The United Nations has designated the first Monday of October every year as World Habitat Day since 1986. This year, the UN has chosen the day’s theme Public Spaces for All. The day will raise awareness about the need for well designed and managed public spaces and streets. This will enhance community cohesion and safety for all citizens through activity and events held in public spaces and streets.
Sustainable Development Goals provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities. It is in this regard that UN-Habitat together with the main partner for World Habitat Day 2015, UN Women, are honoured to celebrate and launch this theme during October 2015.
A public space is a social space that is generally open and accessible to all citizens. Roads (including the pavement), sidewalks, markets, playgrounds, public squares and parks are typically considered public space. To create inclusive cities that respect the rights of everyone, we need to create conditions and physical environments where women, men, girls and boys can live, work, go to school, move around, and socialise without fear of harm. We also need to change attitudes and policies that perpetuate violence against women. This is essential for economic and social development and for meeting the Millennium Development Goal commitments entered into by the international community in 2000.
The public open space is a significant contributor to urban sustainability at both neighbourhood and city scales. It provides environmental, health, social services and economic benefits. Public spaces reduce stress and provide peacefulness. Its social service includes social interaction among neighbours and the economic benefit is clean air for good health. However, in the present context the idea of public space has been modified, as the notion of neighbourhood has changed gradually with urbanization. The present neighbourhoods display a very different environment than traditional neighbourhoods both physically and socially.
The nieghbourhood unit concept developed by CA Perry aimed at creating a sense of belonging among local residents. He defined a neighourhood unit with an elementary school, which is at a walkable distance for the children of that particular neighbourhood. Adjacent to the school there is a park for both children and residents of the neighbourhood to relax and socialize in their leisure time. Developed as a low density dwelling unit with a population of 10 families per acre, the neighbourhood unit would occupy around 160 acres and has a shape which would render it necessary for any child to walk a distance of not more than one-quarter mile to school. About 10 per cent of the area would be allocated to recreation, and thorough traffic arteries would be confined to the surrounding streets, internal streets being limited to service access for residents of the neighbourhood. The unit would be served by shopping facilities, churches, and a library and a community center. Those sections or neighbourhoods have some particular physical or social characteristics that distinguish them from the rest of the settlement. The clustering of these neighbourhoods has formed towns and cities.
Bhubaneswar was originally planned on neighbourhood concept. There are more public spaces in Koenigsberger’s neighbourhood plan for children and adults for different recreation activities. The city transformed in a variety of ways. The public spaces have declined. Now, neighbourhood unit concept has evolved in a variety of ways with the impact of socio-economic processes as well as technological advancements. The concept of neighbourhood has been transformed with the transformation of cities. Apartment typology and gated communities are now regarded as new types of neighbourhoods. Commercial areas and public spaces are designed simultaneously. But these are not sufficient for the present population. In Bhubaneswar, people who witnessed those years in early 1950s, describe the relationship within nieghbourhood with social bonding and proximity. They gather in different public spaces and share their feelings and develop a social relationship with each other. Public spaces prove to be a vital component of the neighbourhood for the establishment of the sense of place and belonging. The public space is also used for different functions and festivals. A number of events that could attract children and families are performed in the festival. This gives an opportunity to escape from daily routines and allow socialising with other people. The festival is an opportunity for them to know and interact with the neighbours. In addition to this, people go to the public space for walking in the morning and evening. This contributes to the neighborhood image, community pride and identity of people and it gives a symbolic value to the city neighbourhood.
In Bhubaneswar each neighbourhood covers an area of 150 to 160 acres and comprises about 850 families. In each neighbourhood there are schools, shopping centres, open field and recreation ground and several open spaces evenly distributed, with houses around them to form courts, instead of one central large open space. This pattern exists even today in most of the core areas of the city. Most of the neighbourhoods in the city are compact with low-rise housing and small open spaces left apart for parks and playgrounds. These spaces are surrounded by a cluster of dwelling units. There are also organised recreational parks and playgrounds in the city.
Post independence Neighbourhood (1950) developed on Government land has more public spaces than areas developed on private land. In planned residential neighbourhoods under Government schemes, there is allocation of land for recreational use whereas, sufficient space for recreation is not available in private ownership land. Some of the new residential areas developed after 1970 do not have the required provisions of public spaces like parks and playgrounds.
According to the Urban Development Plan Formulation and Implementation (UDPFI) guidelines, the overall city level open space requirement is 10-12 m² per person. Hence the open space requirement in the city as per 2011 population status is more than 800 hectares (ha). However, the existing facility of parks in the city is about 154 ha.
As per the Town and Country Planning Organisation (TCPO) guidelines, 1.25 acres of parks as recreation space should be provided per 1,000 population in the town level, and 1 acre per 1,000 population in the neighbourhood level. But the record on the city level open space shows a deficit in the provision of recreational open space. There is an additional requirement of 3,000 ha for parks and playgrounds in the BDPA region projected for the year 2030. This requirement is to cater to the future population projected for the year 2030. There is a need for renovation of the existing neighbourhoods with more public open spaces. Therefore, the role of public space has to be strengthened through planning, especially in areas designed after 1990 in Bhubaneswar.
The city should offer different types of public places throughout. There will be no congestion, pollution and traffic injuries. If it is difficult to design a large public space, smaller plazas may be designed. People can simply walk from their homes to the public space. This will reduce traffic and pollution. Besides, they enjoy the health benefits of physical activity.
(Dr Praharaj works in the Department of Architecture, College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar)