Town Planning - Ribbon and Ring development

Towns existed many centuries before the Industrial revolution. The pre industrial towns were glorified villages in short for obvious reasons. The degree of urbanization increases sharply as industrialization increases. Even with an inherent flaw in the urban mechanism as opposed to nature, the urban way of life has definite irresistible advantages.

1. Man is a social animal
2. Economic drivers
3. Easy access to goods and services
4. Education and seat of learning
5. Safety

Development of a town without any future planning is called natural development of a town. Natural or unplanned growth is seldom desirable as any future rectification is prohibitively costly and undesirable. Even planned growth could be doomed even before it starts especially in a democracy with conflicting interests. It may be desirable to classify towns in to different categories.

1. Seat of power State and national capitols
2. Seat of learning
3. Economic
4. Industrial
5. Other

The Ribbon

The Ribbon development is road centric. This is characterized by people tendency to build as near to the main road. Example is the Kerala state. The whole state is a ribbon. The countryside in the entire state of Kerala is not visible to the major road users. The ribbon development though thought to be inferior the Keralaits did not think so. It may be worth researching whether it is due to the “Pramila Rajya” in Kerala.

The Bangalore ring road is currently witnessing the ribbon development phenomenon.

Town Planning - Ribbon and Ring development

Towns existed many centuries before the Industrial revolution. The pre industrial towns were glorified villages in short for obvious reasons. The degree of urbanization increases sharply as industrialization increases. Even with an inherent flaw in the urban mechanism as opposed to nature, the urban way of life has definite irresistible advantages.

1. Man is a social animal
2. Economic drivers
3. Easy access to goods and services
4. Education and seat of learning
5. Safety

Development of a town without any future planning is called natural development of a town. Natural or unplanned growth is seldom desirable as any future rectification is prohibitively costly and undesirable. Even planned growth could be doomed even before it starts especially in a democracy with conflicting interests. It may be desirable to classify towns in to different categories.

1. Seat of power State and national capitols
2. Seat of learning
3. Economic
4. Industrial
5. Other

The Ribbon

The Ribbon development is road centric. This is characterized by people tendency to build as near to the main road. Example is the Kerala state. The whole state is a ribbon. The countryside in the entire state of Kerala is not visible to the major road users. The ribbon development though thought to be inferior the Keralaits did not think so. It may be worth researching whether it is due to the “Pramila Rajya” in Kerala.

The Bangalore ring road is currently witnessing the ribbon development phenomenon.

Town Planning - Introduction

General:

The planet earth appears blue from outer space due to the huge amount of water covering the globe. The exposed land above this ocean water is only 30% the ocean water portion being the remaining 70%. India stands 7th nation after Russia and china in its extant of land which is about 32,263 Sq km. This land asset available to the earthlings, which is the fundamental asset, is limited in its extent. This asset belongs to the entire life system that exists at any point of time on this planet. It can only be borrowed for temporary convenience by any life that exists on the planet at any time period.

Successful Town planning is based on the fundamental principles which should take into account the envisaged roll of the town, its location, weather and topology. Hence Town Planning starts at the time of selection of a suitable site for the new town.

Any design is valid only as far as the assumptions that need to be made at the start and are valid till the life span of the town. It requires the planner to visualize as accurately as possible the town and its roll in the country which it belongs to.

Towns are different from the villages where agriculture is the main occupation. The towns have governments, their offices, and possibly industries. The Schools Colleges Universities are the other category of necessities that get added up apart from big Hospitals, eateries, malls etc. The main difference, in effect, a town has from a village is the population density. The population density of a town can be really high. This leads to increase in vehicular traffic and other resource crunches. Polluting Industries could be the added challenges.

Evolution of towns:

Towns are in existence since the days of mythology. Towns and civilizations are in synchronization. As such, their evolution and decline are in step with each other. There are new cities which come up and grow in maturity and glory to decline and obliterate eventually at the end of its life span.

What is Town Planning?

Town planning is similar to planning ones own residence. Architects are trained in designing spaces for peoples use. He is also one who designs the spaces and supervises the construction of buildings or other large structures, in general. In a residential building the spaces are like kitchens, bed rooms, toilets etc. In the case of a town it is residential, green, entertainment, work and commute spaces for entire communities that are expected to reside temporarily or otherwise. These have to be designed individually and integrated to serve the Town optimally for the complete set of all the communities. Architects are trained to contribute towards the spatial design with aesthetics and utility. Engineers on the other hand have the expertise in various technical areas like civil, mechanical, mass transport and sanitation which is required to translate the spaces designed / dreamt by architects in to reality in towns. It is this challenge that the engineers have to meet successfully to achieve physically the esoteric dream designs conceived by the architects.

Objectives
Should have:-

Esthetical value Convenience essential services water food entertainment electricity transport sanitation communication fire safety police education universities of learning movie / fine art theaters

Sustenance Requirements

Grocery Cloths Cosmetics Foot ware Travel Ware Jewels Art etc
Agriculture based food Cereals Pulses etc aqua and land animal flesh food Vegetable Fruits

Should not have:-

Pollution. Polluting Industries and Hazardous Industries should be in separate exclusive cities.
The Dynamics of a growing Town (uncontrolled) and Game Theory

The principles of non cooperative game theory, including strategic form games, Nash equilibrium, sub game perfection, repeated games, and games of incomplete information in a direct and uncomplicated style are the broad spectrum of the fields of a modern game theory.

The theory of non cooperative games studies the behavior of agents in any situation where each agent's optimal choice may depend on a forecast of the opponents' choices. "Non cooperative" refers to choices that are based on the participant's perceived self interest. theory that have been most useful in the study of economic problems. It also has some applications to political science.

While game theory is useful in competitive situations as is clear from the above points, Town planning is better and should be without competition. This is where the good sense prevails over ambition.
Principles

The main principle is that a town is like a living organism. It has a purpose and cannot or should not grow unplanned haphazard manner. Taking a leaf out of nature is perhaps in order. Each species of a town could be classified depending upon its roll. - Seat of power, Industrial, commercial, a business hub etc.

Combining these is normally resorted to for increasing the land value which invariably results in unmanageable competition and should be avoided.