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POLICY REVIEW
Provision of Safe and Resilient Public
Spaces in Cities
- with focus on Design and Preservation of Footpaths
PROF. VINITA YADAV SMART cities within SMART regions are BACKGROUND
required to increase the competitiveness
of cities as well as to create safe public Inter-relationship of public
spaces. Public spaces, integral part of any spaces and democracy is also
city within a region, relates to spaces in linked with right to city
built and natural environment having (Mitchell 2003). U.S.A has
free access to public. ese accommodate created many such public
and provide ample opportunities to cultural spaces to boost the
diverse groups of the society to interact economic development by
and share ideas. e activities, providing meaningful
accessibility, linkages and quality of space employment to its citizens at the
Due to the exponentially
together de ne a public space. It is oen time of recession (Leighninger
rising number of private confused as a 'gathering place', which is
vehicles on the roads, more associated with social space. Public 1996). Public spaces are shaped
retaining adequate space examples are roads (including the as a result of political economy
and cultural processes
space for footpaths is pavement), public squares, parks which
(Madanipour 2003) which
becoming difficult. The are accessible to groups of all people.
footpaths, which once Besides building a sense of community, manifest into commodified and
acted as gathering public spaces also have the ability to drive homogenous spaces (Boyer 1994)
economic growth. Different countries or unmanaged, poorly designed
spaces and market
have different connotations for a Public and insecure external spaces
areas, are mere conduits
space. For example in European (Newman 1973). Poor design
for traffic movement or
countries, the right to common passage and usage lead to anti social
parking the vehicle.
has been rendered to citizens whereas in behaviour (Coleman 1985).
U.S.A, federal government cannot
Public Space is a place used by
exercise greater control in public spaces.
all having different social and
In India, the government has assigned
economic characteristics. The
many usages to public spaces, especially
space is defined as per its usage.
roads including the pavements. ese
Its functionality depends upon
spaces include a wide range of elements
such as roads, public parks, market areas the connectivity and people's
etc. Footpaths comprise one of the most perception about such spaces.
Keywords: Public Space, Gender Neutrality, The spaces are formed both
crucial elements of public arena. is
Footpath, Spatial Planning. paper seeks to examine the role, usage of through formal and informal
Prof. Vinita Yadav (v.yadav@spa.ac.in) is the footpaths in the urban landscape and processes. The formal process
HoD, Department of Regional Planning, critically review the situations arising has led to creation of spaces such
out of multiple uses assigned to
School of Planning and Architecture, New as parks, playgrounds, religious
footpaths.
Delhi, India establishments etc. whereas
April 2021 Volume 22 No. 1- SHELTER 51
