Measuring the success of human settlements

Islamabad, a legacy of the post war urbanism, is the first planned city in Pakistan and one of the largest new towns designed in Asia in 1959 by a Greek Architect and Planner, Constantinos A. Doxiadis. The city is designed on the concept of the Dynapolis - city of the future, a research project also conceived by Doxiadis in 1958, which gives a framework for making models for city plans with capacity for adjustment that will be flexible enough to accommodate the changing needs of time. The technique allows for calculations and manipulations of variables at any given point in time to forecast future changes. The precision of the forecasts can also be fine-tuned with the addition of various variables. The city is designed on grid-iron plan, and is divided into five zones. The plan has a National Park area allowing emergence and organic growth. Even though there have been considerable arguments that cities cannot and should not be planned and the future cannot be forecasted, Islamabad has flourished as a planned city of the future since 1958 and is one of the most desirable cities in Pakistan to live in. Today fifty three years later, like other new towns of its time, it needs to expand and address the needs of the present day while remaining true to the original concept for the city of the future, the “Dynapolis”. The city is expanding towards the semi urban area of Islamabad which has urban villages that were deliberately accommodated by Doxiadis in the city plan to retain the cultural heritage of the area as well as for the maintenance of sustainable balance providing the area as a backup for the food needs of the city. The idea of Doxiadis of connecting the city directly to its surroundings, leaving no gap between the city and the villages which results in a constant fusion, as the city is planned for all, forms the reality for today’s Islamabad (Mahsud, 2007). These urban villages have developed into towns and are in total visual contrast with the Doxiadis designed sectors found in the Islamabad urban area. The shifting or transforming spatial patterns in the context of Islamabad is hence studied in this research to understand the urban morphology and the forces that influence and determine the future urban patterns in the city of Islamabad. Doxiadis’ ideas from his theory founded in 1942, “The Science of Human Settlements” which is known as Ekistics, forms the basis of and is taken as a reference point to study the emergent settlements in the Islamabad urban area. The five principles of Ekistics according to Doxiadis, forms the basis of all human settlements and he states that they are actually an extension of man’s biological characteristics and man has always shown obedience to these five principles since ancient times. This research is qualitative and exploratory case study based on in-depth interviews of the planning experts form the Capital Development Authority and residents of G-6 (planned settlement) and Bhara Kahu (unplanned settlement), questionnaires, observations (personal and peoples) and photographic documentation. It assesses the settlements in Islamabad based on four of the principles of Ekistics, and analyses the settlement outcomes through the fifth principle to measure the success of the planned and unplanned human settlements. The comparative study of the planned and the unplanned is taken to identify the elements that define the success in human settlements. This success is however achieved when the needs of the people pertaining to settlements are fulfilled in the settlements and promote happiness, safety and satisfaction as explained by Doxiadis. A comparative study used in parallel for the purpose is the CSIR guidelines for human settlement planning and design (2000) generated recently but bears high resemblance and similarity to the theory generated by Doxiadis in 1942. This study however provides a framework for settlement making and calls the successful settlements as the positively performing settlements, and identifies six structural principles and four spatial principles essential for the creation of well performing human settlements. The research findings revealed that the needs, security and satisfaction were all defined differently in both the planned and the unplanned settlement hence the success is defined differently. The planning of Islamabad by Doxiadis has been highly admired and experienced to be functional by the planning experts as well as the residents of the planned sectors of Islamabad in general. However the freedom of choice exercised by the residents of unplanned settlement has also proved to be functional for them and both settlements are found to be in accordance with the Doxiadis definition of successful human settlements.