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Urban Form and Economics18th April
Urban Form and Economics18th April
RETHINKING SPACE AS A PLACE- IMPLICATIONS OF ECONOMICS ON URBAN FORM-CASE OF BHADRA SQUARE TO TEEN DARWAZA ABSTRACT
City is a complex network of economic activities and interdependencies and hence the urban spaces associated within. Economic surplus determines the credibility of a city and its making. City runs on the economics of the region, both macro and micro economics. The diversity of urban form and the spatial structure of a city have been evolved over time in respect to urban form determinants of which economics plays a pivotal role. The changing economics of the area entails the script of how city evolves and the shifting use of land, space, urban form and the vitality of the area. Communities live and work in towns and cities; society changes so does urban form, responding to accommodate change and growth. In todays pace of economic development, such historic resources ate often perceived as inefficient unproductive and even inconvenient. They are often replaced with buildings that appear contemporary and more efficient. This neglect has led to decay, depressed economic conditions and dilapidation leading to migration of the population to newer areas. The worldwide financial crisis has sent shock-waves of accelerated economic restructuring, regulatory reorganization and socio-political conflict through cities around the world. It has also given new impetus to the struggles of urban social movements emphasizing the injustice, destructiveness and unsustainability of capitalist forms of urbanization.
INTRODUCTION
Rethinking Space as a Place in view of competitiveness of economics over urban form is found interesting with the dynamics by which the economics roll over. The matrix of economics in all realms including social stratification and gentrification in urban development in the ever-changing world seems to be a challenge that needs to be dealt holistically. The impact of changing trends resulted in the perpetuation of form and space in urban context organically as well as planned. This research paper tries to comprehend the thread the nexus between the economics and diversification of activities and the emergent structure of an area. This paper will be questioning and analyzing the economic competitiveness of an urban space in generating the urban form and how this could become a place making attempt.
Prasanth URP1710
Prasanth URP1710
There are two underlying substantive land use demand factors. The first of these is the spatial pattern of revenues/ costs. The demand for different land uses will depend on the relevant cost of using certain locations, and the revenues it will provide. What is deemed to be desirable may vary from occupier to occupier. Residential location preferences are different to industrial demands, and these will be different to retail demands etc. Second, there are agglomeration factors. There will be impact of agglomeration economies on the demand for various land uses. The idea behind this is the potential possibility of office/ retail occupiers to choose locations that are close to other office/ retail occupiers undertaking similar or complementary activities. Public-sector investment can play a key role in the development of localities. The decision to develop is ultimately based on profitability that in turn can be decomposed into a range of revenue and cost variables. These encompass construction costs, such as materials, land and labor. Finally, the scale of land availability offers opportunities/constraints to the adaptation of the land use pattern. This last factor can be seen to have a direct link with urban form but the others are more indirect with the exception of the revenue component of development appraisals. This is determined by prevailing rents and demand. In terms of intermediate outcomes the interaction of supply and demand determines simultaneously spatial land use patterns and land prices/ rents (ignoring planning).The pattern of land uses influences travel patterns through for example commuting and shopping. Mixed use areas arguably encourage more travel by foot/ public transport and less travel by private car.
3. Density
Density can be seen as an outcome of the competition between land uses within a given urban transport infrastructure and its associated pattern of accessibility. In a competitive land market the higher the price the greater the density of utilisation. There are three main aspects to density; gross population density, net housing density, population density, and commercial and industrial employment density. High land use densities have a number of implications for demand for and cost of services provision. The greater concentration of demand, e.g. consumer spending, associated with high land use density, ceteris paribus, reduces the spatial extent of viable social and private services' catchment areas (including business services). The real estate market has therefore become a key determinant of urban form including its spatial dimension.
Prasanth URP1710
This element encompasses building types, heights, and intensity of land use. Intensity is distinguished from density here because it refers just to the footprint of the building(s). For example, high rise flats would be considered high intensity even if they are surrounded by green space.
4a.Layout.
Layout is an integral element of urban form and includes such phenomena as street type, road layout, degree of sprawl, which are primarily concerned with function and adaptability. We can split layout into two levels: urban structure and urban grain. Urban structure is more concerned with how routes, developments, areas etc relate to each other. Urban grain is more concerned with the layout of street patterns, housing patterns, and other building layout patterns. The layouts of todays cities are largely artifacts of their historical development and planning and building regulations.
CASE STUDY 1-OLD CITY AHMEDABAD, BHADRA SQUARE TO TEEN DARWAZA. Bhadra Precinct
Located on the western edge of the old city of Ahmedabad, Bhadra square once represented the most important civic space of ahmedabad-The meaning of a space as place existed. Through time immemorial the Bhadra fort to the Panchkuang gate has formed the most significant axis to the city of ahmedabad-It was the main civic domain throughout history. The Square infront of the Bhadra fort was a part of an axially planned Scheme, With the Jumma Masjid along with Raja and Rani no haziro on the eastern side of this square and Bhadra fort on the west.
Prasanth URP1710
From 1411, the citys foundation is laid from Bhadra citadel to Jami mosque and the subsequent growth along the spine-Central Axis. Axis of the structure remained the same, but the density of figure ground changed with time. The fort precinct being royal property, it is always open and continued as an open space. By 1500 the axis was laid and it determined the subsequent structuring and imageability of the urban square. By 1600, along the axis and across sub axes the commerce started generating with Friday market as centre. Thus the Bhadra precinct area becomes the major area for trade and commerce in addition to the religious and administration centre. By 1700, the economic impetus of the region grew and pressure on landholdings increased as well as the ceremonial nature of the square reduced resulting in the fracturing of the land holdings into individual plotting and commerce flourished. By 1800, with the colonial rule the economics of the land changed, provision for amalgamating the land came and linear stretches of shops arose and got up in the Bhadra square area which looses it shape and rigidity and gave in for the organicity of development relative to the economic and land needs. By 1900s plot amalgamate and F.S.I increase giving away land for big instituitional buildings like banks and theatres of which theatres which are of recreational value becomes defunct due to the high land prices and commercial demand.
Prasanth URP1710
In the late 1990s building byelaw committee has decided to stop further plot amalgamations, in the old city to avoid or reduce the gigantic aliens built in the heritage precincts. Many of the residential plots were getting amalgamated and converted to office use. In this way the character of the region was getting into a mechanized revenue generator.
Macroeconomic policies are seen as general guidelines under which the trade and commerce works. These policies have an impact at the urban space level in building use and layout and density. Introduction: What is rent control? The practice of imposing a legal maximum (rent ceiling) upon the rent in a particular housing market, below the equilibrium rent is called rent control. If this maximum is above that markets equilibrium rent (different rental housing markets may have different equilibrium rents), then the control is null and void. But if the rent is set at a level below the equilibrium rent, it will necessarily lead to a situation of excess demand or shortage. In a free market, prices (here, rents) would rise automatically filling the gap between the demand and the supply. But rent controls prevent prices from rising up to the equilibrium level and thus, alternative rationing mechanisms such as black and uncontrolled markets evolve.
Prasanth URP1710
Rent control act prohibits increase in returns from land and buildings. The effect of such legislation is twofold. It freezes the rent and thus allows the owner to keep pace with increase in return from other alternative sources of investment. It discourages the potential investors from investing in house building activities unless it is badly required for self occupation only. Rent control is at best a palliative and temporary measure and cannot remedy the central problem of shortage of accommodation. Rent control has contributed to the premature deterioration of housing stock. Since the rental system falls to take into the account the appreciated value of land, it does not encourage the land owner to develop the land to its most economical use by building as intensively as is permissible under the building bye-laws. The built form in the urban space near Bhadra has been highly articulated to the market demand of the stretch from Bhadra square to teen Darwaza. The shop sizes were so determined by the demand for space which resulted in the fragmentation of the spaces into smaller units and renting out. The form has been articulated by additional temporary spaces outside the built form which resulted from the economic demand and interdependencies and black market . The Deteriorating condition of the built form is attributed to certain factors Heritage economics Rent Control Act
Being in the heritage precinct new developments other than renovation is not possible which refrains the owner from newly developing the plots unless it is badly needed. Most of the first floors of the shops were left unused or used as godowns for their own requirement. In several areas Building blocks of residual shops emerged due to the new roads due to the division of plots into irregular size.
How economics playing part in determining the existential foothold for the built form?
The core economic and trading backdrop rules over the built form and structuring of the streets in all possible ways of accessibility and affordability and profitability. This factor of agglomeration economies structures the specialized streets and bazaars ,and in fact the interdependencies comes out also in undesirable forms as informal possessions along the sidelines of the formal market and form their signature giving a totally different identity and adds to the economic vibrancy of the region. The relation of the description of the physical form to activity and significance can be restated in the following way. The physical environment, as it exists at any point in time, is the potential environment. It is characterized by limits of activity and significance even if these can rarely be given an unalterable description. The influential environment is the actually observed pattern of use and meaning.
Prasanth
The emergent urban form out of economics is driven by usability and accessibility. The economic mix of the activities of the area leads to different degrees of mixed land uses which is determined by the dependencies network. The informal activity is a new phenomenon dated two decades back mushroomed in the lieu of the economic boom of the region-It acts as an externality to the system of urban space. A dominantly commercial street defines most of the adapted built use as an accessible part of the structure of the street, contrasting sharply with the privacy of the parallel residential streets. This contrast is more startling when one adds the information that many of the commercial spaces are in converted residential buildings of the same type as those on the parallel streets.
CONCLUSION
Factors of economics are complexity and articulation that allow for multiple and changing uses and meanings while also having the specificity to encourage and sustain them. The economics found to be the generator and anchor of development of urban habit space. It is found to be the most determinant tool substituted by the physical and social aspects over ages. Rethinking the space as a place at this juncture raises certain questions which can lead to the formation of creative economies in this modern world which would help identify the space as a place with nurtured identity and responding to the present needs of the people rather How to address the informal nature of activities in a positive way? How the publicness of space can be brought which will be enhancing the economy ? How to reconstruct the space as a place rethinking all these economic possibilities the urban space has undergone and structured-Is it creation of pedestrian friendly environment and creation of hybrid spaces leading to creative economies?
Urban design has become an art of optimizing the resources and extracting maximum benefits as possible.
11 | Urban Form and Space-Term Paper URP1710 Prasanth
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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