Zonation for Urban Planning

 By Malini Shankar 

Digital Discourse Foundation 

Let’s take a look at zonation in smart city governance today. Common Property Resources (CRP) need to be accessible to all, to every resident from every quarter. So apart from Central Business district, hospitals, schools, colleges, universities, roads, public transport infrastructure, CRP should be given easy access to residents of all residential quarters. That means residential areas have to be proportionately planned factoring in Common Property Resources on a Human Development Index. CBD should be purely CBD. Circumambulating the CBD must be CPR like hospitals, schools, colleges, universities, roads, public transport infrastructure, fire services, veterinary hospitals, mental health care institutes, research centres and labs related to public and mental health have to be housed in this band / zone.

Parks cultural centres and Recreational zones have to be planned meticulously as per HDI / on a per capita calibration. Green cover @ 33% per living human being. No compromise on that. It should be possible. Once you know the population of a given area, Common Property Resources have to be apportioned with precise planning.

Health care infrastructure must be zoned with access roads for the population, ambulance drive ways, pharmacies, health insurance and medical research institutes zoned together.

Education district or band (around the Central Business District – CBD) should comprise of primary schools, higher secondary schools, Colleges, Universities, research labs, innovation centres, foreign language / technical institutes and research labs of all kinds have to be housed allied to scientific institutional band / zone, scientific and research institutes have to be banded together, with access through a maze of public transport on well planned road infrastructure.

Multiple modes of Public transport should be aligned as per carrying capacity on different roads: - Arterial Roads, Main Roads, Cross roads, Lanes and Gullies. Private transport should be calibrated and reserved only for differently abled / physically challenged persons, frail and infirm.

The fiscal band must host banks, non-banking financial institutions, stock exchanges, bullion markets, Mints forex counters, etc. CPR or Common Property Resources including high speed internet bandwidth and roads that beat German Autobahns have to be designed for road safety, efficacy, reliable public and private transport emergency services, urban logistics and supply chain – all to be calibrated against HDI. Road medians if covered by greenery reduces the pressure on green lung spaces for crammed urban areas. If vertical economic growth is inevitable, so is vertical green canopy. Sorry dear politician, it is time to count greenery on a per capita basis.

Besides all of this zonation demands on CRP, residential areas have to be designed meticulously like the pride of Bangalore – Jayanagar, Basavanagudi, Malleswaram, and Chamrajpet, and – like Lutyens’ Delhi.

 

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