Paper tries to lay down and define agenda for planning and designing harmonious and smart cities in order to make cities more livable and sustainable

1. Abstract
Designing Harmonious and Smart Cities
*Ar Jit Kumar Gupta
Cities have been integral part of human history, marked by growth, decline and
decay. Cities are the most complex creation of humanity, distinguished by
agglomeration and concentration of human beings and activities, but full of
dichotomy and contradictions. Cities are entities which represent order and
chaos. They are places where poverty and prosperity rub shoulders and where
beauty and ugliness dot the urban canvas. They represent both vices and virtues
with best and worst of humanity. Cities are places where planned and
unplanned development competes and where skyscrapers and slums/shanties
rub shoulders. Cities are known to be creators of wealth and generators of
waste. Despite being main sourceof global economic growth and productivity,
cities have also emerged as breeding grounds of poverty, exclusion, pollution
and environmental degradation.
Considering the prevailing contradictions , critical role and importance of cities
in leveraging economy, generating large scale employment, providing state of
art infrastructures, quality of life etc, it becomes important that cities are made
more productive, effective, efficient, humane, sustainable, inclusive, equitable
and devoid of contradictions.
In search for appropriate solutions, it has been globally and locally
demonstrated that cities can be made, both harmonious and smart, by adopting
smart planning, innovative ideas, using out of box approaches, ensuring total
commitment, using state of art solutions, adopting innovative technologies ,
ensuring government support, involving communities and providing dynamic
leadership.
Tianjin Eco –city, a flagship
government to government project
between China and Singapore, has
shown how cities can be made
harmoniouswith people,
environment and economy. City of
0.35 million has clearly demonstrated
Tianjin City Plan

2. that by using state of art planning and development, even a derelict site
largely comprising of salt pans , barren land and polluted water bodies including
2.6 square kilometres waste water pond, can be converted into one of the best
liveable and eco- friendlycity. Tianjin has been planned to be a compactcity
with mixed land use based on the principle of transit oriented development.
With optimum living and working relationship, city transport system is
exclusively based on pedestrianization, cycling and mass transportation.
Extensive Green and Blue network, involving vegetation and water, has been
leveraged to promote high order of living and working environment. With
planning based on a network of self-contained and self-sufficient eco-cells,
eco-neighbourhoods and eco-districts and development guided by a system of
well defined indicators ,city is fast emerging as a role model of smart city with
90% trips made as green trips, 60% of waste recycled, 100% barrier free access
provided, 20% energy used generated from renewable resources, 59% water
supplied from non-traditional sources involving desalination and recycling,
using low energy lights, making all buildings green, daily per capita water
supply not exceeding 120 litres, assured green spaces @12 sqmper personwith
high proportionof technical manpower to promote R&D.
City of Copenhagen, with substantial investment made in the Green
Infrastructure, is ranked as the most sustainable city in Europe with high
degree of energy efficiency; promoting centralised heating using waste energy
used from electricity generation; transport network planned to ensure all
resident live within walkingdistance not exceeding 400 metres; laying down a
388 kms dedicated cycling network to ensure 50% daily trips are made by
bicycles; optimum use of available water by bringing leakage/ wastage at 5%
( as against prevailing 20% ); separating organic/inorganic waste and producing
bio-gas and bio- ethanol for centralised heating ; promoting carbon neutral
neighbourhoods with energy efficient residential and commercial buildings,
creating sustainable energy network and low emission transport systems.
Chengdu (China) is building a city for 80,000,
residents providing living and working within
half mile square with everything accessible
within 15 minutes walk, cutting down landfill
by 89%, reducing waste water by 58% and
energy use by 48% compared to similar sized
Chinese cities with operational efficiency
largely facilitated by city design. Musdar (Abu
Musdar City Plan

3. Dhabi) is being developed as zero energy, zero waste, zero car and zero
carboneco-city with focus on using green energy, promoting green
transportation , ensuring total recycling of waste, converting waste into wealth,
designing green and energy positive buildings.
City of Singapore has promoted high
degree of road efficiency, reduced road
congestion, promoted car pooling and
public transport besides generating
resources for city infrastructure by using
state of art hi-tech conceptof Road
Pricing. Istanbulused the mechanism of
42 kms dedicated road lanes for the new
Bus Rapid TransportSystem, to promote
public transport, tackle the problem of traffic congestion and air pollution while
providing most efficient service to 6,20,000 passengers on daily basis. Delhi,
through its green metro, achieved the milestone of transporting 2.8 million
people persons on a single day with the target of 6 million, when all the four
phases will be operational. Metro has not only reduced road congestion , air
pollution and carbon contents, besides increasing road efficiency but has also
made the mega city much cleaner and
greener. Ahmadabad’s state of art BRTS has
reinvented and revolutionized the city road
traffic whereas local train network and
mono-rail system in Mumbai has emerged as
the lifeline of the mega city to keep it
moving.
Preserving precious and valuable land
resource has been ably demonstrated by
making cities more compact through creating high density communities by
splitting large land parcels and creating studio buildings on rooftops in New
York ; converting under- utilised plots to promote high density development
by Singapore; bringing all vacant plots under development to create more
built spaceby city of Rio- de- Janeiro.
High degree of energy efficiency achieved by city of Washington DC by
implementing building code requiring all public buildings to conform to LEED
certification; transforming 80 year old EmpireState Building New York
Singapore Road Pricing
Delhi Metro

4. building into a land mark green construction by
Retrofitting and placing it among top 25% green
commercial buildings of USA with retrofitting
resulting in reduced energy consumption by 38% ,
electric load by 3.5 MW and greenhouse gas
emission by 1,00,000 metric tonnes over a period of
15 years with payback period of 3.5 years for the $
13.5 million invested in retrofitting.
Making planning process inclusive, flexibleand
innovative, involving large number of professionals
and experts, was used successfully by the city of
San-Francisco to promote city vision of protecting,
preserving, promoting and enhancing city’s
economy, sustainability, aesthetic and culture. Regional Planningapproachhas
been leveraged by China’s Pearl River Delta Region and city state of Berlin to
promote growth of both city and region. National Capital Region concepthas
been used to rationalise and decentralise the growth and development of Delhi
in India.
Critical problem of solid waste management has been effectively solved by city
of Zurich by imposing cost on residents based on the volume of waste
generated; with city of Seattle setting a goal of zero wasteto landfills and San
Francisco used regulations to ensure composting leftover food by residents with
construction companies required to recycle / reuse at least 65% of waste at
building site .
Objective of creating adequate affordablehousing stock, to minimise slums
and meet the needs of shelter for the poor, has been achieved by city of Hong
Kong by imposing a precondition to create affordable housing before
permitting developers to build commercial properties ; providing subsidized
housing to 80% residents by Singapore government ; involving privatesector
on partnership basis to transform 2500 distressed public housing into thriving ,
mixed- income communities with more than 50,000 units by city of
San- Francisco and creating affordable housing as integral part of legal
framework ofresidential development by the private developers in the states of
Punjab and Haryana. Public- private partnership has been leveraged to develop
qualityinfrastructureand to make cities smarter by city of Denver (USA) by
Empire State Building

5. creating 196 kms of railway line for promoting transportation and by city of
Vancouver to develop state of art transportation infrastructure in the city.
Smart cities are supposedto be technology driven, accordingly using innovative
technologies to promote operational efficiency ,economy, service delivery and
urban governance have been considered vital. Dimming/ switching street
lights automatically by using real time data to save 30% on energy cost; using
cameras at cross-sections to optimise traffic lights, cut travel times while
reducing air pollution and costof tackling it ; using One Map, an online portal,
enabling government, business, organisations and residents to access geo-
spatial data ; using digitalapplicationsto register concernabout streets that
require cleaning and potholes that need repair ; posting information online about
pending changes to land use plan; sharing data suggesting bestbus route for
any journey in the city ; engaging citizensas active partners in planning and
development process;providing drivers with real- time traffic information to
avoid congested roads and city authorities to track traffic volumes and plan
for new roads; creating world’s first solar powered bikelane to make cycle
even greener, have been effectively used by cities of Boston, Berlin, California,
London, and Bucheon in South Korea to make them smarter and harmonious.
Involving qualityleadership to create highest level of urban governance, put
city growth on a new pedestal and fast trajectory and to make them smart and
harmonious has been ably demonstrated by Mayors of Rio-de- Janeiro , Bagota,
Toledo, London , San Francisco ,New York and Washington DC with their
vision, commitment and innovations. Considering the global and local success
stories, paper objectively and critically looks at the processes and principles
based on which city planning, growth , development, ,management and
governance in India is being dictated besides strategies and options which need
to be adopted to make the growth rational , equitable, smarter and harmonious
to usher a new era of Indian urbanisation.
Key Words: Compactcities, Sustainabletransportation, Technology, Green
buildings
Author:
*Ar. Jit Kumar Gupta
Ex- Director ,College of Architecture, IET Bhaddal &
Chief Town Planner ,Sahara Prime City Limited,
Area Office - Chandigarh
#344, Sec. 40-A, Chandigarh- 160036
Email : jit.kumar1944@gmail.com