Abstract
Continuous transport dependent planning is one of the major reason for pollution, climate change, and global warming. It is also impacting many aspects of human life and the environment, such as health, climate, well-being, social life, etc. one of the major concerns for today’s researches and planners is the continuous growth of unhealthy, and unsustainable development. Delhi is one of the most polluted and unlivable cities in the world because of the endless expansion of transportation friendly development. Almost 20% of land in Delhi is covered by roads and bridges on which approximately 1-crore vehicles run every day. The heavy traffic and cars decrease the walkability in many areas of the city with the negligence of pedestrian-friendly designs and its lackness also has measured in the many residential zones. The purpose of the present study is to identify the reason behind the lackness of livability in the largest residential zone of Delhi, “Dwarka”, one of the most developed residential zones of Delhi and largest residential suburb of Asia, residing about 1,100,000 people. To find the reason behind lack of sociability and livability in Dwarka, we have mapped accessibility and walkability of the neighborhood by producing different mappings such as built and neighborhood mapping, land use mapping, mobility type and road mapping, transportation mapping, building height mapping or Shadow analysis, people activity and movement mapping, services and amenities mapping. Besides these, there is also some quantitative data analysis that is carried out to correlate with the obtained mapping results which include interviews and questionnaires of about 150 residents of that area. These questionnaires include queries like Accessibility to market and amenities, where they go for recreation? Are they using the neighborhood park or not? Why or why not? why they don’t use the street for walking, why they don’t let children play outside, etc. It was concluded that in the view of creating a highly developed residential zone some very important aspects of livable society have been ignored. The minimum width of even sub-arterial roads are of 10 m dedicating only 1.2 m to the pedestrian space. Both sides of the roads are occupied with tall buildings or other infrastructures. There are only two public parks in the area which are under no maintenance and the alongside wider barren roads are also making them unsafe for elderly and children. Other than that there are no public spaces like cafés or cafeteria, restaurants etc. for recreational activities. The lack of streetscapes, placemaking and recreational spaces are some of the major reasons behind the barren roads of the Dwarka suburb. The highly transport friendly development and lack of pedestrians are creating the hindrance in accessibility and walkability in existing facilities which is already not sufficient to make that place livelihood. The people's activity and surrounding mapping indicate the lack of amenities and recreational infrastructures in the area. All the roads with dead sides are also creating safety and security issues for the residents. The lack of walkability and accessibility in existed places and insufficient social and recreational development is a major problem of the suburb, Dwarka. Further studies can be carried out to analyze the importance of architecture ripple effect for creating a livable neighborhood and how much it covers walkability and accessibility in its development.
