Uploaded on 2016-06-24 by Abhishek Shinde

Step 1 .Top 5 Most Livable Cities existing and potential future cities- Based on the rankings given by Mercer, Monocle, GLCI(Global Livable Cities Index), EIU(Economic Intelligence unit) and Forbes for quality of livability index ranking and with the justification of the criteria and characteristics for the existing and future livable cities, the top 5 cities are- 1. Vienna,Austria. 2.Zurich,Switzerland 3.Frankfurt,Germany 4.Amsterdam,Netherlands 5.Singapore,in terms of Asian Context Step 2 .Characteristics for Livable Cities - As per my opinion , the five main factors which impact the quality of life of both migrating and static citizens are 1.Safety and public governance Safety is the prominent priority for the common man who is resident as well as the migrant in the city .The locality and its security is the important perspective taken into account by the common man.Citizens feel secure inside the city ,if there are governing bodies like Police,Political parties who maintain the surveillance of the city by controlling the crimes and making the women's and small children's safe to roam,play and commute inside the city.Expatriate workers safety is also the major concern for the foreign multinational companies to send their expatriate workers on abroad assignments ,which also impacts the global business deals. 2.Quality of Infrastructure and Architecture The secondary thing taken into consideration are the transportation and accessibility to the city.Today ,nearly a person spends 6 to 12 hours a day in commuting from their workplace to their home, due to which people get exhausted .The lack of proper infrastructure like the electricity,water supply,transportation facilities degrades the quality of livability inside the city. Moreover ,today's increase in Globalization and population ,the provision of amenities like the rainwater harvesting,solar water heaters and cooler, storm water drainage, household waste treatment are the biggest feature any architectural structure must have today .Also good recreational facilities like gardens,stadiums and walk able pathways improvise the citizens life,well being make them healthy . 3. Environmental Conditions and its Sustainability Today's, growing transportation and infrastructure has endeavor increased stress on the environment and ecology may be at a local,territorial,urban or at global scale.Increase in the pollutants like carbon monoxide,CO2,lead,etc inside the air is a threat to the citizens life.Everyone of us feel relaxed and relieved if we breathe quality air. Moreover the use of sustainable materials also helps in monitoring the cities air quality by controlling the CO2 emissions .Due to discovery of CO2 emissions , infrastructure and the greenery plays a vital role in the Environmental condition of the city at both territorial, urban and global scale. 4.Economic , Business and Employment Conditions Cities with greater employment opportunities always attract the migrating citizens and also the resident. Greater the employment opportunities in a region,greater is the economic value of that region So is the land value at that place.This also increases the educated benchmark in the city and attracts foreign companies for recruiting and launching their branch office in that city.So economics and employment not only impacts the standard of living,land value,business,inter-state and international business,foreign trades , but also helps in collecting revenue from the taxes for improvising the cities infrastructure.So greater the economy , more the city will be livable and self reliant. 5. Socio-cultural conditions. The social life and the cultural ,regional dialects and race influence the locality of neighborhood at large.This also influences the lifestyles and the standard of living of the citizens.Improvised socio-cultural conditions tends to attract the citizens ,multinational companies .The most livable city is the one which has a strong Socio-cultural background is the one which can has multi linguistic people of different race,sex and religion ,good standard of living. Step 3. Towards a more sustainable city – Thane City, Maharashtra- Based on the five parameters which govern the livability of the city ,the city of Thane in which i reside , i would like to grade the livability of Thane city based on these parameters on the scale of 1/10 1.Safety and public governace - 8/10 2.Quality of Infrastructure and Architecture-5/10 3.Enviornmental Conditions and its Sustainability -7/10 4.Economic , Business and Employment Conditions-5/10 5. Socio-cultural conditions - 9/10 Thane ,as aptly called the lake city is the one which has citizens of mixed race,dialects and religions like Maharshtrians,Gujarati,South Indians,Christian and North Indians,etc.The city has undergone a tremendous change in its development since its inception by commissioner Chandreshekar during his constituency.Later on with the revision of DEVELOPMENT PLAN ,2025 for Thane city ,it has undergone demolition of the misplanned development and encroached shops .The city has a way long for being a livable. Now,looking at the parameters thane city at its heart is mainly safe.Also the involvement of Political bodies like SHIVSENA and BHARTIYA JANTA PARTY(BJP) has strong surveillance on the crime levels inside the city.Hence,Thane city is rated 8/10 for safety.With booming infrastructure needs and redevelopment going in Thane , Thane still lacks proper infrastructure as mostly it is congested and it has lack of transportation facilities like the NMMT(Navi mumbai Municipal Transport) BUSES, TMT(thane municipal Transport)buses have very less mobility and availability during the peak office timings.Also the roads in spite of being two-ways are congested by encroached parking and hawkers and street market shops.Due to this i have rated Thane city on scale of 5/10 for infrastructure.The environmental conditions are somewhat good due to lakes like MASUNDA LAKE,TALAO PALI LAKE,MAKHMALI TALAO,etc and greenery making the city livable on the scale of 7/10.The economic conditions are somewhat poor,as there are no multinational companies only small scale industries in THANE ,making the job opportunities few and hence i have rated 5/10. Thane is famous for its mixed cultured background and celebrates all festivals of all religion ; moreover it has its own festivals like THANE FESTIVAL,UPPAVAN FESTIVAL.So the socio-cultural conditions in Thane are excellent ,hence rated 9 on scale of 10. In order to make the city livable i would recommend that the infrastructure like the electricity , water supply , parking facilitates ,good transportation facilities must be utmost concern.Also stalls must be provided for the vegetable market along with which the disposal treatment must also be thought of to make the City not only "LIVABLE" but also "SUSTAINABLE & RESILIENT FUTURE CITY". ABOUT THE IMAGE This photograph is of THANE CITY ,INDIA .The image depicts a street abutting MASUNDA LAKE also called as TALAO PALI .In the photo you can see the Misplanned Transportation facilities i.eAUTORICKHAW,the greenery lining the street beautifying the streetscape ,the lack of parking facilities and the encroached shops which could be seen in the bottom right position inside the photo