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Indigo Tower: Bio Purification Tower
22 August 2010 2:23 AM | No Comments -
Contextual Tall Buildings in India
30 July 2010 5:30 AM | No Comments -
Empowering and Making the city authorities accountable is key
28 July 2010 6:59 AM | No Comments -
Public: The Forgotten Realm
11 July 2010 4:43 AM | No Comments -
Skylines
05 July 2010 5:25 AM | No Comments -
Mumbai Musings
30 June 2010 5:40 AM | No Comments -
Chasing the Vertical Dimension
12 June 2010 1:33 PM | 4 Comments -
Eco City Ideas: Hydroponics, the urban face of Agriculture 2.0
01 June 2010 6:21 AM | No Comments
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The Urban Vision : Capture the BIG Picture
Policy & Regulation Archive
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Design & Public Housing
Posted on April 27, 2010 | No CommentsIndia is the second highest populated country in the world with nearly 1.3 billion populations contributing to 17% percent of world population. It is expected that the trend if continues will exceed China in 2030 with an estimated 1.53 billion people living on this motherland. This is really scary as the resources to support this population are not growing at the pace expected and scarier is the urban population will be almost 50% by 2050. Presently though the urban population is at 27.8% the rate of urbanization is overshooting the predictions of our so-called planners and social scientists. -
Stemming corruption
Posted on April 21, 2010 | No CommentsA friend recently threw out the juicy question of how we can help improve government transparency and accountability in India. Here are my thoughts on how Indian democracy needs improvement towards that end. And raising the ugly head of corruption in this discussion is all too inevitable. -
Housing India
Posted on February 2, 2010 | 4 CommentsThe slums prevalent in many Indian cities are an evidence of the massive shortage of low cost housing. The census states that 42.6 million people lived in slums in 2001. This constitutes 15 per cent of the total urban population of the country and 22.6 per cent of the urban population of the states or union territories reporting slums. Why the crisis? The reason for this crisis is because India has not created housing in proportion to demand. We need to resolve this situation by two-ring strategy 1. Government subsidized Economically weaker section housing. 2. Drive the creation of Market drive affordable housing -
The (Indian) Urban Dictionary
Posted on January 29, 2010 | No CommentsUrban Planners : There are very few trained urban planners, maybe less than the number of municipal corporations, so urban planning is done by under-trained and under-educated architects or engineers. The urban planner of Pune whom I spoke to told me that he had never seen a major city except Mumbai, not even Delhi. He was coming from a village and did his architecture from a small town, so in his world view,a paved road network was a great stride of urban development. As you know,Pune dreams of being a World Class city attracting people from all over the globe. Studying and seeing global case studies of succesful and failed cities is unimaginable. Remember, the IAS officer who decides which urban plan to go for, gets their inputs from these. -
3 – Point Agenda for Mumbai.
Posted on January 18, 2010 | 1 CommentAffordable Housing Strategy: The city has a housing shortage of 2.62 million units in 2009.This will almost double to 4.47 by 2025 if not addressed. We need to develop new strategies and tools to solve the crisis. Develop a Climate Change Action Plan Many scientists agree that even the current level of carbon in our atmosphere is going to contribute to changes in our environment. So even though it is important to mitigate climate change or reduce the carbon emissions. There is an urgent need for adapting Mumbai City to climate change impacts and a future of extreme climate events. It needs to start with a comprehensive scientific analysis and modeling to understand the potential impacts of climate change on the city. -
India’s Urban Planning – Chaos theory
Posted on January 18, 2010 | 1 Commentphoto credit: bernardoh For the past three years, I have been participating as well as watching the circus of urban planning in Mumbai and have been periodically amused, angered and staggered by the brainlessness of the process and the people. Some observations (broad strokes) 1. The... -
Bombay – city of light and dark
Posted on June 29, 2009 | 1 CommentBombay – city of light and dark From the air (a view few of its citizens will ever see), the peninsula of the city of Bombay appears like an open hand – reaching and grasping into the Arabian sea. Its familiar districts transformed into the... -
City Making as Climate Policy
Posted on May 24, 2009 | 3 CommentsCity Making as Climate Policy How well-designed cities play a crucial role in de-linking increasing living standards and resource consumption In 1986, the German news magazine ‘Der Spiegel’ chose for one of its weekly editions a cover with a severe warning. It pictured Colognes famous gothic cathedral... -
What is the greatest threat to our planet?
Posted on May 9, 2009 | 2 CommentsThis 3-minute video asks the question “What’s the greatest threat to our planet?” and explains how sustainability is embedded in the way a city is built. A city that has an urban form that is sprawled, auto-centric, low- density and is not... -
New Ideas For Transit In Los Angeles
Posted on February 25, 2009 | 1 CommentMumbai and Delhi aren’t the only places with transit headaches. In fact, the mother of all freeway cities, Los Angeles, has reached its breaking point. Just try taking the 10 freeway eastbound any day after 4 p.m. I dare you. The effects of traffic and...
