Urban planning is a mixture of science and art. It encompasses many different disciplines and brings them all under a single umbrella. The simplest definition of urban planning is that it is the organization of all elements of a town or other urban environment. However, when one thinks about all the elements that make up a town, urban planning suddenly seems complicated – and it is.
Real urban planning is a relatively new concept. It gained popularity in the mid-to-late 19th century, when it became obvious that there should be some kind of plan or larger goals for the growth of big cities. Before this time, cities very often grew as they had need, and the surrounding land was just swallowed up. None of these world cities had much urban planning, and even now, the addresses and streets in their older sections can be confusing even to natives.
Urban planning also became popular because of the growing need to get factory workers into healthier housing, rather than stuffing them into fire-trap tenements. With the advent of unions, workers had advocates to help lobby for better housing. Hence, “mill villages” and “steel villages” sprang up in larger cities.
Nowadays, urban planning takes all aspects of a city into consideration. It includes plans for safety, aesthetics and common sense placement of everything from houses to factories. Parents wouldn’t want their children’s playground next to the water treatment plant, for instance, and urban planning helps eliminate such problems. Goals for attractive architecture for city buildings are put into place and pleasing green spaces are planned. Good urban planning gets schools into the neighborhoods where they are needed most, places hospitals in centralized locations, allows for growth and plans highways accordingly.
Perhaps good urban planning is most evident in good highway planning in a city. Anticipating growth and traffic needs for a big city is crucial. Urban planners must consider how future growth will affect traffic flow and try to eliminate trouble spots before they become a problem. Even placing sewer systems and drainage systems is a necessary element of urban planning, albeit a less glamorous one. Urban planners must consider geography, the water table and numerous other elements of a city’s landscape in order to properly plan for this necessity.
When efficient urban planning is used, cities are more attractive and serve their citizens to the best of their potential.
Urban Planning in India includes (but is not confined to) the following -
- Town planning
- Regulation of land use for residential and commercial purposes
- Construction of buildings
- Planning for economic development
- Planning for social development
- Construction of roads
- Constructions of bridges
- Water supply for domestic use, industrial and commercial purposes
- Public health care management
- Sewerage, sanitation and solid waste management
- Proper fire services
- Urban forestation and maintenance
- Protection of environment through sustainable development
- Promotion of ecological balance and maintenance
- Safeguarding the interests of weaker sections of society
- Offering proper infrastructural help to the handicapped and mentally retarded population of the society
- Organized slum improvement
- Phased removal or alleviation of urban poverty
- Increased provision of basic urban facilities like public urinals, subways, footpaths, parks, gardens, and playgrounds
- Increased public amenities including street lighting, parking lots, bus-stop and public conveyances
- Continual promotion of cultural, educational and aesthetic aspects of the environment
- Increased number of burials, burial grounds, cremation grounds and electric crematoria
- Proper regulation of slaughter houses and tanneries
- Absolute prevention of / zero tolerance of cruelty to animals
- Proper maintenance of population statistics, including registration of births and deaths records
India has characteristically drifted with history, rising periodically to accomplish great things. In no field has this been truer than in town planning. From prehistoric Mohenjo Daro, to the imperial city of New Delhi, to Corbusier’s Chandigarh, India has pioneered in town building. The technique of diagnostic survey, commonplace in planning practice today, is the somewhat belated result of Patrick Geddes’ work in India four decades ago: the City Improvement Trusts in existence since the 1800′s are models of their kind.
Emerging pattern of urban growth in India:-
The urban problems are not all of recent making. In India the urban situation had become serious because of the large increase in population since 1921. While the percentage increase for the nation as a whole was 11%, 14%, 3% and 13.4% respectively, for the decennial periods 1921-1951, the urban areas increased by 21%, 32% and 54% respectively, during the same periods. The urban drift is continuing unabated. The heavy shifts of population are the result of the lack of adequate employment opportunities in the villages and the attraction of relatively high wages and amenities in the towns. Unemployment and particularly underemployment in agriculture stimulates this tendency. Since 1947 when the country was partitioned, there has been a heavy influx of refugees into urban areas. 5 The number of towns with populations in excess of 100,000 doubled in the twenty years prior to 1951. Today Greater Calcutta counts a population of about 5 million while Bombay and Delhi have populations of 3 and 1 million, respectively.
Planning and development have not and perhaps could not keep pace. In contrast to the examples of New Delhi and Chandigarh most towns in India have grown haphazardly. They have a large proportion of substandard houses and huts of flimsy construction, poorly ventilated, over-congested and often lacking in the essential amenities. On the state level some progress has been made in enacting planning legislation and setting up planning agencies. The results have not all been entirely satisfactory. In several cases efforts were made by some states to abolish or merge planning departments with the public works department. Nevertheless, the Second Plan largely places the onus of planning on the states. If planned urban development is to be undertaken, said the Planning Commission, “each state should have a phased program for the survey and preparation of Master Plans for all important towns.” The Commission noted that, in order that this might be accomplished, town and country planning legislation should be enacted in all states and the necessary machinery for its implementation should be set up.
