The Prospects of Urbanization and Its Leading Influence on the Architecture of a City Signifies the Increase in Growth of The City but also the Degradation of Nature-square Eco Habitat
The rapid urbanization of locality to satisfy the hunger of commercializing the living standards has created a huge impact on the lives of the people and their go-to activities. India has seen a boom in its GDP since the last census taken back in 2012; as this boom creates an economy, it also conjures more population to float in. The density of major cities seems to overflow with much-needed means of needs and globalization. Transportation being a sector that contributes to this growth, has seen existential advancement in terms of public or private transport or even the mere links between cities.
As urbanization brings its lead crises along, it primarily strikes the paucity of such civic amenities and its heavily contributing sub-sectors. The ‘middle-class aspirations’ become a nodal hub for centering some of the major secondary and tertiary jobs. This interlink of localities due to the necessity and convenience of activities requires rather intricate and planned links of urban transport.
A robust linkage of transportation helps in nurturing and grounding, such economical activity as it allows the workers to commute from one place to another. In the sprouting cities majority of the road, networks begin at the center as the density reaches its peak of saturation this network spreads out. Designers and builders need to visualize the process as an important and elaborate process cause a great sub-urban transportation system needs to reduce commute time, traffic and maintain a cleaner state of the place. The biggest step would be to rationalize the existing transport nodes to increase the efficiency of connectivity.
Transportation is currently a hot topic that is willing to make or break the economy of the country. India has been a populous country that has faced this concern as it grows at an even more alarming rate, urban modes of transportation have been a grave matter. During the last decade, India has seen an increasing growth rate of Urban cities with the majority of them being highly populous yet the government has taken some remedies to counter-attack the connectivity and transportation issue. However, as a citizen, what matters doesn’t lie with its aftermath, but the idea of negating and planning the network system that should be the driving force of proper urbanization. The initial studies done through research and surveys show the sectors including urbanization and its impactful growth, the growth has been haywire while the rate has boomed rapidly.
As architects, it becomes necessary that we mitigate the problems phase-wise targeting the basic details first and then capturing the big picture. Firstly, understanding the growth and urbanization is mandatory which ultimately leads to key questions such as its issues, concerns and majorly sheds light on the public opinions. The government of India has retaliated towards this matter several times creating modern advancements and even opening schemes of construction but the urban transport architecture is a rocky subject of concern. The ideal question that can be mandated would be which would be the best mode to emphasize as part of the urban transport. Each state has entered a realm of its own to come up with its unique solution and integrate urban architecture with it. Mumbai has developed its rail system, which is unlike any other system in the world. But at the same time, Delhi has expressed its solutions in a different path, by creating a unique bus system which has now moved to the metro system as well. Similar concepts have been undertaken, even in terms of other metropolitan hubs like Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, and so on. (Sahai, 2018) The current standing for an optimized urban system of transportation looks for minimal or basic needs which is a necessity, from being fast and punctual it is a mandate for the system to create a minimal carbon footprint. Architecture helps to sustain this ideology.
Considering the rapid growth architecture conveys an important role that is demarcated by optimized, fabricated planning of road networks.
The Urban Transport Architecture is an Idiom to Urban Mobility that is analogous to a Human Circulatory System
As urban designers take the front page, the process of creating a multitude of junctures for an apt result is time-consuming. It is visibly effective after hours of surveys and studies that need to highlight the key demographics, movement circulation, population density nodes, and so on. The major lack of study and comprehensive assessment of the locality leads to failed exercise and thus with inept produce.
In India, the major city planning happens with government and municipality doing the fieldwork to gather information concerning each sector, land use and zoning, road network, and development control regulation which are essayed in Master Plans. But the lack of combining the fields of study creates a barrier that visualizes each part as an individual entity. These development plans and transport plans are hence placed under individual assignments, and the innate gap between the matters lacks the intensity in design. Urban transport architecture needs to be backed by road network plans, studies, and live surveys; it tends to see development plans as revered. (B R Balachandran, 2005)
The transportation architecture needs to be a solution based on a strategy and not vice versa. The idea is to reimagine the current trends, the failed schemes and mediate a mid-ground for the people and the economical advances. Strategies need to be isolated into their perspective to create a defined vision for the cities. A comprehensive approach towards the architecture planning of urban transportation is to be associated by creating an area-based system that recognizes the interaction between the three T’s- Task, Traffic, and Transport, only then would it be possible to picture a better-connected vision and hence evaluate alternatives for optimal transport plans. (Sahai, 2018) It might be considered naïve, but the opinion that the current situation targets majorly to class on the weaker scale of economy. Urban designers and the government interactions play the major climax for the scene, as the process of this subsidiary planning system is long and heinous, the initial team and the management must have fluent transparency in communication. As we, architects gain perspective on the modes of urban planning better understanding and outputs of the better initial analysis, a better and a planned system of a network would prevail, leading to the city’s growth and development.
These urban transport plans developed need to be proactive and not be used as a simple reaction to traffic scenarios, however, in the modern rapidly-changing society, flexibility needs to be built as a part of the model to riposte the future development and amendments yet to be known to us.
References:
- Sahai, V. (2018). Developing the architecture for urban transportation in India. Observer Research Foundation, (Urban Futures). Available from: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/43269-developing-architecture-urban-transportation-india/ [Accessed:22/05/2021]
- Balachandran, BR., Adhvaryu, B., Lokre, A. (2005). Urban transport in India- problems, responses, and strategies. Environmental Planning Collaborative, Sector: Land use and transport integration (Paper 1-1), pp.4-5.
