 will there be enough land to support urban development?

If not, how can the government mobilize the resources to

finance the concession of various infrastructures?
 Is the land market operating efficiently?
 Will the prevailing patterns of population and housing
density continue into the future or there are alternatives to
urban development that require less land?
 How can agricultural land surrounding the cities be
preserved without driving the price of land beyond the
reach of low – and middle-income peoples? Should the
government attempt to aggressively control land
development?
 High cost of real estate – man made problem

Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.

 World over, land prices are low wherever
habitat quality is high; land prices
skyrocket only when the environment
becomes bad!

 This phenomenon is the result of

overcrowding that feeds on itself to
overcrowd even more.

Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.

 Go vertical - That generally makes
matters worse because it increases
congestion, escalates land prices and
hurts the poor more and more
 Expanding horizontally - That increases
commuting distances, worsens the
congestion at the centre, and is no
better than vertical expansion from the
social point of view
 satellite town
Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.
 It leads to lowest land prices, and hence
offers the poor the best chance for
proper housing.
 In every way —
financial, ecological, ethical, and social
— satellite towns are the best cure

Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.

 In India, the old city is the dormitory, the
satellite town the work place. In the US, it
is the other way round.
 That happens because American
satellite towns offer high quality services
of the type that may be described as
tele-ineffective — the kind of services
that have to be close to the home and
are of no use if they are far away.
Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.
 Tele-ineffective services are mainly three —
schools, general hospitals and retail stores.
 People do not expect colleges to be
nearby, but kindergarten and elementary
schools have to be close at hand.
 They would be willing to go even a
thousand miles for open-heart surgery, but
maternity hospitals must be accessible at
short notice. The same is true for retail
shopping too.
 In all three cases, satellite towns of the US
offer first-rate facilities.
Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.
 In India, the situation is quite the
opposite. It is the city that offers the best
schools, medical facilities and
shopping, not satellite towns.
 Maraimalainagar , near chennai lay
dormant for decades because it offered
no schools or hospitals of repute.
 Kalyani, near kolkata started with a
university but no schools worthy of note.
Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.
 satellite towns will take off when two
conditions are satisfied:
 One, when they offer superior quality
schools, hospitals and departmental
stores.
 Two, the cost of commuting to the city is
low — to access tele- effective services
such as universities and airports that only
the parent city can offer.
Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.
 We have a false notion that cities must
be congested.
 In truth, allocation of urban space on the
lines of New York will need only one per
cent of the country's land area to
accommodate the entire urban
population of India.
 So, the problem is not physical but
political and cultural
Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.
Step 1
 satellite town should offer, on an average,
a minimum of 200 square metre of
residential space per dwelling plus another
200 square metres for non-residential uses.
That is ten times more than what Kolkata
offers.
 With 200 square metres as the average,
even the poor can hope to have 70-100
square metres — enough to live with
dignity.
Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.
Step 2
 The space should be evenly distributed.
New York has hotspots of high congestion
As a thumb rule, in every locality, minimum
allocation per dwelling should be:
› 80 square metres of roads
› 20 square metres of commercial space, another
20 square metres of parking space in
commercial centres
› 40 square metres of gardens and parks
› 10 square metres for schools and hospitals
› 40 square metres for industries, etc.

Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.

Step 3
 Choosing the location - If land allocation
is ten times that in Kolkata, to limit
costs, land price should be at least ten
times less that in Kolkata.
 That will be possible if the satellite town is
located far enough from the
city, preferably on marginal land.

Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.

Step 4
 To make satellite towns truly
attractive, there must be a holiday for
over-restrictive laws and extortionate
stamp duty too.

Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.

Step 5
 Govt. should take active steps to promote
high quality schools, hospitals, and
shopping malls in satellite towns.
 For instance, they may minimise entry costs
for investors by leasing land rather than
selling it outright.
 In a matching fashion, the government
may acquire land from farmers for the
satellite town not by outright purchase but
on an annual lease.
Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.
 Farmers will be happy to accept an
annual fee equal to twice the prevailing
price of what they grow at present.
 It would be an added bonus if they are
offered also, say, ten square metres of
shopping space in the new town for
each acre of farmland they surrender.
 That way they will have guaranteed,
inflation protected income some three-
four times their present net earnings.
Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.
Step 6
 let it be made the statutory duty of every employer
to offer a minimum 100 square metres of living space
to every employee in the city.
 Those employers who fail to do so may be asked to
make a refundable deposit equal to the cost of that
much space in the vicinity of their business. As a
concession to small firms, only those with large
number of employees may be so charged.
 Typically, that will be Rs 10-20 lakh per employee —
sufficient to move employers away unless they have
no alternative. When they do move, they get back
their deposit

Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.

Step 7
 employers in the city may be asked to
reimburse in full the commuting costs of
their employees from their homes to the
work place. That will make commuting
from satellite towns affordable

Prepared by CT.Lakshmanan B.Arch., M.C.P.