Developing Methodology to Assess Liveability of Neighborhoods in the Indian Context

Abstract

With rapid development of cities, there are concerns over sustainability and liveability of cities. People perceive different parts of the city in different ways, since cities are not uniform and parts of it have varying character, densities and growth patterns, which attain varied levels of livability. Various organisations have devised Livability ranking and indices to assess the Liveability of cities. There are several indicators, which can influence the liveability of cities in different geographical regions of the world. This research particularly investigates the parameters in the Indian context and attempts to develop a rationale methodology at the neighborhood scale, since there is no approach at the neighborhood level in the Indian context, which can help to assess the liveability.

        There is a lack of empirical method to assess the parts of the city, to understand the governing factors influencing the livability. The intent of the paper is to develop framework and methodology to understand residential areas of the city with respect to the quantitative parameters like density, Floor space Index, ground coverage, per capita built up space, open space, land use and people’s perception as a qualitative parameter to assess level of liveability. The bottom up approach to assess the liveability of smaller portions of the city can help to formulate Micro indexing of Indian cities for Liveability.