Cities continue to accommodate the majority of the growing global population (Cividino et al., 2020; Hoornweg and Pope, 2017). Since the last 200 years, the world’s population has grown substantially, leading to significant shifts global population from rural areas to major towns and cities (Selhausen, 2013). Recent projections from the World Cities Report 2020 (UN-Habitat, 2020) indicates that less developed regions such as South Asia, East Asia, and Africa will provide 96 per cent of urban growth, which will be equal to 35 per cent of the global population growth in urban areas between 2018 and 2050. Especially in East and South Asia, the proportion of the population will continue to grow along with the scale and the number of the cities (Lerch, 2017). To address the challenges caused by rapid urbanization, UN-Habitat proposed five guided strategies of urban expansion, including planned city expansion; city-region planning; planned city infill, connectivity, and public spaces; poles development, and lastly, new town development (UN-Habitat, 2014b). Among these strategies, new town developments have been widely adopted at the fringes of several large megacities especially in Asia, Europe, Middle East and South America, to decentralize further development from the central city. For most planners and developers, these developments in form of satellite townships allow for the creation and experimentation of visionary urban design principles (Van Leynseele and Bontje, 2019). Though the idea of ‘Satellite towns’ was first coined by Graham R. Taylor in 1915, it was further advanced by the concept of the Garden City by Ebenezer Howard. After 1950, a few large metropolitan cities in some Western and Asian Countries developed satellite towns as part of their master planning and regional planning to ensure a balanced urban expansion (Deepthi and Shobha, 2019). In the early 1960s, urban policies in Asian cities focused on slowing down the urbanization rate by controlling the expansion of large metropolises (Yeung, 2011). Since then, such planning ideologies, with varying degrees of adaptation, have informed new town developments in large metropolises in the Asian Pacific region.
Despite a wide spectrum of insightful literature on the idea and evolution of new town developments (Deepthi and Shobha, 2019; L. Wang et al., 2010), there is little engagement with liveability aspects. This study sheds light on two new towns in Osaka and Dhaka from planning initiatives to the settlement process via liveability dimensions. Specifically, Senri New town in Osaka Prefecture is the oldest of Japan, developed in 1962 while Purbachal New Town is a recently developed satellite township within the vicinity of Dhaka. The comparison between these two new town developments, on one hand, provides insights into the liveability dimension of new towns developed during the early stage of new town experimentation. On other hand, the case of the recently developed new town in Dhaka allows us to understand whether new principles have emerged from the original experimentations over the years. The contrast of a developed and developing city context also helps to unravel possible contextual factors that influence both the development process and liveability considerations. Following the introduction, Section 2 presents a brief literature review of new town development in Asia. Section 3 introduces the research methodology. Section 4 and 5 assembles the review of masters plans regarding liveability dimensions of the two new town developments and Section 6 contains the comparison between those two new townships. Section 7 delivers the discussion and lastly, Section 8 concludes with the recommendations.
2. Review of Liveability within New Town Developments in Asia
According to Asian Development Bank-ADB (2019), more than 53% of the global population and 44% of the global urban population lives in this Asia Pacific region. The Asia Pacific region also hosts 19 of the world’s 33 megacities (Razvadauskas, 2019). However, most Asian mega-cities have sought to monitor growth and to promote well-ordered trends through the application of urban planning principles originating in western countries (Yokohari et al., 2008). Among the pioneer countries in Asia, Japan and China attempted to control the growth by introducing new towns within the vicinity of large metropolises (Marcotullio, 2001; Shaw, 2004; Ye et al., 2021). Singapore and Hong Kong followed similar developments by decentralizing spatial population distribution from dense core to new satellite towns (Percival and Waley, 2012). Between 1960-1980, South Korea, for example, developed several satellite towns within the vicinity of Seoul (Shaw, 2004). In South Asia, India was the first to develop satellite towns (class I towns like Bokaro, Chandigarh, Rourkela, etc.) around major cities between 1961 and 1971 (Chatterjee and Chattopadhyay, 2020). Such satellite town developments continued with the introduction of 15 ring towns around large metropolitan cities such as Delhi, Hyderabad, Madras, and Calcutta (Shaw, 2004). On the contrary, new town or satellite town developments are a rather very recent phenomenon in Bangladesh. The Purbachal New Town’, for instance, is the first and the most recent attempt at developing satellite towns to control the rapid and unplanned urbanization of Dhaka city (Fatemi and Islam, 2014).
However, these new townships have received several criticisms, especially with respect to the socio-spatial quality of the living environment. For example, New Towns in Tehran have been found to be marked by a poor quality of life for residents (Ziari, 2006). In China, Deng and Huang (2004) report the gradual conversion of new towns into ghetto-like sprawl. More recently, evidence from Pakistan points to the incompatibility of new developments with contextual issues such as local culture, social and economic realities (Soomro and Soomro, 2018). In view of these shortcomings found in new developments, the present study sought to understand the liveability condition and future challenges of ‘Purbachal New Town’ in Dhaka, in comparison with ‘Senri New Town’ in Osaka. Moreover, according to The Global Liveability Index 2019, Osaka is the most liveable and Dhaka is the least liveable city in this Asia Pacific region (EIU, 2019).
Beattie and Haarhoff (2018) have critiqued existing urban planning methods for failing to produce high-quality citizen-centred urban design interventions that can promote liveability. Liveability impacts residents’ quality of living. Liveability also ensures sustainable development and place-making with a special emphasis on the community and its surrounding spaces (Leh et al., 2020). For Girardet (2004) a liveable city includes strong neighbourhoods with sufficient supporting facilities within a walking distance, a network of pleasant public spaces, affordable and organized buildings, vibrant streets with diverse cultural activities and regional connections. Similarly, Leby and Hashim (2010) assessed urban liveability through physical dimensions (environmental quality, public open spaces, built environment maintenance), social dimensions (sense of place, community life, and social contact, etc.), functional dimensions (availability and proximity of public services, accessibility, employment opportunities) and safety dimensions (crime and sense of safety). This points to what Southworth (2016) consider as the multifaceted and dynamic components of liveability, including the built environment, natural factors and socio-economic factors. Table 1 presents an overview of liveability indicators are used in the literature. Building on this, this paper adopts the physical dimensions, social dimensions, functional dimensions, and Safety Dimensions (sense of safety) to analyse liveability conditions in the selected new town developments.
7. Discussion
According to proponents, new town development offer benefits for a better urban life via the provision of affordable residential accommodation and basic public facilities, high-efficient transport infrastructure, and a better living environment (Kafkoula, 2009). Findings from the case reviews show that the master plans of Senri New Town and Purbachal New Town attempt to integrate liveability elements to ensure a better urban life for residents. However, several unique features have been identified in the master plans (Table 2).
The findings reveal that in Purbachal New town, the planners did not sufficiently plan for mass transportation, as only 20%, suggesting heavy private vehicle dependence. However, L. Wang et al. (2010) lamented that due to the slow development of mass transit and the distance to the MRT stations, the Shanghai new towns have not developed into complete residential communities. This essentially contradicts the current global agenda and recommended practices and policies for sustainable mobility. For Senri New Town, strong connection and easy access have been offered to the city centre (Hauk, 2015)— approximately 20 min by railway or subway (Tsutsumi, 2021).
In Addition, Randall (2017) reported several abandoned satellite towns which had never been built due to their ambitious plans that often create ghost towns such as Fordlandia in Brazil, Harlow in England, or New Cairo in Egypt. The critics of satellite towns point to the lengthy development timetable and the exorbitant costs of infrastructure development (Abubakar and Doan, 2017; Randall, 2017). A typical case in point is Purbachal New town. Based on Table 2, the development phase for Purbachal New Town is quite protracted and hence, frequently criticised at time-demanding.
Furthermore, the estimated population density is very low (130 people/ha) for the Senri New Town, less than the minimum density level (150 people/ha) recommended by UN-Habitat (2014a) to make a city sustainable. On the contrary, Purbachal New Town is comparatively high with 410 people/ha. Recently, there has been increasing concern that high-density urban form has resulted in overpopulation, extreme compactness, and relative loss of public facilities (Chen et al., 2008; Y. Wang and Shaw, 2018). From this perspective, the provision of public facilities in Senri New Town (14.4%) seems to be adequate for its population density compared with the public facilities provided by Purbachal New Town (7.3%). Additionally, Fatemi (2014) indicated the urban green spaces as an essential component of liveability dimensions for a highly dense area and emphasized preserving an adequate amount of these quality green spaces. Correspondingly, the UN-Habitat recommended 15% provision for open and green spaces in high-density settlements (150 people or more per hectare) (UN-Habitat, 2013) is met in Senri New Town (20.9 per cent), but not Purbachal New Town (13.7 per cent). This is quite surprising given that the preservation of existing greens and formulation of an interconnected lake and canal system are major concerns in developing its planning decisions.
New townships are expected to tackle housing shortages through sufficient plot reservations for mixed-use and affordable residential accommodations (Cutts, 2016). UN-Habitat (2014a) advocates a ‘social mix of citizens from various economic classes’ to promote stable social networks and reduce social inequality. The original plan for Senri New Town consisted of single-family dwellings, apartment complexes (public and private), and condominiums comprising diverse social groups (Tsutsumi, 2021). However, there is no evidence of public mass housing in the case of Purbachal New Town as private development and low-income housing represent 88% and 12% of residential allocations respectively (Fatemi and Islam, 2014). This suggests that the increasing attention to integrating social mix through the adequate combination of lower, middle and higher-income housing into new town developments in Asian cities are yet to take hold in Bangladesh.
8. Conclusion
The promotion of inclusive and sustainable living environments remains an important policy and planning agenda at the global and national levels. Several countries have experimented with new town developments as part of planning initiatives to decongest the central cities and offer a healthier living environment for residents. In this paper, the authors have offered a brief review of master plans via the lens of the dimensions of liveability within New Town Developments based on the examples of Senri New Town (Osaka, Japan) and Purbachal New Town (Dhaka, Bangladesh). The comparative review found that physical, social, functional and security dimensions of liveability could be referenced. However, although Senri New Town was developed almost half a century ago, it appears to have better conform to liveability dimensions compared to Purbachal New Town (Dhaka, Bangladesh). Seemingly, the latter has missed opportunities for integrating some of the key principles in the liveability discourse that gained relevant attention in recent years. While this paper does not report on liveability evaluation of the two new town developments, by drawing on the project components to infer liveability dimensions, the authors suggest the following planning implications:
First, planners and city authorities must recognize the importance of social mix and adequately plan for developments that provide sufficient allocations for lower-income and middle-income housing. This is necessary for inclusive development that provides opportunities for the poor to access better living environments necessary for their wellbeing.
Secondly, the integration of diverse socio-economic profiles invites public-private-people partnerships (P4) to emphasize citizen-centeredness in the planning, design, implementation and evaluation of new town developments.
Thirdly, integrating a diversified density for different zones and pairing with community centres, public facilities, in addition, to properly designed and well connected public open and green and blue spaces. Last of all, promoting a transport hierarchy that restricts vehicular traffic and promotes pedestrianization is relevant for making these new townships truly liveable and sustainable.
Acknowledgement
The authors express sincere gratitude to Dr. Seth Asare Okyere, Assistant Professor, Division of Global Architecture, Osaka University for his comments on an earlier version of the paper.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Conflict of interests
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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