People want to reclaim their cities the world over, since the automobile lobby has hijacked most cities at the cost of green, open, public spaces, K.T. Ravindran, advisory board member of UN Capital Master Plan, and founding president of Institute of Urban Designers India, has said.
The newest trend is to build pedestrian pathways, walkways and cycle tracks, since people want to get their spaces back, having realised that they have been been ravaged by automobiles, he said here on Sunday, on the sidelines of a talk on Urban Design, held at Kerala Museum, Madhavan Nayar Foundation (MNF), Edappally.
“People are nowadays looking at the ground of a city more than their city’s skyline, since there will be little civic life unless there are adequate public spaces to walk on. Multi-functional and accessible open spaces are the trend, for which lost public spaces in cities must be recovered and restore back to people. This is happening faster the world over, than in India. Shopping malls are public spaces, but mono-functional ones, said Mr. Ravindran, New Delhi-based award-winning urban designer who has been a champion of sustainable architecture and urban design. He is also a trustee of MNF.
