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.