AUM2020 Global Workshop: Session 5: Critical issues under rapid urbanisation

Duration: 1 hour 58 mins

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AUM2020 Global Workshop: Session 5: Critical issues under rapid urbanisation's image

Description:	Session outline: 1. Public Transport Accessibility and Planning Policy Prof. Bhargav Adhvaryu (Ahmedabad University) 2. Reconceptualising Sustainable Mobility - The Housing Transport Nexus Prof. Darshini Mahadevia (Ahmedabad University) 3. Conceptualizing Slums and Cities as Networks: Implications for Urban Planning and Public Health Dr Amit Patel (University of Massachusetts Boston) 4. India’s Urban Water Infrastructure: Need for Policy on Permeability Dr MS Raghavendra (Centre for VENUS & Ashoka School of Planning and Architecture) 5. Technology as a Tool for Rapid Adaptive Response in Building Design and Construction Mr CS Raghuram (Trilogue Studio and C R Narayana Rao Consultants) 6. Addressing Energy Consumption in India’s Housing Infrastructure Dr Shweta Manchanda (School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi) Discussant: Prof. Marcial Echenique (University of Cambridge) Host: Mr Steve Denman (University of Cambridge)

Description:

Session outline:
1. Public Transport Accessibility and Planning Policy
Prof. Bhargav Adhvaryu (Ahmedabad University)

2. Reconceptualising Sustainable Mobility - The Housing Transport Nexus
Prof. Darshini Mahadevia (Ahmedabad University)

3. Conceptualizing Slums and Cities as Networks: Implications for Urban Planning and Public Health
Dr Amit Patel (University of Massachusetts Boston)

4. India’s Urban Water Infrastructure: Need for Policy on Permeability
Dr MS Raghavendra (Centre for VENUS & Ashoka School of Planning and Architecture)

5. Technology as a Tool for Rapid Adaptive Response in Building Design and Construction
Mr CS Raghuram (Trilogue Studio and C R Narayana Rao Consultants)

6. Addressing Energy Consumption in India’s Housing Infrastructure
Dr Shweta Manchanda (School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi)

Discussant: Prof. Marcial Echenique (University of Cambridge)
Host: Mr Steve Denman (University of Cambridge)


Created:	2021-02-08 20:49
Collection:	Martin Centre AUM2020: Modelling the New Urban World
Publisher:	University of Cambridge
Copyright:	The Martin Centre
Language:	eng (English)
Keywords:	AUM2020; Modelling the New Urban World; Architecture; Martin Centre; Online Global Workshop;


Abstract:	1. Rapid urbanisation is a key factor in overstressing the public urban infrastructure systems in developing countries. A public transport system of a city is one of its vital urban infrastructure systems. Good public transport enhances connectivity and mobility, especially for lower income groups allowing them to better participate in the labour market, eventually fostering economic growth and social equity. Therefore, it is important for cities in developing countries to ensure the best possible public transport system given its limited resources. To improve public transport system, the first step is to measure the level of accessibility offered by the current system. Public Transport Accessibility Level (PTAL) is a tool to measure accessibility at various location in a city and spatially visualise it. Thereafter, PTAL maps when superimposed with population density and land use (both current and forecast/modelled), provide useful guidance in adjusting both public transport and land use in unison to create better integration. Based on studies measuring PTAL for six Indian cities: Ahmedabad, Surat, Lucknow, Hubli-Dharwad, Raipur-Naya Raipur, and Chennai, we discuss key applications and lessons for planners and policymakers. These include guiding future public transport investments, enhancing the urban plan-making process by integrating transport and land use decisions, better in-forming the parking policy, improving residential location choice, optimising supply locations of affordable and low-cost housing, and better understanding the mobility needs of the urban poor. Application of PTAL to formulation of modelling inputs to SIMPLAN type what-if planning models is also discussed. 2. Sustainable Mobility requires reconceptualising from not just transport perspective but also housing perspective. Many cities in the global South, due to speculative land markets, have seen proliferation of low-income settlements or government assisted low-income housing programmes located in the peri-urban areas. Many residents of these lowincome settlements are dependent on work opportunities available in the central parts of the cities, where they were informally living, but have either been pushed out due to development programmes or have been relocated in formal low-income housing on the urban periphery/ peri-urban areas. Hence, both housing policies as well as transport projects influence their access to employment and other opportunities in the cities. There is a Housing-Transport nexus that determines particularly the accessibility of low-income households and hence it should form the central part of reconceptualising ‘Sustainable Mobility’ in the cities of the global South, including in India. This presentation, drawing from multiple primary studies undertaken in Ahmedabad, will establish these linkages and argues for a shift in policy paradigm with regards to Sustainable Mobility. 3. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought renewed attention to informal settlements and the planning and policy failures that they represent. In this paper, we reflect on the impacts of both the pandemic and the public health responses on lives and livelihoods of slum residents to draw lessons for future of urban planning and public health policies. In particular, we offer a framework that integrates principles of slum health with the ‘new science of cities’ to inform both short-term pandemic responses and enable long-term planning to make our cities healthier, resilient, and equitable for all. The radically different view of slums and cities goes beyond a place-based paradigm and conceptualizes cities as a set of many overlapping and interacting networks of various stakeholders. There are three commonalities that ties slum health agenda with the new science of cities: i) the central role that both the paradigms assign to collective action of a variety of stakeholders, ii) heightened attention to data and indicators with the current explosion of urban measures from a range of sources, and iii) treatment of cities as complex adaptive systems that calls for bottom-up approaches to urban planning and public health interventions. This view is in sharp contrast with current approaches to curb the spread of COVID-19, which have largely remained top-down and place-based in India. To advance this transdisciplinary framework, we consider four key networks as building blocks for our model that are particularly important for slum health in the light of the pandemic and the current preemptive measures: 1) networks within slum communities; 2) networks between slum and non-slum communities; 3) networks that enable flows of goods and services in a city; and 4) migration networks comprising places of origin and destinations. We examine each of these networks to assess what they mean for slum health in the context of the current pandemic and beyond. To contrast these networks against their close equivalent in traditional planning systems, we provide the differences in pandemic responses that directly stem from the way cities and slums are conceptualized in both the systems. We hope that this proposed shift in paradigm of conceptualizing a city as set of networks will require us to rethink both slum health and urban planning and its implications for research and practice. 4. The Government of India has made considerable progress in providing piped water to all households, both rural and urban. India’s expanding human settlement system of nearly 650,000 villages, and 8,000 towns and cities presents unique challenges and opportunities in providing piped water to all. The recently announced target of ‘piped water for all’ by the Government of India in 2019 presents yet another opportunity to serve water sustainably. Even as the avowed target of piped water to all is a work in progress, India will be better served should her cities and towns also actively plan for long-range water security, and enhance linkages between urban planning and development of water infrastructure. The presentation discusses challenges in urban water service delivery, underscores need for planning of water security and management, and summarises advantages of attaining coherence in city and infrastructure planning. The principles of permeable city planning, where various layers of the city built and unbuilt fabric are rendered porous and permeable to absorb, retain, and harvest water, are introduced. Improving permeability will reduce recurrent energy and substantive capital costs on drawing and pumping freshwater from afar, and improve overall long-term sustainability of human settlements. The presentation also discusses the need for a Policy on Permeability City Planning, and likely co-benefits of the proposed Policy on other infrastructure sectors and liveability. 5. Technology in Building Design and Construction has the ability to aid in quick response in India, whether it be in providing modular housing for the growing urban population or in addressing the need to create infrastructure quickly to tackle a pandemic. The presentation explores two case studies. With rising urban populations across all economic strata, the demand for affordable housing constantly exists. The availability of such housing within an acceptable time frame and quality is always in question across India. Delays due to approvals, labour shortage, material price fluctuation are common. By exploiting prefabricated construction technologies, hitherto used for industrial or commercial buildings, modular housing units are assembled using Light Gauge steel frame. The modularity, reduced dependence on manual labour and scale of construction makes the units affordable and available quickly. The current project providing 3000 housing units through the Kerala LIFE Mission will be examined. Quick calibrated responses are imperative during the outbreak of a pandemic. Building healthcare facilities from ground up is a time-consuming process. Existing hospitals may already be geared towards general and specialised care and suddenly increasing capacity is challenging. Technology offers the possibility of retrofitting existing large facilities such as convention centres, marriage halls, sports facilities and exhibition halls into makeshift wards for the emergency treatment and easy isolation of patients. Prefabricated partition systems, demountable ceilings and new generation construction materials and systems allow for modular planning, seamless retrofitting, quick installation of independent exhaust and supply air systems and isolation as needed. The proposal for such a makeshift ward in Pune will be studied. 6. The building sector in India has an important role to play in achieving carbon emissions reduction and providing energy security for its power infrastructure across sectors. This sector consumes over 30% of the total electricity in the country annually of which about 75% is used in residential buildings and has been rising consistently over the years. Among the reasons, increased use of air-conditioning in homes for thermal comfort is an important reason contributing to this rapid increase in the electricity use in residential buildings. It is expected that the demand for energy in the housing sector will continue its exponential growth with improvement in household incomes and will become the dominant contributor of electricity consumption nation-wide owing to increased electricity consumption. This presentation charts the launch of a new energy code by the Ministry of Power as an important regulatory measure for ushering energy efficiency in the housing sector given the current and anticipated rapid growth in the residential building stock. It notes the importance of building design and modelling to comply with the code and predict consumption outcomes and also highlights the significance of broader based analytical studies for adjusting thermal comfort metrics used to formulate the codes themselves as well as to improve liveability and health outcome in the buildings in general. The presentation especially emphasises the need for addressing the above issues for the existing building stock which comprises a large bit neglected section of the housing sector.

Abstract:

1. Rapid urbanisation is a key factor in overstressing the public urban infrastructure systems in developing countries. A
public transport system of a city is one of its vital urban infrastructure systems. Good public transport enhances
connectivity and mobility, especially for lower income groups allowing them to better participate in the labour market,
eventually fostering economic growth and social equity. Therefore, it is important for cities in developing countries to
ensure the best possible public transport system given its limited resources.
To improve public transport system, the first step is to measure the level of accessibility offered by the current
system. Public Transport Accessibility Level (PTAL) is a tool to measure accessibility at various location in a city and
spatially visualise it. Thereafter, PTAL maps when superimposed with population density and land use (both current
and forecast/modelled), provide useful guidance in adjusting both public transport and land use in unison to create
better integration.
Based on studies measuring PTAL for six Indian cities: Ahmedabad, Surat, Lucknow, Hubli-Dharwad, Raipur-Naya
Raipur, and Chennai, we discuss key applications and lessons for planners and policymakers. These include guiding
future public transport investments, enhancing the urban plan-making process by integrating transport and land use
decisions, better in-forming the parking policy, improving residential location choice, optimising supply locations of
affordable and low-cost housing, and better understanding the mobility needs of the urban poor. Application of PTAL
to formulation of modelling inputs to SIMPLAN type what-if planning models is also discussed.

2. Sustainable Mobility requires reconceptualising from not just transport perspective but also housing perspective.
Many cities in the global South, due to speculative land markets, have seen proliferation of low-income settlements or
government assisted low-income housing programmes located in the peri-urban areas. Many residents of these lowincome settlements are dependent on work opportunities available in the central parts of the cities, where they were
informally living, but have either been pushed out due to development programmes or have been relocated in formal
low-income housing on the urban periphery/ peri-urban areas. Hence, both housing policies as well as transport
projects influence their access to employment and other opportunities in the cities. There is a Housing-Transport
nexus that determines particularly the accessibility of low-income households and hence it should form the central
part of reconceptualising ‘Sustainable Mobility’ in the cities of the global South, including in India. This presentation,
drawing from multiple primary studies undertaken in Ahmedabad, will establish these linkages and argues for a shift
in policy paradigm with regards to Sustainable Mobility.

3. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought renewed attention to informal settlements and the planning and policy failures
that they represent. In this paper, we reflect on the impacts of both the pandemic and the public health responses on
lives and livelihoods of slum residents to draw lessons for future of urban planning and public health policies. In
particular, we offer a framework that integrates principles of slum health with the ‘new science of cities’ to inform both
short-term pandemic responses and enable long-term planning to make our cities healthier, resilient, and equitable
for all.
The radically different view of slums and cities goes beyond a place-based paradigm and conceptualizes cities as a
set of many overlapping and interacting networks of various stakeholders. There are three commonalities that ties
slum health agenda with the new science of cities: i) the central role that both the paradigms assign to collective
action of a variety of stakeholders, ii) heightened attention to data and indicators with the current explosion of urban
measures from a range of sources, and iii) treatment of cities as complex adaptive systems that calls for bottom-up
approaches to urban planning and public health interventions. This view is in sharp contrast with current approaches
to curb the spread of COVID-19, which have largely remained top-down and place-based in India.
To advance this transdisciplinary framework, we consider four key networks as building blocks for our model that are
particularly important for slum health in the light of the pandemic and the current preemptive measures: 1) networks
within slum communities; 2) networks between slum and non-slum communities; 3) networks that enable flows of
goods and services in a city; and 4) migration networks comprising places of origin and destinations. We examine
each of these networks to assess what they mean for slum health in the context of the current pandemic and beyond.
To contrast these networks against their close equivalent in traditional planning systems, we provide the differences
in pandemic responses that directly stem from the way cities and slums are conceptualized in both the systems. We
hope that this proposed shift in paradigm of conceptualizing a city as set of networks will require us to rethink both
slum health and urban planning and its implications for research and practice.

4. The Government of India has made considerable progress in providing piped water to all households, both rural and
urban. India’s expanding human settlement system of nearly 650,000 villages, and 8,000 towns and cities presents
unique challenges and opportunities in providing piped water to all. The recently announced target of ‘piped water for
all’ by the Government of India in 2019 presents yet another opportunity to serve water sustainably.
Even as the avowed target of piped water to all is a work in progress, India will be better served should her cities and
towns also actively plan for long-range water security, and enhance linkages between urban planning and
development of water infrastructure.
The presentation discusses challenges in urban water service delivery, underscores need for planning of water
security and management, and summarises advantages of attaining coherence in city and infrastructure planning.
The principles of permeable city planning, where various layers of the city built and unbuilt fabric are rendered porous
and permeable to absorb, retain, and harvest water, are introduced. Improving permeability will reduce recurrent
energy and substantive capital costs on drawing and pumping freshwater from afar, and improve overall long-term
sustainability of human settlements.
The presentation also discusses the need for a Policy on Permeability City Planning, and likely co-benefits of the
proposed Policy on other infrastructure sectors and liveability.

5. Technology in Building Design and Construction has the ability to aid in quick response in India, whether it be in
providing modular housing for the growing urban population or in addressing the need to create infrastructure quickly
to tackle a pandemic. The presentation explores two case studies.
With rising urban populations across all economic strata, the demand for affordable housing constantly exists. The
availability of such housing within an acceptable time frame and quality is always in question across India. Delays
due to approvals, labour shortage, material price fluctuation are common. By exploiting prefabricated construction
technologies, hitherto used for industrial or commercial buildings, modular housing units are assembled using Light
Gauge steel frame. The modularity, reduced dependence on manual labour and scale of construction makes the
units affordable and available quickly. The current project providing 3000 housing units through the Kerala LIFE
Mission will be examined.
Quick calibrated responses are imperative during the outbreak of a pandemic. Building healthcare facilities from
ground up is a time-consuming process. Existing hospitals may already be geared towards general and specialised
care and suddenly increasing capacity is challenging. Technology offers the possibility of retrofitting existing large
facilities such as convention centres, marriage halls, sports facilities and exhibition halls into makeshift wards for the
emergency treatment and easy isolation of patients. Prefabricated partition systems, demountable ceilings and new
generation construction materials and systems allow for modular planning, seamless retrofitting, quick installation of
independent exhaust and supply air systems and isolation as needed. The proposal for such a makeshift ward in
Pune will be studied.

6. The building sector in India has an important role to play in achieving carbon emissions reduction and providing
energy security for its power infrastructure across sectors. This sector consumes over 30% of the total electricity in
the country annually of which about 75% is used in residential buildings and has been rising consistently over the
years. Among the reasons, increased use of air-conditioning in homes for thermal comfort is an important reason
contributing to this rapid increase in the electricity use in residential buildings. It is expected that the demand for
energy in the housing sector will continue its exponential growth with improvement in household incomes and will
become the dominant contributor of electricity consumption nation-wide owing to increased electricity consumption.
This presentation charts the launch of a new energy code by the Ministry of Power as an important regulatory
measure for ushering energy efficiency in the housing sector given the current and anticipated rapid growth in the
residential building stock. It notes the importance of building design and modelling to comply with the code and
predict consumption outcomes and also highlights the significance of broader based analytical studies for adjusting
thermal comfort metrics used to formulate the codes themselves as well as to improve liveability and health outcome
in the buildings in general. The presentation especially emphasises the need for addressing the above issues for the
existing building stock which comprises a large bit neglected section of the housing sector.

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