Building Close & Building Less

Analysis / 2022.08.19

 

Optimising Human Settlements for Improved Liveability & Efficiency.

 

Abstract

 

Climate related disasters have seen a sharp rise since the beginning of the past century. Even though separative spatial planning practices started in the mid-20th century has an uncontested role in this regard, no noticeable changes have been made to adapt contemporary development practices to address this problem. Apart from a very few notable projects, spatial development follows a business as usual strategy and ignore its impacts on the biosphere. A critical paradigm shift in our spatial sensibilities and developmental approaches is inevitable in combating this issue and ensuring a safe and healthy environment for generations to come. This article looks into contemporary development practices and upcoming alternative planning approaches to propose an argument for a future with compact and adaptable human settlements that will improve overall liveability and ensure systemic efficiency.

 

Introduction

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Since the second industrial revolution, cities all over the world have been radically transforming. New scales of urban growth has been manifested by ‘extremely large, rapidly expanding, poly-nucleated metropolitan regions creating sprawling urban galaxies that often traverse multiple national boundaries’ (Brenner & Schmid, 2015, p.11). Large urban regions began engulfing the surrounding countrysides and a dispersed planetary urban network developed along major transportation corridors, encompassing continuous regions of connected settlements. Natural ecosystems were tormented and degraded through ‘the cumulative socio-ecological consequences of unfettered worldwide urbanisation’ (Brenner & Schmid, 2015, p.12).

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Most of the urban developments during the past century were, however, uncontrolled expansions fuelled by presumptuous economic speculations in real estate markets around the world. Spaces were planned to be developed in the least efficient manner - ecologically and economically, in the long term - as realised later by the beginning of 21st century. Most peri-urban and suburban developments during the period were disconnected from accessible public transportation systems and were designed exclusively as ‘car friendly’ enclaves. Automobile centric planning practices continuously increased encroachments into ecosystems surrounding the existing urban areas. Consequently, the frequency of natural disasters affecting human habitation has also seen a steady increase from around 100 per decade in the early 20th century to almost 2800 per decade in the 1990s (Jackson & Simpson, 2012, p.24) and the number keeps rising thereon. Unchecked spread of infrastructure development also threatens the very existence of many species, including human, in many parts of the world, by considerably affecting availability of potable water, healthy constitution of soil and air and the ambient temperatures optimised for survival of lifeforms. 

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Apart from these planetary and regional scale effects, extensive construction projects also have local socio-economic, physical and psychological impacts. Induced need for automobile usage created by poor infrastructure for walkability deters the chance to have an active lifestyle and limits the time people spend outdoors, reducing the frequency of  chance meetings and conversations (Gehl, 1987, p.15). These limitations further deter opportunities for making meaningful social connections that are found fundamental to human survival (Falk, 2012). 

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By the end of the past decade, a noticeable change in approaching the concept of ‘development’ has been visible, at least  among the academic community. The recent UNCHR report stated that extreme weather emergencies have forcibly dislocated around 21.5 million people a year, on average, since 2010 (UN, 2021). Such alarming statistics have put the future of our cultural landscapes and their current management and development policies in scrutiny. Planning for designing and managing these cultural landscapes, increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, need careful consideration and a clear vision about the right direction forward.

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Developmental Economics, Inclusion & Urban Sprawl

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Developing countries are urbanising at a rate two to three times faster than developed countries (Hannula, 2012, p.7). Slums and informal urban settlements, where every third urban dweller in the developing world lives, post the most rapid growth. As a result, urban India has been experiencing a severe shortage of quality housing. Around 18.8 million urban households (23% of all households in cities), 95% of which are Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Lower-Income Groups (LIG), lack access to decent housing (IDFC, 2018, p.14,16). Yet, out of the 90 million residential census units, 11 million units (about 12% of the total urban housing stock) are vacant according to the census of India 2011 (Gandhi & Munshi, 2017), up from 6.5 million in 2001 (IDFC, 2018, p.19). Within metropolitan areas, the vacancy rate of residential units rises as the distance from the city centre increases (IDFC, 2018, p.21). The paradox of vacant houses and a shortage of housing, is a clear symptom of the distortions in the functioning of land and housing markets (Gandhi & Munshi, 2017).

Even though between 1.1 and 1.8 million houses were constructed since 2005 across India, through various government funded urban renewal projects (Gandhi & Munshi, 2017; IDFC, 2018, p.14), an average of around 20% of the available stock for the homeless remains vacant. The core issue in this regard is the lack of technical, social, cultural and environmental appropriateness of these low income developments (Hannula, 2012, p.8). Factors like proximity to employment and services (IDFC, 2018, p.25), accessibility to a well functioning infrastructure and transit network and compatibility with local lifestyle and building cultures (Gandhi & Munshi, 2017) are often neglected by the planners and executers of these projects. Instead of responding pragmatically to the public housing challenge these projects echoes past failures of social housing schemes in the post-World War II era European and American cities, creating unsustainable urban conditions, social isolation, inaccessibility to good governance and limited access to real micro and macro economic opportunities (Hannula, 2012, p.8f.; Buckley, Kallergis & Wainer, 2016).

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Most public projects are sidelined to peripheral urban enclaves to make way for high end private developments in the city. In India, most of the population growth in metropolitan regions has been taking place outside their municipal boundaries. Expanding cities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai recorded 86%, 100% and 82% of their respective growth in other municipal corporations, municipal councils, and census towns immediately outside the city corporation limits (IDFC, 2018, p.23). Housing developments separated from transportation infrastructure and mixed-use urban centres turn out to be exclusionary and disallowed exploitation of returns to the existing urban fabric. Consequently, the putative cost savings of industrial housing projects turned out to be very misleading although the initial production costs were lower. It does not take into account the much higher operational costs like transit and commuting costs for residents, nor do they produce the spillover effects on productivity provided by more integrated communities (Buckley, Kallergis & Wainer, 2016). Those who actually require urban public services are denied their right to access it in order to incentivise those who can afford to make lesser use of them and this jeopardised the chances of having any improvements in the living standards of the poor. Life in public spaces suffered the most from the migration to the outskirts and the privatisation of the use of space. Around the world, public spaces in the outskirts are often fragmented enclaves that have no complementing relationship with its immediate environment, thus failing to bring in an active spatial configuration (Generalitat Valenciana, 2001, p. 23).

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Life in cities are made inaccessible to a sizeable population who are extremely crucial in the balanced functioning of cities as a socio-economic system. Affluent investors and corporations buy urban real estate and control their values even though a significant part of their real estate portfolio remains unoccupied or under-occupied. Still, unlike many cities around the world, Indian cities do not consider having any regulation over urban real estate values, like a vacant house or property under-utilisation tax, (Gandhi & Munshi, 2017) which might not only have helped in reducing the economic burden on the urban poor but also have reduced the unwanted urban sprawl and emissions on transit by those who are forced to commute to and from the city purely for economic reasons. This phenomenon is not unique to India and is more universal than regional. Urban population with inadequate housing, in the growing cities of the global South, and no access to services continues to increase and is currently estimated at 863 million, in contrast to 760 million in 2000 and 650 million in 1990 (Buckley, Kallergis & Wainer, 2016).

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Lack of a proper land-use policies is as significant a reason for economic inequality and ecological damage as the lack of inner city real estate regulations. Cities are allowed to outgrow their corresponding rise in populations (Buckley, Kallergis & Wainer, 2016) and establish affluent suburbs that shoot up land values in urban peripheries with it. Developers buy land at very low cost outside the city, destroy the native landscapes and economy and establish a sprawling suburb that are sold to lucrative buyers with exorbitant profit margins. This seemingly stimulates the economy for a short period while reducing the overall efficacy and resilience of the local economy over the long time. It pushes out the native population from the local economic cycle by shooting up the living costs and increases infrastructure maintenance costs by adding highways and subsidiary feeder roads connecting the suburb with the centres (Khan, Cantacuzino & Correa, 1987, p.50) that further the actual destinations people want to get to, making it inconceivable to travel without a car and necessitate even more ‘land-hogging car infrastructure’, in a vicious cycle (Herriges, 2019). This further disturbs the local biodiversity and farming practices by altering the nature of the land cover and microclimate and increase risks of natural disasters by ignoring the systemic socio-ecological interrelationships that maintains resilience. Ultimately, this drives up public spending on disaster recovery, health, transit and social support further diminishing the developmental prospects of the urban poor for the sake of recreational home owners. Managing expansion rather than increasing the number of new housing units can be a more efficient solution in order to tackle affordability than the current policy’s inadequacy to incorporate the question of housing into the broader urban land management context (Buckley, Kallergis & Wainer, 2016).

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While it is not criminal to own and enjoy the luxuries of second homes and recreational farm houses, cities need to document the actual needed housing stock and their fair and equal distribution among the urban population before incentivising the rich. The problem of housing the vast majority of urban people is ‘not one of finding miracle building materials or construction technologies; it is primarily a matter of density and of re-establishing land-use allocations’ (Khan, Cantacuzino & Correa, 1987, p.15). Seeing the opportunities of environmental sustainability to increase economic and social sustainability is especially crucial for rapidly growing developing countries (Hannula, 2012, p.9). Access to housing is to be considered a basic human right and to achieve this goal at least the low-end real estate market should be decoupled form economic forces. Land should be valued equally based on usage patterns proposed by a clear land-use policy, making it accessible to everyone irrespective of its location. The city of Amsterdam has established a similar policy in its inner urban districts and has since then managed to generate an extremely positive outcome. They recognised that the housing shortage would be much less severe if the existing housing stock could be used more efficiently (Gandhi & Munshi, 2017). The CBD is now bustling with a healthy mix of built uses and multiple activities, commuting times and cost have been reduced, the city is more walkable and bikeable and is thereby more economically viable for those who cannot afford an automobile and citizens are able to locate various services and expertise they need within their close proximity thanks to a good spatial mix of people with varied skills who belongs to different economic strata. The program has also controlled the growth of the city by reusing the existing building stock, stopping it from further engulfing the already fragile landscape of the country.

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In this age of rapid technological revolutions, consequent transformations in socio-behavioural and spatial characters are to be expected to happen. In order to account for such constant shifts, by making development, land use and resource decisions that are reversible, a comprehensive understanding and prediction of the consequences of events considering all interactions among components of a system is required (Jackson & Simpson, 2012, p.25, 42). Planning can no longer be a profession of a single specialist but has to include inputs from experts in various subjects including, but not limited to, spatial planning, architecture, environmental planning, urban design, hydrology, geology, climatology, ecology, agrology, sociology, economics, psychology, developmental planning and a host of engineering specialisations. Moreover, critical inputs from the concerned stakeholders, especially the most affected citizens, are crucial. Participatory planning can foster culturally responsive solutions due to the local knowledge of people; help to build motivation for the maintenance of public spaces, services, and infrastructure; create a sense of ownership; and reflect actual needs (Hannula, 2012, p.28). Planning should not be done in 2D and hence dependence on rigid masterplans and developmental plans that does not consider the temporal and spatial characteristics of a region and its society should be avoided. Planning should be derived from the specific context, critically considering different scales of interventions (Hannula, 2012, p.26). A more flexible method of preparing structural plans, with greater emphasis on policy frameworks than final formal outcomes, have to be given.

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Perception, Psychology & the Urban Landscape

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Planning for automobiles have been the de-facto mantra since mechanisation is mainstreamed in the 1950s. The automobile, a powerful instrument of convenience, demanded easy access to such an extent that developers, planners, and architects allowed its needs to override almost every other consideration of urban space and building design (Walters & Brown, 2004, p.30). Following the World War II, modernist theory and professional thinking about urban redevelopment was dominated by ‘models of widely spaced towers rising in open space and tidy planning diagrams of coloured zones that separated the different parts of city life into distinct spatial areas’. Public spaces were not structured around the everyday lives of people and their informal patterns were changed to more orderly and rational ones in physical and technical circumstances (Walters & Brown, 2004, p.12). Long stretches of non-places for facilitating commutes began to appear and created a distortion of scale in many urban developments since then. The human brain, wired to understand distance in units of time, found it incredibly difficult to intuitively grasp the actual amount of ground covered at speeds of over 50 kmph. (Herriges, 2019). 

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The practice of zoning, essentially separating urban activities horizontally, created one of the most menacing social issues of the 20th century. These ‘zoned’ cities restricted human interactions and contributed adversely to the healthy evolution of cohesive communities. Overly technical views of city functions failed to deal with ‘human associations,’ or the social fabric that sustained the city and its people (Walters & Brown, 2004, p.16). So many spaces in our modern cities are grossly oversized (Gehl, 1987, p.93). Extensive unattended urban open spaces, even though envisioned as public parks, have  failed to attract any social activity. On the contrary, they have greatly contributed in increasing crime and spatial anonymity in modern cities. It was forgotten that a ‘close juxtaposition of the private and public realms with the private shaping the public, the concentration of people together producing social intimacy and the close relationship of those various places which form aspects of the same life carried an important component of neighbourhood cohesion’ (Walters & Brown, 2004, p.13).

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The way our environments are built and land use laws are framed have a profound impact on our health (Shivakumar, 2019). Auto centric, un-walkable, spatial planning and added resultant visual clutter of billboards and signages are found to increase obesity, diabetes, elevated blood pressure, increased muscle tension, and impacts on mood and work performance (Walters & Brown, 2004, p.48). Increasingly common urban heat waves also pose significant risks to public health, while also making public spaces uninhabitable (Peinhardt, 2018). Moreover, psychological effects caused by isolation is as potent as those caused by congestion. A review of depression rates among people in American cities noted that sprawling cities like Miami (26%), Los Angels and Denver (14% each) reported more depressed citizens as compared to denser cities like Chicago (11%) and New York (8%) (PulseTMS, 2020). Interestingly, a study in New York also found that depression is higher in adolescents than adults (SAMHSA, 2015). Children and youngsters in the growing age require an active lifestyle and healthy social interactions as these form the basis of our evolutionary behavioural culture (Falk, 2012). Several socio-spatial factors have been reported as influencing factors for depression. Neighbourhood social disorganisation, absence of green space and noise exposure may cause multiple psychotic and non-psychotic disorders (Galea, et.al., 2005). Persons living in neighbourhoods characterised by poorer features of built environment were found to likely report higher past six month depression (29%–58% more) and lifetime depression (36%–64%  more) than respondents living in neighbourhoods characterised by better features of the built environment (Galea, et.al., 2005).

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Familiarity with human senses is an important prerequisite for shaping all forms of outdoor spaces and building layouts (Gehl, 1987, p. 65). Functional zoning should be replaced by design based program structuring.  ‘Human-scaled’ developments, with emphasis on the creation of defined public spaces, often taking the form of streets and squares, are found more effective for reinvigorating public life (Walters & Brown, 2004, p.10). Many social groups, including women, children, the elderly, the differently abled and the cultural minorities, with specific needs have traditionally been excluded from spatial decision making processes, limiting their potential capacity to enjoy the city (Generalitat Valenciana, 2001, p.118). These groups must also have their voice in urban renewal, creating an inclusive environment fostering overall physical and psychological well-being.

 

Sustainability, Public Spaces & Urban Resilience

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There is a common misconception among the majority of general public that sustainability is only limited to planting trees and recycling waste. Most people fail to recognise the components of ‘reduction’ and ‘reuse’ while referring to sustainability. Even those who recognise these components often limit its reach to the use of consumer products or daily utilities and gadgets. Usage of space and spatial components are normally ignored from the sustainability narrative and many avid proponents of ‘sustainability’ actually fall prey for spatial excessiveness. Many find living in the suburbs, with large lots of land for home farms and gardens, less crowd, pollution and noise more sustainable and environmental friendly rather than living in ‘filthy’ cities and forget about the additional infrastructural and operational emission they contribute indirectly to facilitate a spread out lifestyle. Driving more electric cars will not eliminate the damage done by making them and building more roads to drive them in the first place. On the contrary, eliminating the need for driving one and planning for reduction in construction of support infrastructure will contribute a long way in improving the physical condition of our environment.

 

It is to be also noted that cities are polluted not because of density but because of its dependence on fossil fuels for powering them. Modern cities have become more congested, polluted and noisy primarily because of the introduction of automobile oriented planning. Vehicles take more space that people in almost all modern cities. In these cities individual activities are dispersed in time and  space because of an unnecessary doubling and spreading of the commuting infrastructure. It is not the lack of pedestrian traffic that has prevented the establishment of more intimate and better used public spaces, but rather the decision to have networks of roads and stroads instead of more concentrated streets and paths such as that found in the old cities (Gehl, 1987, p.91). Bringing back the cities to a human scale, introducing proper pedestrian and biking infrastructure and limiting motorised vehicles can help reduce the ‘urban clutter’ and provide an active, quiet and healthy environment much sought after by the urban dwellers. 

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Cities should be moving away from auto-centric design to place-led development that offer safety to pedestrians and cyclists (Peinhardt, 2018). Fostering active transportation through contextually relevant interventions towards pedestrian safety and comfort like widening  pedestrian paths - preferably at least as wide as the width of the road on either side - maintaining them and keeping them free of encroachments, should become a mandatory requirement for future urban developments (Shivakumar, 2019). Motor carriageways should be limited to two car widths to facilitate comfortable street crossings for pedestrians and cyclists. Designing for a slower pace could also help bring in more density without crowding, increase activities and thereby stimulate local economy and, more importantly, reduce urban emissions by ‘reducing intra–urban distances and vehicle dependency, conserving farmland and natural biodiversity around the urban perimeter (creating more opportunities for urban and rural links and encouraging local food consumption), and increasing efficiencies in building and maintaining infrastructure (especially line systems including transport, energy and water supply and waste disposal). High density urban areas also facilitate knowledge diffusion, leading to economic growth’ (Jackson & Simpson, 2012, p.77). 

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Investing in public spaces is also one of the key aspects in maintaining urban resilience as most environmental challenges are also public space challenges. Our lifestyles are shaped by the places we inhabit and our streets and parks have just as much a role in sustainable behaviours as our homes and places of work (Peinhardt, 2018). Designing urban public spaces for people are also found to be beneficial for property values as quiet neighbourhoods and proximity to urban green spaces, shopping centres and public services are consistently marked desirable by people. Unlike generations prior to the millennials, creative people today don’t simply settle where the jobs are. ‘They gather in creative places they like to live; places where they can make friends easily, find acceptance of diverse lifestyles, enjoy a wide variety of recreation and entertainment and live productive and stimulating lives’ (Walters & Brown, 2004, p.24). Developers and planners who fail to identify this shift in preferences are ultimately losing out for still holding on to outdated ideals of urban living.

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In an ideal resilient urban environment, people choose to live in smaller residential units, saving them money on energy, maintenance and taxes, and treat the public space as an extension of their spatial realm, using it for recreation and collective gatherings; limit or even discontinue using motorised private transportation, reducing recurring expenses, urban congestion and pollution and use the public transportation systems, walking and biking for getting around; reduce general consumption wastes as shopping trips will be shorter and wasting by stocking perishables can therefore be avoided; produce commodities for daily use as locally as possible by engaging in urban farming, procuring materials from local producers and enabling advanced production methods to be integrated into the urban fabric itself; and consume decentralised, locally produced, stored and consumed renewable energy. Even though it seems to be a gargantuan task to make profound structural changes in the way society currently function, it is easier than many people imagine, and it is high time we begin this transition. Cities like Ghent in Belgium have started to implement these measures to improve the liveability of the inner city districts and they have started with banning private commuter vehicles inside the city centre. By progressively introducing more measures to achieve the final goals, one can seamlessly transfer to a more sustainable and resilient society without compromising, and actually in the process improving, one’s standard of living. The only change people have to make in this regard is ideological; a change in understanding that standard of living is an improvement in experiencing life rather than acquiring possessions. 

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The Way Forward

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Between 1950 and 2030, urban population growth is projected towards nine times greater than the increase that took place in the previous 200 years and 95% of that increase will be in the developing world (Buckley, Kallergis & Wainer, 2016). Cities of the global south are about to experience, or are already experiencing, a lot of pressure from this development. Most municipalities and city corporations tend to take the easy way out by following the business as usual strategy, without any consideration for the long term sustainability, liveability and usability of the spaces they plan. To control congestion, most cities only resort to FSI regulations without understanding the contextual background and market movements. Empirical evidence suggests that FSI restrictions fails to control congestion during high market demand conditions and only lead cities to expand horizontally, resulting in a net welfare loss (IDFC, 2018, p.31, quoting Bertaud & Brueckner, 2005 & Singh & Yadav, 2012). However, this does not mean that all restrictions on building heights should be removed (as suggested by IDFC, 2018, p.71) but to implement a flexible FSI policy where contextual factors like local urban character, public perception and opinion, local ecology, etc. and engineering factors like soil strength, capacity of local utility lines and communication networks, effects of local winds, etc. are considered to decide FSI for each project based on a detailed project report. The existing static governance models are antiquated for rapidly growing cities and states should devise flexible planning frameworks which responds to the changing nature of economic activities in urban areas and also empower local administrative authorities to initiate and implement transportation and other public investments across the broader metropolitan region (IDFC, 2018, p.68). Building inner city density, wherever possible, provides a viable alternative to the more expensive and strenuous process of developing peripheral green fields to accommodate the growing urban population.

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Even though dense, compact settlements are much more environmentally compatible and socially cohesive, they too have a few drawbacks. Some of the disadvantages pointed out by skeptics are shallow and not necessarily a product of being compact or dense but a matter of lack of familiarity and imagination. It is important to identify and address the real issues posed by densifying spaces and develop innovative spatial solutions. City building is a continuous activity (Walters & Brown, 2004, p.3) and urban design entails a constant search for an ever-changing fit between people, time, and place (Brown, Dixon & Gillham, 2014). It is, therefore, important to understand the temporal component in urban issues and that advancements in technology and changes in lifestyle have a large impact on what constitutes a problem or not. Issues once believed to be disadvantageous to living closely, like traffic congestion, air pollution, urban heat islands, high energy demand and quality of life concerns (Jackson & Simpson, 2012, p.77) are easily solvable by adapting modern, electric transportation and energy solutions, efficient digital networking solutions and advanced industrial and production management systems. Some of those factors need a shift in people’s perspective on how they value their standard of life. An average American or Australian may find living in a smaller house, riding a bicycle or using public transportation and consuming responsibly a drop in their standard of living. They tend to associate these choices to poverty, not necessarily because it is true, but because they are programmed to believe so by decades of consumerist tradition. People living elsewhere in the world may find these changes more acceptable. Biking is perfectly normal in the Netherlands and Denmark and public transportation is considered a better choice to get around by most Japanese and Swiss commuters. 

 

These cultural distinctions have to be addressed along with some other baseless ideas like density may lead to loss of green recreational spaces, loss of housing affordability and vulnerability to natural disasters (Jackson & Simpson, 2012, p.77). One has to understand that if designed properly and managed accordingly, denser cities provide safer and more usable green recreational spaces by making them more defensible and community monitored, improves housing affordability as more units in less space could reduce per-unit development costs, considerably increase resilience by enabling chances of collective action for survival and reduce reaction times of rescue operations in case of a disaster as people are not scattered around to be located separately. In dense settlements different groups are more likely to mix, which can decrease social segregation (Hannula, 2012, p.12). It is to be understood that resilience is a result of connections between people, not a physical feature of a place, created by equitable, accessible spaces that attract interactions between all members of a community (Peinhardt, 2018). 

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The current emphasis on addressing the housing problem through the production of industrial-scale new housing on the outskirts of cities, or through the development of new cities requiring extraordinarily expensive infrastructure, does not necessarily address the affordability concerns (Buckley, Kallergis & Wainer, 2016). Cities are to be developed incrementally, following an established structural plan and reacting to the market needs as they arise. There are also many ways to make existing housing stock more responsive to high demands by permitting taller buildings; changing minimum plot and/house sizes; permitting more downsized units; and implementing policies that tax idle land (Buckley, Kallergis & Wainer, 2016). Studies from India have shown that vacant houses are more prevalent in urban peripheries where there is lesser demand for rental housing. Builders may find it easier to construct housing in these areas as land prices are lower but people might be averse to living away from their workplace, especially when there is limited connectivity. These areas may also lack proximity to schools, hospitals and other amenities (IDFC, 2018. p.62). And consequently in urban India rental housing as proportion of total housing has fallen from 54% in 1961 to 28% in 2011, making repercussions in the efficient functioning of the labour markets (Gandhi & Munshi, 2017). Moreover, greater sprawl reduces the benefits that dense cities provide through knowledge spillovers, economies of scale and social interactions (IDFC, 2018, p.31).

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Some of the issues that actually require design attention in denser urban environments include installation of proper and efficient sanitation and drainage facilities, maintenance of shared public property, assurance of accessible and timely public transportation system, maintenance of communal harmony and control of spreadable hazards, both natural and human made. These issues and constrains are well within solvable limits and many cities around the world have already made great strides in addressing them efficiently. It is to be noted that ‘quality in architecture and planning is the result of understanding constraints, not of ignoring or avoiding them’ (Khan, Cantacuzino & Correa, 1987, p.15) and looking over the benefits of a compact yet livelier urban habitat stating the issues above will be nothing but ignorance.

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India as a country is still in its nascency in addressing the core housing issues that has already been affecting us. Unlike the west, we have a perfect case study of how auto centric, horizontal development can adversely affect the people, economy and environment of cities and regions. Learning from the mistakes already committed by the west, India should be trying to build upon its unique cultural landscapes and lifestyle choices and improve the general living conditions of the common people through continuously evaluating and remodelling the existing socio-spatial scenario. Traditional methods should be used more extensively and be tailored to the specific context and demands of contemporary urbanisation. (Hannula, 2012, p.28) India should aim for an evolution of its spatial sensibilities rather than revolutionising its building and planning sector by copying from other capitalist development models. It should also revisit its ageing developmental policies and building rules and address the glaring policy gaps in facilitating sustainable urban development, clean energy transition and public services and support system. 

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​References​

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3. Brown, L.J., Dixon, D. & Gillham, O. (2014). Urban Design for an Urban Century: Shaping More Liveable, Equitable, and Resilient Cities. Wiley. 

4. Buckley, R.M., Kallergis, A., & Wainer, L. (2016). Addressing the housing challenge: avoiding the Ozymandias syndrome. Environment and Urbanisation, 28(1), 119-138. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247815627523 

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