave rise to the modern culture of work system over many parts around the Globe with human beings travelling from one corner of urban sprawl to another daily in many senses which are often more than an hour of a single way trip.

With the rising human mobility and energy consumption, air and water pollution began declining the air and water quality especially after 1960’s the city started facing congestion both of the highways and the public mass transit system. Housing shortage started boosting up. Like every other city faces some kind of crisis at some point of their life, New York too had faced some financial crisis one of such scenario took place in 1975 when the city’s authority lacked enough money to pay all its bills for the year and it was taken care by the interference of the state authority and Municipal Assistance Corporation came into existence which ended some money to help city in paying its debt. The population of the city increased from being 7,000,000 around in 1930 to about 8,500,000 in 2014. It can be said that the city’s population saw stagnation (majorly due to the city now being in the mature stage) but most of the bigger cities of the United States have lesser population now than they had around 50 years ago.

Poverty has been one of the major issues for the city traditionally of whose levels have seen many ups and downs historically. The poverty rate rose to 21.2 percent in 2012 from being 20.9 the previous year which is a healthy population of around 1.7 million human beings. The city budgets more than $4 billion a year on welfare programs to provide food, clothing, housing, medical care, and other benefits. The city has been one of the largest employment producer for the entire country but the authority has struggled to get rid of this menace. The other issue is that of carbon emissions for which the city’s authority can be seen thinking positively in the direction and a roadmap was prepared in 2014 to cut the emissions by 80 % than it was in 2005. An initiative under the title ‘PlaNYC’ was initialised in 2007  which started from dealing emissions by 30 per cent by 2025. The city is primarily focusing on the efficiency of the buildings which contributes more than 60 per cent for the aggregate carbon produced by the city. New York City gives a good picture by accounting only 1 per cent of United States greenhouse gas emissions while housing 2.7 per cent of its population. Water consumption per capita has also decreased from being 208 gallons per day per capita to around 125 gallons per day per capita in 2009 which are good signs of rising awareness and preserving water for worse. The city due to its strategic geographic position also faces the risk for frequent heavy storms. The city has also been warned for the economic and human cost of land submergence as has been the case of the other coastal cities around the planet. The city shall think more towards long lasting measures to make itself more disaster friendly and alternative solutions are also needed to be taken. The city was also ranked amongst one of the dirtiest cities of the United States and in the world's first metropolitan  modern city, it seems issues and problems have never left the hand of the city besides some significant changes over the last couple of decades. 

In a city where modern urban life got its existence much before than in nearly any other modern city, New York has seen nearly all kinds of times like a grand old man generally considered as to have seen all aspects of human life. The example of the creation and visualisation strength of the human beings provides an exemplary scenario for the cities which are in their young age and are needed to be examined from multiple angles based on the context of theirs. The role of the authority is also one key thing which New York as a city provides in the catalogue which have tried to engage the society for making it efficient and sustainable especially after 1980’s. The city has experimented and seem to be finding its age-like behaviour i.e. more responsible now by looking the urban frame from multiple windows which other cities should quickly grasp and apply efficient, sustainable and long-lasting measures for the rising issues across the megacities of the world. The city has to keep up the pace with other fast developing cities in the matter of competitiveness and in order to increase the longevity of the city - for it one step should be towards engaging and inspiring the community in order to hold on and revive its presence in the very dynamic process of urbanisation especially in this highly increasing virtually globalised world.

Image from dormroomfund 

Will they really be smart or it’s just following the trend?

Smart cities has almost succeeded last decade’s most trending topic of achieving sustainable development in India (for words used while discussing urban or human development) and concepts have also just become like the new sale in the market which comes up every other year. Major community seem to be getting excited already about their new settlements which are still in the conceptual stage but a question is still rolling in the brains of some people – will they be really smart? Both the planning persons and the government officials  ministers involved have emphasized the importance and significance of making smart cities. But are they themselves clear with what a smart development really is? While going through various interviews and videos on YouTube I have find a state of confusion and ambiguity among the fraternity and many of them weren’t able to define it properly in their own terms. For instance – once I asked a senior planning person involved in conceptualizing smart cities – I asked, what would be our approach for achieving smart development? And I was left quite disappointed by his perspective which went like this – we’ll make the cities automatic. And that’s it, although he continued with his influential answer but there was no proper vision and understanding about how cities actually function. I’m afraid where this mode of development guided by a state of confusion will take the urban development of India.

In this age of ever-increasing human interference where sustainability (though itself is now one of the most polluted words of 21^st century) could have held the human population of India focused towards their own natural system of living but with the introduction of a new term on the lines of a smart-phone & so many other smart’s – the urbanization seem to have focused on the introduction of IT sector into human living and which isn’t a bad move in any case but it also can’t be applied to every other city without analyzing the inter-disciplinary nature of the urban system and also its long term effects.  A real smart city will be such where people enjoys their living in a happy, healthy and prosperous environment and not just by making it a digital city no matter the population is left with conditions of stress, depression and anxiety. A smart development is such where the whole settlement system is planned altogether in a state of harmony and unity. The things which are being tried to look after in the so-called smart cities are pretty sectoral and surely it doesn’t guarantee long-term efficiency.

Histories are built and shaped as we are acting today and the government has to understand that India’s history is on a critical point as its population is increasingly getting urbanized and that it has a bigger role to play than to just focus on the physical infrastructural growth of the country. The concept of smart development is quite good but on a sad note it has been widely misunderstood by the concerned fraternity themselves and India should really look again for the path which it has yet to begin. Cities should be made IT-friendly but keeping in mind the inter-dependent nature of the system in which we are living in. Cities should be made smart but a proper vision is also needed to make them likewise after understanding the progression which our settlements are experiencing at a rate never experienced before. 

Image by lokchetna

India : 100 New Smart Cities - Roadmap to Sustainable Urban Development

The urbanization policies and reforms carried away in the Republic of India have by far seemed to have not attained their defined goals. The reasons may be many – adoption of the foreign models into the Indian context without studying the prevailing Indian conditions, lack of co-operative planning between different sectors/authorities, lack of public awareness to avail the government run programs and initiatives, rapid growth of population, to name some, but it would have been the prime duty of those involved to look into all those factors that defines the planning, growth and development of the urban settlements. One of the major issues concerning with the urban design features of the developing nations has been the lack of planning according to their own context and prevailing conditions. With the change in the central government and announcement of 100 new smart cities by the Urban Ministry, India seem to have created a chance for itself to release the ever increasing pressure on the existing cities – but the planning regulations to be followed and its implementation process is quite doubtful.

The country is on a rapid phase of urbanization with around 35 percent of the total population expected to live by 2020 which will substantially increase to around 50 percent by 2050 and 70 percent by 2070. The figure suggests the scope of urban development and also the extent of fresh urban spaces to be planned and developed in the coming decades. Therefore, it will be quite significant not to repeat the mistakes committed in previous attempts.

Some of the bigger cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata seem to have crossed their carrying capacity limit with the situation seem to get worsen in the coming decades. There’s no point in developing the new cities with these cities as their prime model of development as these cities have by far not able to provide the quality of life an urban space is expected to provide to their citizens. The Ministry quoted three words – ‘Education, Employment and Entertainment’ as the three sectors on which emphasis would be given. Its however quite suspicious that by emphasizing on these three will create the sustainable urban settlements.

The diversity of the country can be said unanimous and hence with the changes in the diverse conditions and culture – changes the habits of the communities, environmental conditions and all other things which are equally important in planning the road towards sustainable development. The chances of a prototype city planning seem to get vanished here.

India should quickly look into the significance of local area planning and development – planning for a city in Meghalaya can’t be done by the people in Chennai. It’s more of a local approach which helps in an efficient planning process. Also, transportation planning needs a revitalisation plan – building flyovers, widening of the roads, enhancing various MRTS schemes are some short-term development which seem necessary at times, but their long term viability is suspicious. Transportation defines any urban structure and hence it can’t be done in isolation – the interdisciplinary nature needs to be understood through a wider window. Also, transportation of goods to these new cities should be sorted out – allowing a agriculture buffer zone in the city’s close proximity may be one such solution which will cater to different urban issues that has arisen in recent times. Special emphasis on planning the cities pedestrian and cycling friendly should be given to reduce the extent of the carbon footprints and also to provide a healthy lifestyle to its citizens. There's no point planning the cities and that too new developments to promote consumption of private vehicles by providing wide expressways and ignoring other aspects of mobility. The difference between mobility and accessibility should be also looked in through a wider aspect. The formation of the Urban-Rural Continuum discussed in earlier posts may prove quite significant and will cater some real long-term development. The concept of density planning should also be studied and brought into implementation for these new city developments.

The step of the creation of the 100 new cities seems to be a nice opportunity for the country to guide their whole developmental process and boost up their economic strength. The Indian government and the authorities have to be visionary and far-sighted with any urban development and should emphasize on long-term development. Planning process will need to be carried in co-ordination among different ministries, authorities, departments and communities. The participatory approach may prove quite beneficial and the sites which will be selected for the new cities needs to be strategically selected and a roadmap for their collective development should be prepared at first. There’s no point of selecting the sites according to the different region and state demands and then linking them with a roadmap. The cities should also look within the carrying capacity of the environment and try to present a model to other nations by planning it across disciplines, in co-ordination among different authorities and as per the quality of life that a human deserves.

Images from raconteur and hindustantimes  

Seoul : The Mainstay of South Korean Economy

Seoul has served as the central city for the country since its selection as a capital by the Chosun Dynasty in 1394. The first human settlement though is suggested to date back in the Neolithic period and the city was also regarded as one of the important nodes during ‘The Three Kingdom Period’, but the city saw major transformational changes in the late 19^th century. The built up area extended beyond the city walls during the Japanese occupation period, but by the time the urbanization process wasn’t started in modern sense when compared with that of present times.

With the economic development of 1960’s, city faced expansion, in all the directions, in all the spheres, may it be population, area, usage of technology, infrastructural  developments – both horizontally and vertically and also its economic strength. Just prior to the first five-year economic development plan Seoul was around half the size of the present city area with approximately 23.7% of the current population. The present population of Seoul Special City (official name of Seoul) is around 10.44 million with the sum of the population living in the Seoul and its urban agglomerations (Seoul Capital Area) being around 25.6 million making it second largest urban area of the world. The population is expected to raise up to 31 million by 2030.

The density of Seoul Capital Area is around 44,000 persons / sq. mile - around eight times than the density of New York & Sydney & five times than the density of Rome. It is slightly more than that of New Delhi and less than one-third of Dhaka – the most densely populated city of the world.

The country's GDP was less than that of Mozambique in 1965 and the overall developmental story can be said to be an economic success which in current times has exceeded countries like Spain and New Zealand.

Congestion rate and high-density with sprawling development are significant contributors to Seoul’s environmental problems. As the demand for land increased, green areas around cities were decreased by 1480 sq. km. in the 90’s and the first decade of the 21^st century providing way for business buildings and apartment complexes. Green areas used for infrastructural developments were agricultural lands and mountainous lands. The greenbelt area has been reduced to around 12.07 % of the total area of Seoul Capital Region by 2010 which may impact the health and well-being of the urban dwellers in the years to come. The decrease in the green area will affect the hydrological links decreasing the water quality and ground water level. Moreover, the biodiversity is also directly affected which will have its impact on the overall efficiency of the urban ecosystem. Government has been trying ways to guide the development towards the sustainable path. One thing should be wisely understood that technology and advancements though has provided solutions to several issues, but if they have been implemented without understanding their wider impacts and effects, they have failed with time and have generally proved to be the short-term measures. The long-term success of the urban settlements lies in maintaining the efficiency of its ecosystem.

The demolition of 15 expressways built in 60’s and 70’s by 2002 just after a period of around 30-40 years is a result of lack of the long-term vision which the developing world should learn and try and innovate rather than building expressways and flyovers. A city’s planning can’t be done for such small time spans and planners and persons involved in city’s development process should look within disciplines in order to maintain the city’s efficiency in terms of its natural areas, social relations, economic activities, human living values, which together forms a system which are inter-related and inter-dependent on each other for their individual success.

The announcement of the shifting of the capital to Gongju - around 120 km south of Seoul in 2004 was one such step with a vision to release the pressure from the already overcrowded city of Seoul. The project is expected to complete by 2030 – though there has been several controversies by the political parties and the civic groups ever since its announcement. The cost involved in the infrastructural development of Seoul Capital Area could be utilized by keeping the urban area as the centre for the commercial activities of the country while making the administrative and knowledge centre shifted to the proposed new capital area of Gongju. This may also prove helpful in maintaining the efficiency of the new capital site of Gongju in the decades to come after its initiation.

Seoul Capital Region serves as the mainstay for the South Korean economy serving around half of the country’s entire population and hence the significance of planning as a tool to raise the quality of the living environment not just by means of building infrastructure but also other aspects such as quality of life of the inhabitants, not just by providing them with an easy mobility and access but by factors such as availability of the green spaces, building of a healthy society and also calculating the risks of various natural disasters which are quite essential for an efficient human developmental process. The last factor related with the risk factor is important because the country’s economic base lies in the Seoul Capital Region and any natural failure may have devastating effects on the entire nation’s growth process as the major economic activities are based concentrated in just one urban region.

Image from loc-group