WHY NOIDA
“Noida is a disaster, a horror story of how urbanisation should not happen.
“Not all construction is bad for the environment, we just need
It is not merely Noida—little Noidas are emerging all over Delhi. (...)Now they
to be smart about how we build our cities.” (Lawrence, K,
exist and answers have to be found. I have nothing to say except to say that
2012). There is a huge opportunity to shape this peri-urban
this isn’t development, but mal-development.” (Ramaswamy, R, 2013)
area before the boom in construction transforms more land cover into sprawls. This can be possible only if the current
Noida has turned out as an unsuccessful spatial planning model of the largest
urbanization policies consider the future impacts of these
Industrial Townships of Asia. The absence of structured urban development
developments on the area.
policies due to successive governments that abdicated responsibility has resulted in under-developed civic infrastructure, badly utilized land, un-safe
Therefore, Noida was chosen as the region to test the idea of
drinking water and monofunctional residential complexes in the serene and
Infrastructure for transformation. And the focus of this thesis
peaceful green environment around it.
would be on using Housing in Noida as the delivery tool in order to provide for the above infrastructures in terms of civic
“The fundamental problem here is that urbanisation has been driven by
and institutional amenities for the region.
bad planning and a thought process which doesn’t believe in devising viable urban spaces. (...) The philosophy, seems to be to let people build residences and offices arbitrarily and as they get occupied, infrastructure and other economic activity will follow. This is a prime example of ad -hoc and unsustainable urbanisation” WWF(2009)
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