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Business News/ News / India/  More compact cities have better quality of life
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More compact cities have better quality of life

Cities in India that developed in a more compact manner tend to deliver public services better, provide quicker transport options and attract more residents

Photo: Ramesh Pathania/MintPremium
Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint

Around a third of India’s population live in urban areas, and that share is set to grow even more. But which cities are people more likely to move to? A new research paper suggests Indians are choosing cities with more “compact" layouts.

The more compact the shape of an Indian city is, the better is its quality of life and the faster its population grows, says the study by University of Pennsylvania professor Mariaflavia Harari.

The study uses satellite imagery of night-time lights from 1992 onwards to figure out the actual shapes of 350 Indian cities. Since these shapes are determined using night-lights, they may differ from administrative boundaries.

Harari uses the shape to determine each city’s compactness—the average distance between any two points in a city. Kolkata, with an elongated shape, turns out to be less compact than pentagon-shaped Bengaluru. In fact, any two points in Kolkata are 27% farther apart than they are in Bengaluru, the paper says.

So how does compactness aid life in a city? In a more compact city, distances are shorter, authorities find it easier to provide utilities, and residents need to travel less to reach their workplace. Since people choose to move to cities with better service levels, compact layouts get preference.

If points within a city are 360 metres closer to each other than points in a second city, then the first city tends to have 3% higher population, the paper finds.

A lack of compactness doesn’t impact business, though. In such situations, Indian firms tend to cluster together in cities to get the same benefits otherwise provided by compactness.

As the country becomes more urban, it will become increasingly important to learn how to manage the shape of cities to improve the quality of people’s lives, says the paper.

Also read: “Cities in Bad Shape: Urban Geometry in India"

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Published: 28 Sep 2020, 08:34 AM IST
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