CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW
3.3. Precedence and Literature Review
3.3.2. International Experience of a Developing Country
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3.3.2. International Experience of a Developing Country
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Commuting: this principle promotes walkability as a tool for convenience by ensuring that commuters travel a distance of no more than a 10-minute radius from home to places of employment;
Connectivity: This design principle promotes the design of a solid road network that is characterised by boulevards and alleys that assist in permeability and traffic calming;
Mixed use and diversity: The design element informs the need to create mixed spaces of commerce and residential units in neighbourhoods. This creates convenience and promotes walkability to various land uses;
Mixed Housing: The creation of mixed housing units and facilities in areas of varying proximity to the central CBD area and pricing to promote integrated developments;
Quality Architecture and Urban design: This design element promotes the development of areas of prestige and unique comfort. This element supports the need to create unique urban spaces that are relevant to the preferences of those within them;
Traditional Neighbour- Hood Structuring: This element speaks to the design of more open spaced city centres that allow for the accommodation of a range of uses and densities into urban areas;
Planned Increased Density: This element promotes the progressive densification of the city centre through a method of transect planning that ensures that the population decreases as it moves out of the city. This promotes city centres that are in close proximity to its population thus allowing convenience and avoiding the isolation of a part of the city due to distances from the centre;
Smarter Transport: The element of transit orientated developments encourages the use of communal transportation modes to address the issue of high congestion levels in India;
Sustainability: New Urbanism seeks to promote environmentally friendly methods of development that enable the same urban spaces to be utilised efficiently by the next generations. This element was used to design the eco-city;
Quality of Life: The eco-city ultimately aims to inherit the principle of creating a better quality of living for those within it through these 8 principles.
(Nogja, n.d)
With the concept of New Urbanism as a guideline, Lavasa enabled its commuter’s convenience and close proximity to the city centre by densifying areas closer to the city centre to decrease density numbers as the city grew outward. The city was built around the concept of ‘Live, Work, Learn, Play’
which is a phrase used to explain the convenience and enabling environment created by New Urbanism (Nogja, n.d). Mycity Technology (2013) further describes livable cities as cities that are developed with the correct technological tools and strategies to improve the urban environment. In addition to that, the
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writer also identifies strategies that are useful in addressing issues around rapid urbanization in countries like India (Mycity Technology, 2013). These include strategies to:
Revitalize and redevelop existing megacities;
Manage and regulate neighbouring townships developed on the outskirts of the city;
Improve the quality and standard of living in rural areas. This reduces the rural to urban migration rate; and
Build smaller secondary cities that relieve pressures for services, amenities and opportunity on the main city centre.
(Mycity Technology, 2013)
These strategies are believed to ensure and allow livable environments, efficient economic drivers and effective government correspondence as opposed to attempting to achieve the same outcomes on mega scales (Mycity Technology, 2013). These strategies ultimately support the concept of Polycentric or multi-nuclei developments as a conducive development tool for fast pace urbanizing regions like India.
Key Lessons of New Urbanism to the South African context
The case of India is relevant to the South African context given that both countries are currently at their developing stages and experiencing great levels of urbanization and rural to urban migration (Tiwari et al, 2015). The historical background of both countries speaks of a colonial past with residual spatial imbalances and disparities because of the segregative nature of the model (Ofosu-Kwakye, 2009). The colonial model failed to account for the entire populous of both countries, thus acquiring an unpredictable growth pace over the years (Tiwari et al, 2015). New urbanism as a development concept used in Lavasa (India), is very much relevant to the Umhlanga Ridge (Durban) area- since both cities are secondary cities to the capital cities New Delhi and the Durban CBD. According to a study by Ofosu-Kwakye (2009), the Umhlanga Ridge Town Centre was created under the charter of New Urbanism. This charter promoted the creation of an area where commuters could live, work and play through various fetaures including the creation of spaces that are well maintained, mixed use, accessible and pedestrian friendly. These features contributed to the responsiveness of the area to the society living within it (Ofosu-Kwakye, 2009). Although the rate of urban growth and population in India is at a faster and wider pace than South Africa, it is understood that South African cities and the development patterns visible herewith follow similar trends as those in India. Lessons can be leant with regards to ensuring balanced development patterns in all directions of the main city centre.