Town Planning - Question of Cities

‘Better dust upon leaves than in the lungs of the citizens’

Patrick Geddes, the Scottish biologist, conservationist, sociologist and town planner who spent long years working in India, believed it was important that the natural assets of a town, and everyone’s fair share of them, are protected, nurtured, and integrated into…

Jane Walks: A global movement to connect with cities and communities

How well do you know your city and its neighbourhood? Have you explored its layers of history and observed the nooks and corners that are changing? When Jane Jacobs Walks started in 2007 in the United States, a year after…

The life and times of Jane Jacobs, the urban activist who revitalised city planning

Jane Jacobs and her community-based ideas of urban planning snowballed into a movement as her influence spread. The urbanist and activist single-handedly transformed city-making and fought for a healthy, vibrant city. A series of engaging illustrations charts the life, times…

How Kerala is coping with one of its harshest summers

Many cities across Kerala experienced a high heat summer in early March. Experts say there is no doubt that this summer will see temperatures up by one to 1.5 degrees Celsius, even 2 degrees Celsius in some parts. The high…

Ahmedabad’s Heat Action Plan has more hot air, less gas to propel it forward

The idea of Heat Action Plan for cities has come a long way from 2013 when the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation rolled out its plan for the city that was scorched by a heat wave resulting in at least 1,344 deaths.…

Lessons from independent India’s urbanisation: Plan cities based on sustainability and social equity

The first three planned cities in India were to be reflections of a modern and secular new nation, built form of the new democratic republic. Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar, and Gandhinagar could have become the template of India’s urbanisation, strengthening their role…

How Gandhinagar transformed from ‘Gandhian’ city to GIFT City

More than a decade after Chandigarh was built, the planners of Gandhinagar had the opportunity to re-envision a city with different or local influences. Instead, Gandhinagar was an opportunity lost. It furthered the experiment in independent India’s urbanisation trajectory which…

(de)Coding Mumbai: A study of the city’s housing regulations

Architect Sameep Padora and his team “decoded” Mumbai by extensively studying houses and residents through Development Plans. The 18 case studies, spanning across a timeline of 1896 to the present, were part of his exhibition, (de)Coding Mumbai, and revealed the…

Patrick Geddes: Urban planning for social and cultural renewal

Scotsman Sir Patrick Geddes has been considered as the father of city planning in modern times. He brought his belief that town planning was not mere ‘place’ planning but essentially ‘people’ planning, to the nearly 50 plans he drew up…

Indore 2.0 bears no stamp of its first master planner, Sir Patrick Geddes

One of the first cities in India to be planned expansively by the Scottish biologist, geographer and town planner, Sir Patrick Geddes, Indore in Madhya Pradesh is fast losing its natural beauty and charm. The city’s development is not people-oriented…