Unified settlement planning (USP) is the component of regional planning where a unified approach is applied for a region's overall development. The USP approach is most often associated with

urban planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...

practices in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Overview

Regions use their land in for various purposes, including

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...

, and

public administration Public administration, or public policy and administration refers to "the management of public programs", or the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day",Kettl, Donald and James Fessler. 2009. ''The Politics of the ...

. For society to develop, it has to amalgamate and develop settlements; their coexistence is the basis for a holistic development of any society. Garden City Concept by Howard

Unified settlement planning is a contemporary approach for the bulk requirement of urban amenities, for the vast regions of the

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...

with uniformly distributed

human settlement In geography, statistics and archaeology, a settlement, locality or populated place is a community of people living in a particular location, place. The complexity of a settlement can range from a minuscule number of Dwelling, dwellings gro ...

patterns. The approach is gaining importance in

, primarily due to the difficulties posed by the high density of existing

rural settlement The definition of a rural settlement depends on the country, in some countries, a rural settlement is any settlement in the areas defined as rural by a governmental office, e.g., by the national census bureau. This may include even rural towns. ...

s, in implementing the conventional plans with contiguous urban zones, around pre‑existing cities. The approach utilizes the advantages of the uniformly distributed human settlement patterns and avoids the difficulties caused by the dense network of roads and villages, all over the regions. Unified settlement planning allows holistic regional development without significantly disturbing existing villages,

farmland Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous with bot ...

, bodies of water, and

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

History

Sir Ebenezer Howard Sir Ebenezer Howard (29 January 1850 – 1 May 1928) was an English urban planner and founder of the garden city movement, known for his publication '' To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform'' (1898), the description of a utopian city in wh ...

(29 January 1850– May 1, 1928) is known for his publication

Garden Cities of To-morrow ''Garden Cities of To-morrow'' is a book by the British urban planner Ebenezer Howard. When it was published in 1898, the book was titled ''To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform''. In 1902, it was reprinted as ''Garden Cities of To-Morrow'' ...

(1898), the description of a utopian city in which people live harmoniously together with nature, which forms the basis for unified settlement planning. The publication resulted in the founding of the garden city movement, that realized several Garden Cities in Great Britain at the beginning of the 20th century.

Walter Christaller Walter Christaller (21 April 1893 – 9 March 1969) was a German geographer whose principal contribution to the discipline is central place theory, first published in 1933. This groundbreaking theory was the foundation of the study of cities as s ...

(April 21, 1893 – March 9, 1969) who was a German geographer, developed the idea of

Central Place Theory Central place theory is an urban geographical theory that seeks to explain the number, size and range of market services in a commercial system or human settlements in a residential system.Goodall, B. (1987) The Penguin Dictionary of Human G ...

. It stated that settlements simply functioned as 'central places' providing services to surrounding areas. August Lösch (October 15, 1906 in

Öhringen Öhringen (East Franconian: ''Ähringe'') is the largest town in Hohenlohe (district) in the state of Baden-Württemberg, in southwest Germany, near Heilbronn. Öhringen is on the railline to Schwäbisch Hall and Crailsheim. With a population o ...

-) a German economist, is regarded as the founder of Regional Science. August Lösch expanded on Christaller’s work in his book 'The Spatial Organization of the Economy'(1940). Unlike Christaller, whose system of central places began with the highest-order, Lösch began with a system of lowest-order (self-sufficient) farms, which were regularly distributed in a triangular-hexagonal pattern. He thought that Christaller's model led to patterns where the distribution of goods and the accumulation of profits were based entirely on location. He instead focused on maximizing consumer welfare and creating an ideal consumer landscape where the need to travel for any good was minimized and profits were held level, not maximized to accrue extra.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British ru ...

visioned for a free country governed by their own people;he penned down his visions in a book Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule in 1909.

Swaraj Swarāj (, IAST: , ) can mean generally self-governance or "self-rule". The term was used synonymously with "home-rule" by Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati and later on by Mahatma Gandhi, but the word usually refers to Gandhi's concept of Indian ...

stated that every village should be its own republic, "independent of its neighbours for its own vital wants and yet interdependent for many others in which dependence is necessary". A decentralized, unexploited, co-operative, self-reliant and peace-loving development of a region is must for development of India. These ideas of swaraj was developed in light of contemporary scenario in India as Providing Urban Amenities to Rural Areas, envisioned by former president of India and an eminent scientist Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and framed by Prof. Emerson. Providing Urban Amenities to Rural Areas proposes that urban infrastructure and services be provided in rural hubs to create economic opportunities outside of cities. These ideas will be possible through physical connectivity by providing roads, electronic connectivity by providing communication network and knowledge connectivity by establishing professional and technical institutions. The programs will have to be done in an integrated way so that economic connectivity will emanate. The Indian central government has been running pilot programs in several states since 2004. Regional module of Rajnandgaon

Recent developments

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (; ) is a landlocked States and union territories of India, state in Central India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the List ...

, one of the fastest growing states of

, has initiated deliberations on the subject, for its development strategies. The process has started with some useful studies and research on the area by Dr. Devendra K. Sharma. Based on a comprehensive scheme on the Unified settlement Plan for India, targeted to serve the whole nation in future, the Chhattisgarh government is contemplating a project for the holistic development of a regional module of about 700 km². area, enclosed between the highways connecting Durg, Ragnandgaon & Khairagarh. Institute of Town Planners, India (ITPI) organised a national seminar on the subject of Urban Dynamics and Planning - 2032, on 18 & 19 April 2012. The seminar has strongly recommended that the development of rural and urban settlements in India should not be planned separately.

Principles

The fundamental objective for a unified settlement plan includes: * Low cost of living with basic requirements. * Ample work opportunities, near the residences . * Viability of institutions along with ample options for the clientele. * Efficiency of the infrastructure, without any prejudice to the density of the settlements. * Fool-proof security, especially for the areas with large population concentration. * Each region to be self-reliant and interdependent wherever necessary. The strategies for achieving the objectives include: * Definition of the regional modules. * Minimizing the expenditure on land for urban amenities. * Avoiding expenditure on the new residences for the population with existing houses. * Development of efficient and economical transportation systems from origin to destination. * Comparable generation and utilisation of energy in the module. * Self-sufficiency in water utilization . * Cooperative ownership of the urban land and its key facilities.

References

External links

Countryside Agency of England's online research library of urban rural fringe

Urban planning in India