The top tier cities in India today are facing the challenges of rapid urbanisation. Quality of life is being compromised significantly due to severe traffic congestion, increased travel time and increasing air pollution levels. Cities like Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi are witnessing declining sales of residential units as people are hesitating to invest in suburbs or peripheral locations to avoid long travel time, traffic etc.
A ‘30 minute’s neighbourhood’ concept promotes ‘local living’ wherein people are able to undertake most activities needed for a fulfilling life within a 30 minutes travel time from where they live. A ‘30 minute neighbourhood’ refers to a larger area than a neighbourhood encompassing a number of communities and neighbourhoods. It promotes a sustainable, less congested city with enhanced social inclusion, personal wellbeing, mental and physical health and social equity. However, it requires activity wise spatial planning, integrated land use zoning with emphasis on ‘30 minute neighbourhood’ creation, fast and efficient local public transport system, adequate and safe accessibility to each activity centres with emphasis on providing opportunities to walk and cycle.
In India, where major cities have historic heritage, change in spatial planning of activities in a neighbourhood or change in land use zoning can be challenging, especially for older localities of a city. However, following are a few measures which can be taken within the existing framework through planning-designing, policy making.
Policy Making: Policies towards creating ‘30 minute neighbourhood’ needs to be taken at various levels of federal government keeping in mind both bottom-up (neighbourhood) and top-down (regional) approach. Centre, state and local-city authorities need to align themselves and bring policies towards changing diversity in land use and spatial planning of city neighbourhoods and providing efficient local transport system with rapid mass transit systems from neighbourhoods to city centres. Incorporating ‘30 minute neighbourhood’ concept in the ‘Smart Cities Mission’ and using ‘30 minute neighbourhood’ as a metric in measuring and benchmarking cities’ development can be a major step towards this.
Designing and Planning: Policies to be rolled by the government authorities towards creating ‘30 minute neighbourhood’ need to be based on scientific estimation/evaluation and simulation keeping in mind the target/design density of the neighbourhood, target/design diversification of land use and spatial planning and transit distances with emphasis on providing opportunities for walking and cycling. Linking city development plan with present and future jobs and services density maps could provide a scientific methodology for designing and planning. For example it may prove beneficial to allow higher FAR and or provide other incentives for developing group housing projects near Devanahalli, Bangalore which has huge jobs growth planned on the back drop of development of Aerospace, Hardware and IT parks, as well as the proposed Airport City near the Kempegowda International Airport.
Providing and Implementing: Successful implementation of policies, schemes on a mission mode through the private participation is key to its success. Time-bound and performance based model is the way ahead. Social Cost Benefit Analysis (SCBA) should be done for all infrastructure investments clearly stating the beneficiary population and the degree of improvement in accessibility. This key metric should be used for prioritising infrastructure investments. High priority infrastructure investments should be completed on mission mode.
Implementing measures that create such self-sustaining neighbourhoods/ localities should be on the top priority for the development planning authorities in cities like Bangalore. Emerging cities like Pune could learn from the problems of metro cities and incorporate ‘30 minute neighbourhood’ into its DNA of development which would not only save millions worth of money and time of city dwellers but also help create a healthy and happier city.