How many ways from here to there

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...

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...

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 descrip...

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 ...

Johannesburg, Jo'burg, Jozi.... the largest city, commercial capital and the place to be in South Africa. I was on assignment as an independent consultant in a suburb of Johannesburg for a three month stint. I was very excited to get the opportunity to have an extended stay in the this beating heart of Southern Africa. As with any new place visit, I started reading about Jo'burg and got a varied picture that was exciting, intimidating and confusing at the same time. Exciting - I was going to back Africa after 29 years. I spent my childhood in a small university town in Zaria, Nigeria. A lot of fond memories had me all nostalgic. I also was going to the haloed ground of two of the greatest leaders of the 20th century - Mahatma Gandhi and (Mahatma) Nelson Mandela. All the songs, skits, plays I participated in my middle school (Blue Bells International) showing Indian solidarity for the Apartheid struggles of South Africans, had me pumped up. and, of course the wild life ha...

Last year in March, I was asked about resources on how to develop a TOD policy for Mumbai by a local planner via Linkedin. The following was my response on how Mumbai could approach developing a TOD policy. Fellow Planner, TOD is a primarily a North American urban development strategy, to try and shift travel away from cars to mass transit through changing land use policy and urban design. This was necessitated because of the huge dependence on cars by North Americans brought on by low density sprawl. There are places here that one has drive to buy a small pouch of milk. Mumbai clearly doesn't has that problem. Mumbai is probably the most transit rich cities of India, with a geography clearly suited for efficient transit networks (being a narrow peninsula similar to Manhattan). What Mumbai has is a problem of Transit capacity;  Access to Transit; and  A lack of multi-modal mobility.  With the new metro/ monorail etc coming up in Mumbai, the capacity aspects are bei...

This letter was sent to the new Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, from my father who has been a Professor of Urban Planning at the School of Planning and Architecture. He lists seven aspects about urbanization and development in India that he believes the Modi government should closely consider : - Re: DEVELOPMENT PLANNING CONCERNS OF THE COUNTRY Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji, As Team Leader of the project Perspective Plan for Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), of the Central Government, I visited Gujarat Government in 2010, seeking its approval. I was pleasantly surprised to be told that the proposals were in line with the vision of the Hon’ble CM and I should make a presentation before him. However, due to preoccupation he could not spare time for the presentation. But eventually the proposals were approved and I felt greatly honoured and professionally satisfied. With such personal experience and encouraged by your determined pro-active instance,...