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LOWERING THE BARRIERS TO SPATIAL PLANNING IN SOUTH AFRICA – THE NATIONAL SPATIAL PLANNING DATA REPOSITORY (NSPDR)

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South Africa’s approach to the hurdles of spatial data and the shortage of technical knowledge in enabling cities to prepare Spatial Development Plans has the potential to bring tremendous change beyond its planned goals. Catalytic events in various forms have been shaping urban living forms though out the history of human settlements. They range from natural climactic or geological events, political and governance decisions to technological innovations that enable a flurry of ways and means that change how people live, work and act in the urban sphere, much beyond the initial intent of the act. Of late, technological innovations have been the primary catalytic enabler in changing and impacting urban living. The distribution of electricity, the automobile, cellphones, and smartphones have had tremendous impacts on how cities function, are managed, and grow.  The conceptual model of the National Spatial Planning Data Repository (NSPDR) has the potential to give the cities and commu
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Delhi's pollution can be curtailed by Dynamic Pricing Parking managed by its Residents Welfare Associations

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Written with Srijit Ghosh This year Diwali in Delhi, the goddess Laxmi didn’t quite stay after gracing the city’s residents, but rather she must have scurried away in a hurry to avoid the poisonous concoction that was Delhi’s air. After the festival, Delhi reported the highest levels of particulate matter in the air. Parts of Delhi experienced up to 1,238 PPM of 2.5PM particulate matter, where the usual average unhealthy level is around 300 PPM (the global safe recommendation is 10 PPM). Due to the persistent thermal-inversion, the situation remained bleak for nearly a week.  Schools and public institutions were closed. Factories were directed to shut down.  In fact, for the first time, residents could taste the dirtiness of the air. Delhi’s air pollution problem can’t particularly be blamed on single source such as high industrial activity on its outskirts; heavy levels of construction, or; hinterland farmers burning crop stubs post-harvest, but it’s persistency can be attr
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Can The Open Road Truly be Electrifying? Will the electric car jump the barriers of cost, low gas prices, preferences and range anxiety of the average car buyer? President Obama’s goal in 2008 was to ‘put 1 million advanced technology vehicles on the road by 2015’ [i] . Clearly we haven’t reached that goal with the different incentives from the federal government, and other independent state initiatives. The federal government’s three pronged approach of investing in R&D, rebates, and rewarding communities that invest in electric vehicle infrastructure, has not been enough to overcome the challenges of technology and buyer’s perceptions to make the goal achievable. There needs to a shift in the policy’s focus to change the current rate of market adoption of electric cars as a viable alternative. Understanding what worked and didn’t work The three strategies mentioned above primarily focused on changing the market for vehicles. However, their estimates of effo
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Is Urban Rail MRTS the only option for Indian Cities

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For the cover story 'Metronomics',  in the July edition of Infrastructure Today (an Indian Trade Magazine), the author asked me a few questions about my perspective as an urban planning consultant, about the plans for developing a rail based MRTS for over 20 Indian cities. The article extensively quotes my opinion, and can be access here . The following is my response to the questions posed by the author - 1. In a society that is urbanizing at a very rapid clip, what is the scope for MRTS across India? There is tremendous scope of developing and growing Mass Rapid Transit Systems in Cities that come under the Tier I and II (more than a million population), primarily to maiximise the locational efficiencies of economic engines/employment centers. Commute times are a drag on economic output, therefore reducing travel times should be a primary goal for all sectors of city/regional governance. MRTS is one such tool that can help in that. Secondly, India in general, a
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Being Smart About Becoming a Smart City

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Last month the Ministry of Urban Development released it's Smart Cities Mission Guidelines. The release was greatly anticipated with several forums, discussions and white papers released about what constitutes becoming a 'Smart City'. With varying definitions and propositions, the city development/management must have been waiting with baited breath to see how the MoUD defines a 'Smart City'. Predictably, the release of the mission statement and guidelines did not quite answer that question. It refreshingly asks the cities to outline a concept of what they believe would be a Smart City for themselves.  The first question is what is meant by a ‘smart city’. The answer is, there is no universally accepted  definition of a Smart City. It means different things to different people. The conceptualisation  of Smart City, therefore, varies from city to city and country to country, depending on the  level of development, willingness to change and reform, resources and a
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City of the Future - Devaansh Singh

Devaansh is my 12 year old nephew, who wrote this concept paper for his class project. All of this is his own ideas, with no help form his city planner uncle, or his urban planning professor grand-uncle. Future Cities May 18, 2015-June 1, 2015 City of the Future In the beginning of the year 2015, there was a future cities competition in which students from around the nation designed and built the cities of tomorrow. Well, that future is today, 100 years after this competition, and today we are introducing the most amazing city of the future, Moana Kulana Kauhale. Named by the creator Devaansh Singh, its name means Ocean City. It is located on a former Hawaiian Island and creates a future that resolves many of the problematic issues that have been plaguing our world for the past 100 years Plus, all of the solutions are both innovative and environmentally friendly making Moana Kulana Kauhale the ideal city to live in.  Before we start, here is a brief description
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The Jugaad of Gestures and Mini-bus Taxis - Jo'burg's PRT (People's Rapid Transit) system

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People familiar with Africa, or who have seen any kind of documentary about urban Sub-Saharan Africa would recognize a single ubiquitous element in the backdrop - the white mini-bus taxi. They were old Ford Transit vans during my 70s-80s childhood in Nigeria. Now they are solidly represented by the Japanese motor industry. As expected these mini-buses are the backbone for transportation across the Jo'burg metro area. They evolved due to apartheid era policies for creating race based townships outside the city without providing and public transit connecting the workers to their workplaces. Public buses were out of bounds for colored folks. So they improvised and organically developed the mini-bus transportation network that now serves a majority of the population's transportation needs. Minibus Taxi atmosphere Post-Apartheid, these mini-vans were organised into associations that were given specific routes form them to ply on. This was primarily done to avoid the
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