city design concepts of Chandigarh

Recently I came across a very interesting e course provided on www.coursera.org by univ. of Pennsylvania, USA. The contributing professors interact in a very easily understandable way.

As part of its first assignment I wrote about the city beautiful, Chandigarh.

                          

Today, I came across a nice article about how transit system can be improved. Also, how the transit oriented development can be altered to create a more safe system. Though,I found the article very nicely framed but certainly I couldn't see much relevancy in some of the comparisons.
The concept of CPTED i.e crime prevention through environmental design is something new I learned about. It is basically, introducing a new factor in design of cities and transport ( transit, actually) I.e reducing crimes in the transit systems. There has been a widely accepted view that transit are more vulnerable to crimes like thefts, rape, snatching etc. The paper not only affirms with data that this is actually a misconception, but also through CPTED, the ways to control criminal activities in public transport system.
Overall the paper is a nice work to give another dimension to transportation planning in cities.
I would suggest a read to those interested in this field, the link is as follows.

"The New Transit Safety Narrative" (http://www.nctr.usf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/JPT17.4_Litman.pdf ) , by Todd Litman, Journal of Public Transportation, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 121-141. 

the concept of 'a city'

The concept of a "City" came into existence long ago and it was thought to be the solution of, most of the problems that people face, living in a countryside. The problems such as limited access to health facilities, educational institutes, entertainment venues, recreation activities etc. The city was supposed to be planned to serve this purpose, as nothing pell-mell can go long, to serve masses. The way in which the most of the urban areas,in India, are extending is a challenge, for the very existence of the this concept.

The urban space is a very scarce resource and in deemed to be very efficiently utilized. Most of the infrastructure work is aimed at providing facilities to motorized vehicles. The hospitals, malls, schools, colleges etc. all have a very large share of land committed to the cars bikes etc. The roads, parking space and road-cum-parking space is a nuisance to this resourceful land.

As we came long enough to have, any of the our problems faced by someone else, that we can almost every time find someone to suggest. The problems that Indian cities are facing are not unique and were faced and are being faced by many countries around the world. So, its the time to learn from their mistakes, experiments, failures & learning.

The city is a solution, yes it is. The essence of it needs to be revived and to be understood. There are many institutes dedicated to the city planning and they are doing a great job in researches and suggesting the best. But, the problem comes with the execution of these ideas. 

Most importantly, the residents have to feel more responsible to their city and be involved in policy making. Role of the public is of utmost importance to the sustainability of the cities. We can not take everything for granted, every one using the city facilities must be well aware of the health of their surroundings and be actively participating in improving it, at least not degrading it.

The countries to learn from, are Denmark and Singapore. Showcasing, how the city can be improved and how planning can impact the way city lives and grows.

The city will be a solution, rather than a problem, if we have a will to make it and it is high time that we start working on the plans.

I have been thinking of writing something on the topic but i was lost for some years and i don't know where because no one else feels it, and they don't miss me but surely I do. This is my first post and I am not much aware of the rules here on blogger , if there is any, so kindly ignore it and enjoy the article which i hope u will.

It has been a long time when I last lived in Chandigarh city, and fortunately I got a chance to be here again. I noticed some positive and some negative changes in the city.

The positive is we have got the highest per capita income, so many cars and bikes, which has caused a hell lot of pollution and many other problems,  a very slow response of govt. to the challenges of the changing city( no this one is not a change it has been like that ever since), by that I don't want to offend anyone but i sincerely want to raise some eyebrows and some steps too out of the luxury cars on the road to the reality.
The space available in the city is limited and everyone in the city has equal right on this space, A car needs around 23 sq m of area to be parked comfortably, and a poorest resident have around 18-20 sq m of living space. So, it is govt. who is actually providing land for elites for free or Rs 10 per hour. This has been a debate to make urban space more accessible to pedestrians and non motorized traffic than cars and two wheelers. In this sense, ensuring a bus ride to most of the citizens, along with other measures will lead to a decrease in personal vehicles on road and thus more space for others.

Most of the citizens of the Chandigarh mainly youngsters are not much concerned about the unsustainable state we are going towards. I don't know if our present pre teens and teens have even played cricket or anything else in the streets, I think they won't believe it that the streets were visible once, which are now covered by cars, almost all sectors are facing it. By that I don't mean that road is for playing but it was available and safe because of lesser vehicles. I may feel it more ( having read about it ) others may not, but its a fact that the occupied roads around houses actually has a negative impact on our behavior, not only that quarrel on parking space and a bump into someone or by someone, but generally too.

The role of Govt. is important in improving bus ride in terms of ease of access, safety, comfort, dignity etc.  In other parts of the world many cities like Singapore, Jakarta have solved urban mobility problem by utilizing the bus system properly. The parking strategies in the city have to be improved to make most of the market area available for pedestrians. Two of the successful examples of such efforts are London city and Copenhagen. There must be provision along the main roads as planned in the original master plan of Chandigarh to accommodate the cyclists, pedestrians  safely.

That will be all for now. The foremost objective of this blog is to start a discussion on what can be done to take the city beautiful towards a sustainable future. Some of the problems have been stated here and many more are there, which are worth mentioning and need efforts beyond the papers.
This city has offered us such a good life and it is our duty to take care of it.

Thanks.