City Planners' new designs include setting up schools, markets, and commercial places (offices) in different areas of the city. Do you think it will help the city dwellers?
The
contemporary urban designs favour creating separate locations and corners for educational,
commercial and shopping activities. This is perceived to be laden with certain
benefits, but this also has a potential to make the life of urbanites harder.
To start with, it is commonly assumed that such an urban setting would offer a much required relief to the residents, in the form of freedom from traffic congestion that haunts the residential areas. Rising density of vehicular traffic in various parts of cities, especially where people dwell, has made things difficult for the locals, owing to immense noise pollution and safety concerns. Implementing such bifurcation would make the surroundings peaceful and safe for all, particularly for women, elderly and children.
Similarly,
the space created by shifting out of other than housing units, to other
locations could be used to build parks and green buffers, affording a healthy
environment and a chance to engage in leisure activities to the dwellers of the
area as has been observed in cities like Chandigarh where this
policy has been applied partially.
Nevertheless, the presupposition lacks substance and is far from reality. Such a move will do little good, but make life miserable for urban dwellers, who will have to struggle humongously to fulfill their obligations and needs since they will have to travel over long distances to work, shop, gain education or drop their children to the schools, adding to their woes as they are already overwhelmingly engaged with their work. This additional travelling will also need them to spend extra time traversing through the cities.
In hindsight, despite sounding tempting, this proposal is plagued with several predictable and unforeseen complications that could make city life more chaotic than turning it into an epitome of convenience; thus, it is best avoided.
