Assignment - 6

TOWN PLANNING

Submitted By:Malvika Dhammy

Roll no. A091058
Sem-9, Sec- B
1

Ques1. List down the contributions towards modern city planning by the
followinga.
b.
c.
d.

Sir Ebenezer Harward

Fredrik Olmsted
Catherine
Clearance Perry

A. SIR EBENEZER HARWARD

The garden city movement is a method of urban planning that was initiated in
1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended
to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts", containing
proportionate areas of residences, industry and agriculture.
The now well discussed event that initiated practical town-planning in Great
Britain and in many parts of the world was the publication in 1898 of the book,
"To-morrow: A peaceful path to Real Reform," by Sir Ebenezer Howard. Ironically,
concerning the book, The Times wrote "an ingenious and rather entertaining
attempt - the only difficulty is to create it.
"... by so laying. out a Garden City that, as it grows, the free gifts of Nature- fresh
air, sunlight, breathing room and playing room- shall be still retained in all needed
abundance
Due to the expense of travel for the working and lower classes of the time, the
country offered a very romantic retreat from town life, despite its worse
deprivation. Around the early 1800's the more well off classes were becoming
more aware of the deprived, as it began to affect them.
It is interesting to note that in all these early ventures, private enterprise was very
important, e.g. James Silk Buckingham's plan for "Victoria" in l849; from which
Howard obviously derived the radial diagrams for Garden City. Buckingham states
that his scheme was designed to "avoid the evils of communism". At this time the
technical and the political aspects of town planning thought were very closely
related. Howard in his own book thought that his Garden City should be a private
enterprise, though he did think that parliamentary powers would be necessary for
a larger project.

Garden City, which is to be built near the centre of the 6,000 acres, covers an area
of 1,000 acres, or a sixth part of the 6,000 acres, and might be of circular form,
1,240 yards (or nearly three-quarters of a mile) from centre to circumference.
Image 1 is a ground plan of the whole municipal area, showing the town in the
centre; and

Image 2, which represents one section or ward of the town, will be useful in
following the description of the town itself.

Six magnificent boulevards--each 120 feet wide--traverse the city from centre to
circumference, dividing it into six equal parts or wards. In the centre is a circular
space containing about five and a half acres, laid out as a beautiful and wellwatered garden; and, surrounding this garden, each standing in its own ample
grounds, are the larger public buildings--town hall, principal concert and lecture
hall, theatre, library, museum, picture-gallery, and hospital.
The rest of the large space encircled by the 'Crystal Palace' is a public park,
containing 145 acres, which includes ample recreation grounds within very easy
access of all the people.
Running all round the Central Park (except where it is intersected by the
boulevards) is a wide glass arcade called the 'Crystal Palace', opening on to the
park. This building is in wet weather one of the favourite resorts of the people,
whilst the knowledge that its bright shelter is ever close at hand tempts people
into Central Park, even in the most doubtful of weathers.
Here manufactured goods are exposed for sale, and here most of that class of
shopping which requires the joy of deliberation and selection is done. The space
enclosed by the Crystal Palace is, however, a good deal larger than is required for
these purposes, and a considerable part of it is used as a Winter Garden --the
whole forming a permanent exhibition of a most attractive character, whilst its
circular form brings it near to every dweller in the town--the furthest removed
inhabitant being within 600 yards.

On the outer ring of the town are factories, warehouses, dairies, markets, coal
yards, timber yards, etc., all fronting on the circle railway, which encompasses the
whole town, and which has sidings connecting it with a main line of railway which
passes through the estate.
This arrangement enables goods to be loaded direct into trucks from the
warehouses and workshops, and so sent by railway to distant markets, or to be
taken direct from the trucks into the warehouses or factories; thus not only
effecting a very great saving in regard to packing and cartage, and reducing to a
minimum loss from breakage, but also, by reducing the traffic on the roads of the
town, lessening to a very marked extent the cost of their maintenance.
The smoke fiend is kept well within bounds in Garden City; for all machinery is
driven by electric energy, with the result that the cost of electricity for lighting and
other purposes is greatly reduced.
The refuse of the town is utilized on the agricultural portions of the estate, which
are held by various individuals in large farms, small holdings, allotments, cow
pastures, etc.; the natural competition of these various methods of agriculture,
tested by the willingness of occupiers to offer the highest rent to the municipality,
tending to bring about the best system of husbandry, or, what is more probable,
the best systems adapted for various purposes.
Dotted about the estate are seen various charitable and philanthropic institutions.
These are not under the control of the municipality, but are supported and
managed by various public-spirited people who have been invited by the
municipality to establish these institutions in an open healthy district, and on land
let to them at a pepper-corn rent, it occurring to the authorities that they can the
better afford to be thus generous, as the spending power of these institutions
greatly benefits the whole community.

Garden City

B. FREDRIK OLMSTED
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public
administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father
of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that
title upon Andrew Jackson Downing.
Olmsted was famous for co-designing many well-known urban parks with his
senior partner Calvert Vaux, including Central Park and Prospect Park in New York
City, as well as Elm Park (Worcester, Massachusetts), considered by many to be the
first municipal park in America.
Drawing influences from English landscape and gardening, Olmsteds principles of
design, generally speaking, encourage the full utilization of the naturally occurring
features of a given space, its genius; the subordination of individual details to the
whole so that decorative elements do not take precedence, but rather the whole
space; concealment of design, design that does not call attention to itself; design
which works on the unconscious to produce relaxation; and utility or purpose
over ornamentation.
A bridge, a pathway, a tree, a pasture: any and all elements are brought together to
produce a particular effect.Olmsted designed primarily in the pastoral and
picturesque styles, each to achieve a particular effect. The pastoral style featured
vast expanses of green with small lakes, trees and groves and produced a soothing,
restorative effect on the viewer.
The picturesque style covered rocky, broken terrain with teeming shrubs and
creepers and struck the viewer with a sense of natures richness. The picturesque
style played with light and shade to lend the landscape a sense of mystery.
Scenery was designed to enhance the sense of space: indistinct boundaries using
plants, brush and trees as opposed to sharp ones; interplay of light and shadow
close up and blurred detail further away.
A vast expanse of greenery at the end of which lies a grove of yellow poplar; a
path that winds through a bit of landscape and intersects with others, dividing the
terrain into triangular islands of successive new views.
6

B. FREDRIK OLMSTED...contd..
Subordination strives to use all objects and features in the service of the design
and its intended effect. It can be seen in the subtle use of naturally occurring plants
throughout the park. Non-native species planted for the sake of their own
uniqueness defeat the purpose of design, as that very uniqueness draws attention
to itself where the intention is to enable relaxation: utility above all else.
Separation applies to areas designed in different styles and different uses enhancing
safety and reducing distraction.
A key feature of Central Park is the use of sunken roadways which traverse the
park and are specifically dedicated to vehicles as opposed to winding paths
designated specifically for pedestrians.
A beautiful example of this mix of principles is seen in the Parks Mall in New
York's Central Park, a large promenade leading to the Bethesda Terrace and the
single formal feature in Olmsted and Vauxs original naturalistic design. The
designers wrote that a "'grand promenade was an essential feature of a
metropolitan park however, its formal symmetry, its style, though something of an
aberration, was designed so as to be subordinate to the natural view surrounding
it.
Wealthy passengers were let from their carriages at its south end. The carriage
would then drive around to the Terrace, which overlooked the Lake and Ramble to
pick them up, saving them the trouble of needing to double back on foot. The
Promenade was lined with slender elms and offered views of Sheep Meadow.
Affluent New Yorkers, who rarely walked through the park, mixed with the less
well-to-do, and all enjoyed an escape from the hustle and bustle of the surrounding
city.

Volunteer Park 1913

B. FREDRIK OLMSTED...contd..
The main framework of any city plan is the transportation system, including in that
term the public ways, both of local and of general importance, the street railways,
the rapid transit railways, where such exist, the long-distance railways with their
terminals, and the facilities for water-borne traffic.
Comprehensive Planning Necessary.
The location and width of the new streets which are daily extending the
permanent framework of the city into new territory are now being fixed, in the
main, by the local landowners.Their business is simply to market their land, and, so
far as their limited control extends, to provide sufficient means of access to it to
attract purchasers.
Rapid Transit Routes.
But whatever the best rapid transit routes may prove to be, these facts are
tolerably clear about them:--First, that a paying rapid transit line cannot be built
until after a large part of the district through which it is to run is pretty fully
occupied--that is, until after most of the streets have been opened and built upon.
Second, that the cost of installing a rapid transit line in a district already subdivided
and built upon will depend mainly upon whether provision has been made in
advance for such a line in the lay-out of the city, because in the absence of such
provision it must either go under the streets, with all the drawbacks of subways, or
encumber the streets most objectionably with an elevated structure, or cut its way
through private building lots, all very costly operations, and apt to result in bad
alignment at that.

Third, that the question of how the city or any part of the city can have rapid
transit, and how far and how fast the passengers can be carried for five cents will
depend largely upon the cost of installing the lines.
Fourth, that the speed, the range, and the economy of local passenger
transportation is one of the most important factors making for comfortable and
healthful homes for the mass of the people, and against the overcrowding of
houses on the land and the exaction of excessive ground rents.

B. FREDRIK OLMSTED...contd..
Surface Car Routes.
Of equal importance with the rapid transit lines properly so called, are the surface
car routes, which will become the feeders of the former, and which must be the
main agency in extending the residential radius. While in the older part of the city
the cars must generally occupy streets laid out before the invention of electric
traction.
In a 60-ft or 66-ft. street, unless the sidewalks are excessively and unreasonably
curtailed, the roadway cannot be made wide enough for two vehicles to pass
between the curb and the street cars. Therefore the main stream of slow-moving
vehicles must perforce run upon the tracks.
Main Thoroughfares and Local Streets.
It is very important in dealing with the subject of city planning to maintain very
clearly the distinction between such main thoroughfares as we have been
discussing and the local streets, of which the prime object is to give means of
access to the lands and houses immediately abutting upon each, and in close-built
districts to admit light and air to the buildings that line them.
General Considerations Affecting the Location of Playgrounds and
Parks.
In any city closely covering a large area, well-distributed public playgrounds and
neighbourhood parks become one of the urgent needs if the health and vigour of
the people are to be maintained. And the most important classes to provide for
are the children and the women of wage-earning families.

Washington Park

Prospect Park

B. FREDRIK OLMSTED...contd..
Activities of Public Recreation Grounds.
The size, form, and character of public neighbourhood recreation grounds depend
upon the functions to be performed by each. Some of the activities where they are
well developed, as, for example, in Chicago are these :
1. The playing of little children in sand piles, and upon the lawn, and in a shallow
wading pool, and in open shelters, under the watchful guidance of an attendant,
who not only keeps them out of mischief and danger, but plays with them, tells
them stories, and stimulates the healthy activity of their little minds and bodies.
The mothers may come with their children and sit by them while they play, or may
leave them in safety while at work. A plot but 100 ft. square may be of value for
such use.
2. For the boys of larger growth, and also for the girls and women, the more active
games and gymnastic exercises, with and without apparatus, in the open air when
the weather permits, and under cover in the winter, always with the opportunity
and inducement to wash and bathe, and sometimes with a swimming pool to boot.
Sometimes space is found for the big field games, and regular athletic sports on a
running track, sometimes for nothing that takes more space than basketball or
fives.
3. For the older and less active people a few pleasant shaded walks and benches to
stroll and sit upon, from which to see the youngsters play, and once or twice a
week perhaps a band concert.

New York City parks

10

B. FREDRIK OLMSTED...contd..
Activities of Public Recreation Grounds.
4. For the use of all a field-house, where the sanitary accommodations are kept to
a standard of cleanliness and good order that sets a good example to the
neighbourhood where a reading branch of the public library is available, and in
which one or more large rooms are at the disposal of the neighbourhood for
lectures, entertainments, and dances: clean, healthy recreation given full play amid
decent surroundings, instead of being driven to the saloon, dance-hall, and the like.
A full-fledged recreation centre is a large and elaborate affair, and a costly one to
keep in operation, and until the taxpayers have satisfied themselves by tentative
experiment that such things are worth their cost, a much more modest scale must
be adopted; but there are such advantages in the possibility of gradually building up
a group of related activities, that it is extremely desirable to secure rather
good-sized tracts, 20 acres if possible, rather than split the same area into a large
number of very small squares.
As to the total area to be secured, it is so seldom possible to get enough that
there is little danger of overdoing the purchase of such local parks. There is a
rather general consensus of opinion that about 5 per cent of the total area
devoted to local parks, play grounds, and squares is a reasonable minimum
standard at which to aim, and that more than 10 per cent. may be uneconomic

New York City parks

11

D.CLEARANCE PERRY
Clarence Arthur Perry was an American planner, sociologist, author, and
educator. He was born in Truxton, New York. He later worked in the New York
City planning department where he became a strong advocate of
the Neighborhood unit. He was an early promoter of neighborhood community
and recreation centers.
The concept of the neighbourhood unit, crystallised from the prevailing social
and intellectual attitudes of the early 1900s by Clarence Perry is an early
diagrammatic planning model for residential development in metropolitan areas.
It was designed by Perry to act as a framework for urban planners attempting to
design functional, self-contained and desirable neighbourhoods in the early 20th
century in industrialising cities.
It continues to be utilised (albeit in progressive and adapted ways, see New
Urbanism), as a means of ordering and organising new residential communities in a
way which satisfies contemporary "social, administrative and service requirements
for satisfactory urban existence".
The neighbourhood unit was conceived of as a comprehensive physical planning
tool, to be utilised for designing self-contained residential neighbourhoods which
promoted a community centric lifestyle, away from the "noise of the trains, and out
of sight of the smoke and ugliness of industrial plants" emblematic of an
industrialising New York City in the early 1900s.
A diagram of Clarence Perry's neighbourhood unit, illustrating the spatiality of the
core principles of the concept, from the New York Regional Survey, Vol 7. 1929
The core principles of Perry's Neighbourhood Unit were organised around several
physical design ideals.

12

D.CLEARANCE PERRYContd
Principles
"Centre the school in the neighbourhood so that a child's walk to school was
only about one-quarter of a mile and no more than one half mile and could be
achieved without crossing a major arterial street. Size the neighbourhood to
sufficiently support a school, between 5,000 to 9,000 residents, approximately 160
acres at a density of ten units per acre. Implement a wider use of the school
facilities for neighbourhood meetings and activities, constructing a large play area
around the building for use by the entire community.
Place arterial streets along the perimeter so that they define and distinguish
the "place" of the neighborhood and by design eliminate unwanted through-traffic
from the neighborhood. In this way, major arterials define the neighborhood,
rather than divide it through its heart.
Design internal streets using a hierarchy that easily distinguishes local streets
from arterial streets, using curvilinear street design for both safety and aesthetic
purposes. Streets, by design, would discourage unwanted through traffic and
enhance the safety of pedestrians.
Restrict local shopping areas to the perimeter or perhaps to the main
entrance of the neighborhood, thus excluding nonlocal traffic destined for these
commercial uses that might intrude on the neighborhood.
Dedicate at least 10 percent of the neighborhood land area to parks and
open space, creating places for play and community interaction"
The neighbourhood unit was embraced for its community idealism, and many of
the public sectors in those countries which were exposed to the theorem have
since adopted its purpose; of protecting and promoting the public health and of
considering the safety and welfare of citizens.
Furthermore, private developers and investors continue to construct and fund
planned communities based upon many of the concepts tenets, due to consumer
demand for the idealistic community intimacy associated with living
with heteronormative homo reciprocans of similar socioeconomic status. These
attractive qualities of the concept of the neighbourhood unit are referred to by
Allaire, "as reflecting a nostalgia for rural living".
13

D.CLEARANCE PERRYContd

The concept of the neighbourhood unit is a notable aspect of designs of the new
town movement . The neighbourhood unit seems to have an uneasy relationship to
the Garden City Movement of the same period consider garden suburbs.
Raymond Unwin an architect working for Ebenezer Howard was an advocate
of the neighbourhood unit.

Diagram of Clearance Perry

Neighborhood unit

14

Ques2. List down the various challanges that a city of world war 2 faced.

The Aftermath of World War II was the beginning of a new era. It was defined
by the decline of the old great powers and the rise of two superpowers the Soviet
Union (USSR) and the United States of America (US) creating a bipolar world.
Temporarily allied during World War II, the US and the USSR became competitors
on the world stage and engaged in what became known as the Cold War, so called
because it never boiled over into open war between the two powers but was
focused on espionage, political subversion and proxy wars.
Western Europe and Japan was rebuilt through the American Marshall Plan
whereas Eastern Europe was in the Soviet sphere of influence and was excluded
from the Marshall Plan. The world was divided into an US-led Western Bloc and a
Soviet-led Eastern Bloc with some nations trying to stay out of the Cold War
through the Non-Aligned Movement.
The Cold War also saw a nuclear arms race between the two superpowers, part of
the reason that the Cold War never became a "hot" war was that the USSR and
the US had nuclear deterrents against each other, leading to a MAD situation.
As a consequence of the war, the Allies created the United Nations, a new global
organization for international cooperation and diplomacy.

The United Nations agreed to outlaw wars of aggression in an attempt to avoid

a third world war. The devastated great powers of Western Europe formed the
European Coal and Steel Community (that later evolved into the European Union)
in an attempt to avoid another war by economic cooperation and a common
market for important natural resources.
The war also increased the rate of decolonization from the weakened great
powers (Japan and Italy lost their colonies directly because they lost the war),
with India and Indonesia becoming independent in the years immediately following
the end of the conflict.

15

Ques2. List down the various challanges that a city of world war 2
faced.....contd...

At the end of the war, millions of people were homeless, the European economy
had collapsed, and much of the European industrial infrastructure had been
destroyed. The Soviet Union, too, had been heavily affected. In response, in
1947, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall devised the "European Recovery
Program", which became known as the Marshall Plan. Under the plan, during 19481952 theUnited States government allocated US$13 billion (US$136 billion in 2012
dollars) for the reconstruction of Western Europe.
After the end of the war, a conference was held in Potsdam, Germany, to set up
peace treaties . The countries that fought with Hitler lost territory and had to
pay reparations to the Allies . Germany and its capital Berlin were divided into
four parts. The zones were to be controlled by Great Britain, the United States,
France and the Soviet Union. The three western Allies and the Soviet
Union disagreed on many things and as time went on Germany was divided into
two separate countries : East Germany , which had a Communist government and
West Germany, which was a democratic state . Berlin was also divided into East
and West Berlin. Austria was also occupied by the four Allies from 1945 to 1955.
One by one, the Russians started to take over countries in eastern Europe
and install Communist governments there. The division of Europe was the
beginning of the Cold War, between the democratic nations of the west and the
Communist countries of eastern Europe. The Iron
Curtain marked the border between these two regions.

German occupation zones after

World War II
16

Ques2. List down the various challenges that a city of world war 2
faced.....contd...

After the war many Nazi leaders were arrested and punished for what they had
done in the war. The most famous war trials were held at Nuremberg, Germany.
Those who were responsible for brutal crimes were sentenced to death.
Many problems arose after the war was over. One of them focused on the city of
Berlin which was deep inside the Russian zone. In June 1948, the Soviet Union
tried to drive the western powers out of Berlin by blocking all routes to the city.
For a whole year the Allies flew in food, fuel and other things that the population
needed to survive . Finally , the Russians gave up and the blockade ended. In 1961
the Russians built a wall around Berlin to stop their citizens from escaping to
the west.
The biggest task was to rebuild Europe, which lay in ruins . In 1948 the United
States set up the Marshall Plan to help Europes economy. 18
nations received 13 billion dollars worth of food machines and other goods .
During World War II , four of the Allied powersthe United States, Great Britain,
the Soviet Union and China agreed to create an organization that should
work for peace . In April 1945 fifty countries signed a charter and gave birth to
the United Nations.

Division of Europe : the free western

countries (blue) and Coimmunist Eastern
Europe (red) - grey countries are neutral

17

Ques2. List down the various challenges that a city of world war 2
faced.....contd...

Although the economies of Europe were already achieving near miracles of

recovery through their own efforts, Marshall Plan funds played a crucial role in
rebuildingbut only in the West and in Yugoslavia, where Josip Broz Tito refused
to permit any Soviet interference. Stalin refused to allow any Soviet- controlled
nation to accept what he regarded as a blatant American attempt to buy Eastern
European friendship.
Thanks to their own superhuman efforts, plus the boost provided by the Marshall
Plan, Western European countries returned to normal much faster than anyone
would have expected on seeing the destruction wrought by the war.
Infrastructure was rebuilt, theatres reopened, and people went back to work.
Many difficulties, including food shortages and rationing, continued to exist for
some time after the war, but governments took what steps they could to bring
their nations back to prosperity.
Behind the Iron Curtain, however, conditions were quite different. Although one
benefit of Communist rule was full employment, jobs were assigned without regard to individual preferences, and wages were low. Housing was overcrowdedan entire family sharing a one-room apartment without a private
kitchen or bathroom was typical in all Soviet cities.

Soviet flag on the roof of the

Reichstag in Berlin

18

Ques2. List down the various challenges that a city of world war 2
faced.....contd...
In addition, there were constant shortages of necessities, and luxury
goods were a thing of the past. Behind the Iron Curtain, there was never any
guarantee that shops would have anything to sell. When people heard that a
market had just received a truckload of, say, fresh eggs, a long line of
customers would appear at that market as if by magic, because it might be
the last chance for eggs for a month or more. People carried shopping bags
called perhaps bags everywhere they went, just in caseperhapsthere
might be something to buy and carry home. Barter, rather than cash
purchases, became common. The state owned and ran all businesses and
industries, so no one had any personal pride or vested interest in doing a
good job or seeing his or her business succeed.

RUINS AFTER
WORLD WAR II

19

Ques3. With respect to Indian context identify any Indian city of your
choice which has gone through transformation after Independence.

Calcutta (now Kolkata) was the capital of India during the British Raj until
December 1911. However, Delhi had served as the political and financial centre of
several empires of ancient India and the Delhi Sultanate, most notably of
the Mughal Empire from 1649 to 1857. During the early 1900s, a proposal was
made to the British administration to shift the capital of the British Indian Empire
(as it was officially called) from Calcutta to Delhi.
Unlike Calcutta, which was located on the eastern coast of India, Delhi was located
in northern India and the Government of British India felt that it would be easier
to administer India from Delhi rather than from Calcutta. Thanks to their own
superhuman efforts, plus the boost provided by the Marshall.
CONVERTING DELHI INTO INDIA'S new imperial capital was far more
challenging, and retrospectively, far less successful. That has a great deal to do
with the fact that the priority of the colonial political class was to provide an
urban form to their imperial vision rather than create a capital around the
historic identity of Delhi and its requirements.
Similarly, as will be soon be evident to the reader, some epochal moments in the
transformation of post independence Delhi, would also be shaped by the motives
of India's political class - in the guise of national needs and, as with the
Commonwealth Games, international aspirations - rather than the character and
the problems of the city.
To begin with, building the new city took some twenty years, and this was in
spite of the fact that the decision to build a 'new Delhi' was taken
simultaneously with the decision to transfer the capital. The royal couple had
laid the foundation stones of that new capital with great ceremony within the
precincts of the durbar camp. Hardinge had also moved quickly.
By the end of March 1912 he had departed from Calcutta with all the
paraphernalia of the viceregal court. Soon, temporary quarters for the government
offices were being built in Delhi and Hardinge was choosing the site where the city
would be located.
20

Ques3. With respect to Indian context identify any Indian city of your
choice which has gone through transformation after Independence.
..contd...
Several locations were considered, and rejected. The durbar area was declared
uninteresting and unhealthy as also liable to flooding. Sabzi Mandi was better,
but acquisition of the factory areas would annoy mill owners. Civil Lines,
similarly, would antagonize the European population, which would have to be
evicted.

For reasons of health, for its undulating land, for the space it provided,
and for its relationship with many historic sites, the Raisina village area and
hill were what appealed to the Viceroy: "From the top of the hill there was a
magnificent view embracing old Delhi and all of the principal monuments
situated outside the town, with the River at a little distance. I said at
once....'This is the site for Government House.' " With the construction of
Government House, though, large segments of the magnificent Raisina hill
would have to be blasted away.
'Independence Day' dawned on 15th August 1947 but the
celebrations started on 14th August. These began in the Assembly hall, when
the Constituent Assembly of India, made up of Indians who were drafting a
constitution for the new nation, held a special session that started at 11 p.m.
The star speaker that night was Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru whose words
imparted a strong sense of occasion. "At the stroke of the midnight hour when the
world sleeps," Nehru announced, "India will awake to life and freedom".
As members of the Assembly listened to the chimes which announced the
midnight hour, one of them blew a conch shell to announce the great event.
Thousands crowded around the entrance to the Council building that night
while shopping centres, public buildings, temples and homes all over Delhi
were decorated with lights and with the national flag.

How did resettlement of refugees proceed? On the one hand, several thousand
refugees 'resettled' themselves in the sense that abandoned Muslim homes
were forcibly occupied by Hindus and one estimate mentions that nearly
44,000 Muslims houses were occupied in old Delhi alone.

21

Ques3. With respect to Indian context identify any Indian city of your
choice which has gone through transformation after Independence.
..contd...
On the other hand, the government sought to rehabilitate Muslims from 'mixed
localities' into 'Muslim areas' or what were called 'Muslim zones'. Muslim localities
(including Sadr Bazar, Pahari Imli and Pul Bangash) were cordoned off and
'abandoned' houses there were kept empty so that Muslims could return to them
or other Muslims could be moved there from 'mixed areas'.

A large number, as many as thirty six, rehabilitation colonies for refugees were
also created as emergency projects. Rajendra Nagar, Patel Nagar, Tilak Nagar
and Lajpat Nagar are among the largest of those colonies, and as the historian
Ramachandra Guha pointed out to me, "they are named after Congress Hindus
who were not as pro-Muslim as Gandhi and Nehru were thought to be!
Meher Chand Khanna, then Minister for Rehabilitation, apparently named several
government colonies on the basis of who the occupants were. Sewa Nagar was
so named because it was where peons, daftaris etc. lived while the joint
secretaries and directors were housed in Maan Nagar and Shan Nagar.
Apparently, it was after Nehru made his annoyance clear that the names of Shan
Nagar and Maan Nagar were changed to Bharati Nagar and Rabindra Nagar .
Occupationally, since most refugees in Delhi came from the urban areas of
West Pakistan, they moved towards trade and commerce. In many parts of
Delhi, shops and businesses were taken over by such refugees. About 90% of
the shops in Chandni Chowk's Cloth Market, for example, originally belonged
to the old residents of Delhi but over time Punjabi refugees took over the bulk
of the business, with a mere 10% eventually remaining in the control of the old
merchants.
The retail and general merchandise shops under the incredibly
hardworking and pushy Punjabi refugees, in fact, became the primary reason
why Delhi, post-independence, became a big retail market city.

22

Ques3. With respect to Indian context identify any Indian city of your
choice which has gone through transformation after Independence.
..contd...
While the dynamism and drive with which refugees rebuilt their lives and the
alacrity with which the government rehabilitated them, make for a deeply
moving story, it also hastened haphazard urban growth. By the 1950s, this
alarmed many in the city - among them Prime Minister Nehru. Unlike recent
Prime Ministers, Nehru took a keen interest in Delhi.
His Selected Works contain all kinds of nuggets that highlight this - from deciding
that government offices and official buildings should be placed on both sides of the
Vista (now Rajpath) to the way in which the National Museum jutted out of line
with the other buildings ("I hope no other building would be constructed which
encoraches on the open space of the Vista").
That a security blanket ought to be created around prized heritage buildings can
also be traced back to the ideas of Nehru who in 1955 complained to the Union
Minister of Education that India's old and historical places were getting spoilt by
new buildings being put around them. In order to protect them from such
intrusion, Nehru suggested that the government can "lay down that within a
certain area no building should be put up without permission".
An example of Nehru's proactive approach on this protective barrier is the
enclosure encircling the tomb of Abdur Rahim Kahn-i-Khana in Delhi. This was
done after Nehru had visited it and had suggested that the adjacent grounds be
converted into a small garden or park because, as he put it, he "did not want what
was called by the uncouth name of 'Nizamuddin Extension East' " to extend into
the area around the tomb.
There are extensive comments on the ways in which Delhi's 'fair' face was
being blemished by unplanned growth as well. As Nehru put it, "Delhi will be
spoilt completely if there is no overall planning of the city and we do not stop
odd structures going up without paying attention to larger considerations of
planning, health, sanitation, keeping of open places and the future growth of
the city.
Profiteering and speculation around land in Delhi during the 1950s
was rife, involving all kinds of people, including senior government officials.
Nehru's concern about such speculation is captured in this letter which he
wrote on 26th July 1956 to Swaran Singh, then Minister of Works, Housing
and Supply.

23

Ques3. With respect to Indian context identify any Indian city of your
choice which has gone through transformation after Independence.
..contd...
By 1956, Nehru had decided that there would be a central authority to control
and regulate the expansion of Delhi and that this authority would draw up a
detailed plan for this purpose.47 In 1957, institutions which Dilliwallas today
associate with the planning, upkeep and problems of their city were created.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the Delhi Development
Authority (DDA) were set up that year, with the DDA's objective being "to
promote and secure the development of Delhi according to Plan.
" Work on the Master Plan for Delhi began even before this and was prepared by a
team of Indian planners, most of whom were educated in the U.S., and assisted by
consultants of the Ford Foundation.
The senior architect and town planner, Kuldip Singh, remembers interning in
the summer of 1955 with the Town Planning Organization, the institutional
umbrella under which the Indian planners who prepared the plan, worked. I
sought out Kuldip Singh, now 76 years old, to speak about his perspective on
the Master Plan, whose methodology and space standards later became bench
marks for planning cities all over India. Having spent more than half a century
studying and designing buildings in India, his description of the postindependence
political leaders who have sought to protect the character of Delhi is
straightforward and blunt.
Three Prime Ministers of India took a keen interest in the planning of Delhi. Nehru
would always be remembered, he says, for initiating the Master Plan of Delhi; Indira
Gandhi for the establishment of key institutions that went on to play an important
role in servicing and regulating the city - Housing Urban Development
Corporation (HUDCO) in 1970 for dealing with problems of housing for the
economically weaker sections as also the Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC) in
1974 for regulating the aesthetic and architectural aspects of the city 49 - and for
intervening to replan the Connaught Place extension of New Delhi in 1972; and
Rajiv Gandhi for ensuring that the Delhi Metropolitan Rail Corporation's (DMRC)
rails remained underground across Lutyens' Delhi. Kuldip Singh remembers a
meeting of architects and urban planners chaired by Rajiv Gandhi where the
DUAC's Perspective Plan 2000 for Delhi was being discussed, in which he shot
down in no uncertain terms a DDA- inspired plan for an elevated rail track across
Lutyens' Delhi.
24

Ques3. With respect to Indian context identify any Indian city of your
choice which has gone through transformation after Independence.
..contd...
The Nehru-driven Master Plan aimed at balanced and integrated development
to take care of the growth of Delhi till 1981 - thus, it was also a long range
plan. It functionally zoned land uses, with the city being divided into a number
of planning divisions, each of these being visualized as self-contained in the
matter of employment, residential places, recreational areas, shopping and
other requirements.50 Commercial activity was decentralized, and
consequently, various district shopping centres were proposed so as to be within
easy reach of each residential pocket.
These were to be composite centres with shopping, business, commercial and
professional offices, local government offices, cinemas, restaurants and other places
of entertainment. Space came to be provided for the expanding population of the
University of Delhi with sites for twenty new colleges being earmarked in the plan
and another 2,900 acres for research institutions.
For the first time, thanks to the Master Plan, large open areas came to be
demarcated around monuments so that they could be better preserved. This
was done by developing huge 'greens' around historical monuments including
250 acres around Hauz Khas, 325 hectares in Tughlakabad, 175 hectares in
Jahanpanah, 75 hectares in Chirag Delhi and 100 hectares Siri Fort.52 Again,
it was this Master Plan which ensured that the Ram Lila grounds which
stretched from Delhi Gate to Ajmere Gate would not be built up and would
remain a major lung for the Old City.53 In fact, Delhi's urbanisable land itself,
as visualized till 1981, was to be surrounded by a green belt of agricultural
land to limit the city's physical growth and to prevent it merging with the cities
nearby.
The government, along with the plan, also set in place what was arguably the
largest land nationalization in Indian urban history, where the DDA was
empowered to acquire a projected area of 35,000 acres for housing through the
Land Acquisition Act. This land would be sold by the DDA after comprehensive
planning, and the surplus ploughed into public infrastructure.

25

Ques3. With respect to Indian context identify any Indian city of your
choice which has gone through transformation after Independence.
..contd...
Singh is also quick to point out the deficiencies of that plan. A large part of
Delhi continued to grow unplanned, notwithstanding all the safeguards, with
lakhs of urban working poor living in illegal squatter colonies in the city.
The planning process continues in much the same way, in the sense that
subsequent Master Plans too have failed to provide adequate authorized
housing for millions of Delhi's citizens, even as rich illegal colonies like Sainik
farms are on the brink of being granted a legal status. A senior official of the
Urban Development Ministry of the Government of India informed me that
today in Delhi, three to four million people live lived in unauthorized colonies,
about the same number in slums, some one million in recently created
'resettlement' colonies where no planning regulations seem to have been
followed, and 2 million or so in rural and urban villages which, by law, are
exempt from the planning process.
Shahjahanabad, as before, has remained ignored in the planning process and
no worthwhile improvement has occurred here after the enforcement of the
Master Plan. On the contrary, in the 1960s, congestion only increased with the
average gross residential density per acre increasing from 443 in 1961 to 487
in 1971. Similar was the condition of its industrial units. The average space
occupied by an industrial worker in Shahjahanabad was only 140 sq ft as
against the corresponding figure of 348 sq ft in Okhla and 285 sq ft in the
Najafgarh Road Industrial Area. The problems of old Delhi are writ large across
the 1961 Master Plan when it notes "almost an absence of community facilities
and only sub-standard services there" or when it speaks about the necessity of
decogensting the Old City.
However, the modes through which there would be a thinning of the population in
the Old City through the redevelopment of other areas were not pursued as, for
instance, the scheme to house the population from the proposed redevelopment
of the Old City, in the Mata Sundari area which is today dotted with institutional
complexes, not residential pockets. Several schemes since the 1970s have been
suggested for rebuilding the walled city such as proposals for relocating part of its
bloated commercial component, pedestrianizing Chandni Chowk and construction
of a road linking Jama Masjid with Parliament Street (thus, translating, the visual
gesture that in Lutyens' plan, linked the Council House and Jama Masjid).
26
None of these schemes have been operationalized.

Ques3. With respect to Indian context identify any Indian city of your
choice which has gone through transformation after Independence.
..contd...
From 2006 till 2009 this Advisory Committee in Delhi alone allowed constructions
within the prohibited zone of some 70 odd protected historical monuments
ranging from Safdarjung's Tomb and Humayun's Tomb to the Asokan rock edict in
Srinivaspuri and Jantar Mantar near Connaught Place. Among the most glaring such
permissions was that granted for the construction of the elevated road on
Barapullah Nullah which connects the Commonwealth Games Village with the
Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium This runs just five metres from the early seventeenth
century Bara Pulah bridge and within 105 metres from Abdul Rahim Khan-iKhana's tomb (also built in the seventeenth century).
K.T. Ravindran, a senior urban planner and presently Chairman of DUAC, had
pointed out to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) that it was too close to the
Bara Pulah bridge, and would endanger it and had advised the government to
consider another route. The ASI not only ignored the suggestion, it gave the green
signal to an elevated road which, for the two-week Commonwealth jamboree,
permanently compromised a nearly 400-year-old bridge.
And so, as 2011 begins, will Delhi will continue to experience the open spaces
around the city's monuments and the planned development that has famously
enhanced the visual appeal of large parts of their city? Or will they primarily
experience their city in the form of elevated roads and railway tracks outside
their homes? Without political will intervening to restore sanity to planning in
India's political capital, Kuldip Singh's words, may well turn out to be true:
"Known as a 'City of Monuments', Delhi in future could well be called the city of
'Serpentine Concrete.' "

27

Bibliography
1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighbourhood_unit

2.

http://www.cphabaltimore.org/2012/05/frederick-law-olmsteaddocumentary-screening-in-patterson-park/

3.

http://www.english-online.at/history/world-war-2/results-and-aftermathof-world-war-ii.htm

4.

https://www.google.co.in/search?noj=1&biw=1366&bih=600&q=challanges%20
of%20germany%20after%20world%20war%202&um=1&ie=UTF8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=gIJmUuu0A4iKrgfNmoCQ
Aw

5.

http://www.yale.net/agrarianstudies/colloqpapers/20lahiri.pdf

6.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Delhi

28