Cities are being named and renamed, for demanding/commanding new culture, pattern of growth for overcoming prevailing urban ills. Their journey includes moving from planned cities, to becoming garden cities, linear cities, vertical cities, smart cities, compact cities to smart cities. Cities, as integral part of human history and as most complex creation of humanity, are always evolving and devolving, on the move and never finite. Cities distinguished by agglomeration/ concentration of human beings/activities, remain embodiment of dichotomy and contradictions. Cities represent disorder and chaos; where poverty/prosperity rub shoulders; where beauty/ugliness dot the urban canvas; where planned / unplanned development competes and where skyscrapers/slums/shanties rub shoulders. Known as creators of wealth and generators of waste, promoter of global economic growth and productivity, cities have also emerged as breeding grounds of poverty, exclusion, pollution and environmental degradation. Considering the prevailing contradictions, and critical role/importance; cities need to be made Humane and harmonious. Processes and principles that could be leverage for making cities harmonious need to include identifying issues and roadblocks largely responsible for making urban growth both unplanned, haphazard, irrational and sub-standard besides evolving strategies and options for making the urban growth rational for ushering a new ersa of Harmonious urbanization in India

1. Designing Harmonious and Smart Cities
*Ar Jit Kumar Gupta
Introduction
Cities have been integral part of human history, marked by origin, 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 source of 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, ensuring quality of life, it becomes important that cities
are made more livable, 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. Globally, there exist numerous
problems where cities have tried to make them better places to live and work. Few
of these global examples demonstrated and good practices adopted by cities have
been showcased in the text detailed below.

2. Tianjin City
Tianjin Eco –city, a flagship government to government project between China
and Singapore, has shown how cities can be made harmonious with people,
environment and economy. City of 0.35 million has clearly demonstrated 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 kilometers
of waste water pond, can be converted into one of the best livable and eco- friendly
city. Tianjin has been planned to be a compact city, using option of mixed land use
and based on the principle of transit-oriented development (TOD). 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.
Tianjin City -Master Plan
With planning based on a network of self-contained and self-sufficient eco-
cells, eco-neighborhoods, 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

3. 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 liters, assured green spaces @12 sqm per person with high
proportions of technical manpower to promote R&D.
City of Copenhagen
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 centralized heating using waste energy used from electricity
generation; transport network planned to ensure all resident live within walking
distance not exceeding 400 meters; 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 sheathing ;
promoting carbon neutral neighborhoods with energy efficient residential and
commercial buildings, creating sustainable energy network and low emission
transport systems.

4. Chengdu- China
Chengdu (China) is building a city for
80,000, residents providing living and
working within half mile square with
everything accessible within 15 minute’s
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
Masdar City -- Dubai
Masdar (Abu Masdar City Plan Dubai) is being developed as zero energy, zero
waste, zero car and zero-carbon eco-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 and fecilitating
travel by ipods.
Abu Masdar City Master Plan Dubai

5. Cities of Singapore and Istanbul
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 concept of Road
Pricing. Istanbul used the mechanism of 42 kms dedicated road lanes for the new
Bus Rapid Transport System, to promote public transport, to tackle the problem
of traffic congestion and air pollution while providing most efficient service to
6,20,000 passengers on daily basis.
Delhi
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 travelling time by 32 minutes of
travel time/ road congestion, air pollution and carbon contents, besides increasing
road efficiency but has also made the mega city much cleaner and greener.

6. Ahmedabad, Mumbai, New York
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 space by city of Rio- de- Janeiro.
Washington and New York
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 Empire State
Building New York Singapore Road Pricing Delhi
Metro building into a land mark green construction
by Retrofitting and placing it among top 25% green
com mercial 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.

7. City of San- Francisco
Making planning process inclusive, flexible and 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 Planning approach has
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- Delhi
National Capital Region concept has been used to rationalize and decentralize
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 c ity of Seattle setting a
goal of zero waste to 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.

8. City of Hong-Kong
Objective of creating adequate affordable housing stock, to minimize 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 private sector 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 of residential development
by the private developers in the states of Punjab and Haryana. Public- private
partnership has been leveraged to develop quality infrastructure and to make cities
smarter by city of Denver (USA) by creating 196 kms of railway line for promoting
transportation; and by city of Vancouver to develop state of art transportation
infrastructure in the city.
Leveraging Technology
Smart cities are supposed to 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 optimize traffic lights, cut travel
times while reducing air pollution and cost of
tackling it ; using One Map, an online portal,
enabling government, business,
organizations and residents to access geo-
spatial data ; using digital applications to
register concern about streets that require

9. cleaning and potholes that need repair ; posting information online about pending
changes to land use plan; sharing data suggesting best bus- route for any journey
in the city; engaging citizens as 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 bike-lane 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.
Quality Leadership
Involving quality leadership 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.
Conclusion
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; identifying
issues and roadblocks which are largely responsible for making urban growth both
unplanned, haphazard, irrational and sub-standard besides strategies and options
which need to be invented and adopted to make the growth of the cities and urban
settlements rational , equitable, smarter and harmonious to usher a new era of
urbanization in India.
Key Words: Compact cities, Sustainable transportation, Technology,
Note; All images shown in the text are sourced and have genesis in the Google.com
, which are gratefully and thankfully acknowledged by the author
Author:
*Ar. Jit Kumar Gupta
Ex- Director ,College of Architecture, IET Bhaddal &
#344, Sec. 40-A, Chandigarh- 160036
Email : jit.kumar1944@gmail.com