One thing that amazes me about American cities (probably same is true with other developed countries as well) is city planning.
How amazingly well those cities are planned. They are planned in grid system and all road meet at right angles. It gives systematic expansion scope and better addressing. It also prevents ad-hoc development as each cell in grid can be marked for specific purpose. I really think it is a good planning system.
One more amazing thing I noticed this May when I visited Singapore. I went to a mall and started walking from shop 1. While walking along the shops and talking to my wife, I suddenly realized that we climbed two floors!! We were on second floor of the mall! I was pretty sure I never climbed any step, then how the hell we climbed two floors? We never used escalator or elevator as well.
I carefully looked at the path we were walking on and realized that it was actually a ramp. I was slightly inclined.. may be at few degrees. Because of that small inclination and circular track, a spiral path was formed and we climbed two floors without even realizing it. It is not just extremely helpful for old people or people with weak limbs, it also helps in saving energy. I saw very few people using escalator. That was indeed innovative!!
That made me think why no Indian ever thought about it? Why Indians are not as innovative!?
This misconception was cleared last week when I visited Jaipur. Jaipur is a capital city of state Rajasthan in India.
Jaipur is only second city after Taxila (also in India) which was planned as per grid system. In 1700s, when Jaipur was established, Sawai Jai Singh II planned city in grids. This was only second time any city was planned as per grid layout. Taxila planned in grid layout in India few thousand years ago.
So cities which we see in developed countries could actually be inspired by these great Indian cities. May be they learned from good Indian planning and implemented the same while they planned their cities like Singapore, San Fransisco, Seattle.
Same as this, spiral ramp to climb floors could have been inspired by Hawa Mahal in Jaipur (or Amber palace in Jaipur). This palace was built by Jaipur's prince in 1700s and had an inclined ramp to climb floors. This inclined ramp in Hawa Mahal was specially built to carry queens on wheel chair because it was almost impossible to them to walk after wearing jewelery weighing 20-30 kgs and saree weighing 5 kgs.
Singapore mall did a great job by imitating this inclined ramp from India but didn't do a perfect job. They missed to add "friction" factor on the ramp. In Hawa Mahal in Jaipur, to ensure people do not slip while walking, they have made ramp little rough to increase friction coefficient. :)
I hope Indians can pull their sleeves again and start ruling the world with innovation. I hope Indians become trend setter again. I hope history repeats itself!!
At least I am going to put efforts in making this a reality. You too, please do the same.
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2 comments:
Your intention is good and hope to participate in it too.
Just a caution don't get carried away considering it as other world learned from us, it doesn't matter much.
Look around, in modern India, I think only planned city we've is Chandigarh. But, look at developed countries every city is planned. Just doing it once or at single place isn't great, the prosperity has to come at each and every place and it does not come overnight or with few people. It needs time, effort and will in leadership to do it.
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