Planning For Urban
4
PLANNING FOR URBAN
INFRASTRUCTURE
Olivier Toutain and S. Gopiprasad
URBAN PLANNING: THE ISSUES INVOLVED
U
rban India today, faces serious challenges of growth and its management. Across geographies, the issues of urbanization manifest in the form of overcrowding, congestion, insufficient infrastructure, inadequate service provisioning—mainly in terms of drinking water, sanitation, energy, transport, solid waste management, environmental degradation, and pollution, etc. These, along with the poor management of rapid growth, affect the socioeconomic development of the country.
At the core lies the question of urban planning and its capacity to organize towns, manage their growth and make them more efficient and sustainable. Like many other countries with high rate of urban development, India too acknowledges insufficient and inappropriate planning, which raises the questions of its relevance while triggering scepticism. Large parts of cities today completely ‘escape’ mainstream planning. Half the population of Delhi and Mumbai lives in unauthorized areas. The considerable ‘illegal development’ (illegal layouts, un-authorized constructions, slums) in many towns is a frightening reality that threatens the future of urban areas and the credibility of main plan documents and regulations.
While urban planning and its effectiveness are being debated, the need for ‘planning’ is again revisited in a favourable manner and its need acutely felt. In this chapter, we will deal briefly with the question of how to initiate more effective and responsive urban planning by revisiting the conditions indispensable to its implementation. The importance of planning in providing a framework and a set of regulations for urban development is highlighted through the examination of the:
Views expressed in the chapter are of the authors.
• objectives of town planning by recalling the basic principles on which it is based in the context of urban spatial, economic and social issues;
•
PLANNING FOR URBAN
INFRASTRUCTURE
Olivier Toutain and S. Gopiprasad
URBAN PLANNING: THE ISSUES INVOLVED
U
rban India today, faces serious challenges of growth and its management. Across geographies, the issues of urbanization manifest in the form of overcrowding, congestion, insufficient infrastructure, inadequate service provisioning—mainly in terms of drinking water, sanitation, energy, transport, solid waste management, environmental degradation, and pollution, etc. These, along with the poor management of rapid growth, affect the socioeconomic development of the country.
At the core lies the question of urban planning and its capacity to organize towns, manage their growth and make them more efficient and sustainable. Like many other countries with high rate of urban development, India too acknowledges insufficient and inappropriate planning, which raises the questions of its relevance while triggering scepticism. Large parts of cities today completely ‘escape’ mainstream planning. Half the population of Delhi and Mumbai lives in unauthorized areas. The considerable ‘illegal development’ (illegal layouts, un-authorized constructions, slums) in many towns is a frightening reality that threatens the future of urban areas and the credibility of main plan documents and regulations.
While urban planning and its effectiveness are being debated, the need for ‘planning’ is again revisited in a favourable manner and its need acutely felt. In this chapter, we will deal briefly with the question of how to initiate more effective and responsive urban planning by revisiting the conditions indispensable to its implementation. The importance of planning in providing a framework and a set of regulations for urban development is highlighted through the examination of the:
Views expressed in the chapter are of the authors.
• objectives of town planning by recalling the basic principles on which it is based in the context of urban spatial, economic and social issues;
•
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