Uploaded on 2014-11-30 by Kamna2014

Demonstrating the idea of Stocks & Flows through the concept of Urban Metabolism taking the Twin City of Raipur & Naya Raipur in the state of Chhattisgarh in India, as a case-study, the urban ‘form’ or ‘pattern’ is a critical measure for this. A city or urban space contains various groups and subgroups, with its own definitive indicators. This group of indicators tries to capture important aspects of land-use and the built environment in cities, which might be key for understanding infrastructural determinants of any cities - urban metabolism. Various challenges are associated with the urban flow indicators as data are only available at the city level (administrative boundaries). In terms of urban patterns, city-level data usually does not provide sufficient information about how the city might be shaped within its administrative boundaries. Simple indicators such as population density, for example, can therefore provide a very biased picture of land use if they are calculated at a high aggregation level. Therefore a two-tiered strategy in sourcing information for such group of indicators is advised. Some variables can be sourced from the urban audit to describe general features of the city at the administrative level and then the construction of specific indicators from more detailed GIS data sets to characterize specific urban form and land-use aspects within the administrative area of a city is recommended. 1. The most important stocks and flows entering, staying in and eventually leaving (as a part of urban metabolism) are: a) People, b) Goods, c) Vehicles. a) The People component can further be segregated into two major divisions of i) Ethnic– people who have lived here since a long time and ii) Migrators– people who travel between cities and from other areas. Thus clearly can identify that the Migrators are Flow here, whereas the Ethnic are Stock. b) The Goods sold in the market demonstrates a typical model of Stocks and Flows, where the goods (both perishable and imperishable) are brought in from various parts of India and the World to be sold here. c) Vehicles also plays an important role in connecting the twin-city and other neighboring areas. Vehicles which are parked and used only within city limits demonstrate Stocks and the inbound/outbound city traffic demonstrate Flows. 2. How these stocks and flows could change in the future for the benefit? The cities were carefully chosen, as it demonstrates an old city and the other a new planned one. Both the cities contributes to the concept but has different results under similar indicators. Few are discussed below: a) Complexity: High for Raipur & Low for Naya Raipur b) Centrality: High for Raipur & Low for Naya Raipur c) Compactness: High for Raipur & Low for Naya Raipur d) Porosity: High for Raipur & Low for Naya Raipur [1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14173534889667984.jpg