Shashikant Nishant Sharma
Head of Research, Track2Training, New Delhi, India
Email ID: research@track2training.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8031-8569

The city as an interconnected living environment

A city is experienced through everyday journeys and routines: finding an affordable home, reaching work, collecting water, waiting for a bus, studying in a comfortable room and meeting neighbours in a public space. These activities connect housing, transport, architecture and environmental services. Planning becomes less effective when each is treated as a separate technical assignment. A newly constructed dwelling offers limited improvement if its occupants lose access to employment. A transport corridor cannot serve everyone equally when the walk to its stations is inaccessible.

Inclusive urban sustainability therefore begins with a practical question: can people live securely, move affordably and participate in urban life without enduring avoidable environmental burdens? Answering it requires attention to both physical infrastructure and the social relationships that allow neighbourhoods to function. It also requires understanding existing places before deciding how they should change.

The publications discussed here provide several entry points. Research associated with K. K. Dhote addresses settlement typologies, slum redevelopment, urban renewal, heritage comfort, vernacular architecture and bus rapid transit. Five further publications selected from the Track2Training research collection extend the discussion to passenger satisfaction, first- and last-mile travel, public open spaces, green buildings and waste management.

This article brings these themes together as an educational commentary. It does not present a systematic review or claim that every recommendation has been tested by the cited authors. Instead, it uses specific research contributions to develop a practical argument: urban improvement should be assessed through the combined effects of buildings, services, accessibility and decisions on residents’ everyday lives.

Understanding informal settlements before selecting interventions

The term “slum” appears throughout the cited literature, but it can conceal substantial differences between settlements. A neighbourhood with inadequate drainage may still have durable houses and strong employment connections. Another may face serious site hazards, insecure occupation and severe service deficiencies. Treating both as the same planning problem makes it difficult to identify proportionate solutions.

Singh, Dhote and Soni (2013) examine settlement typologies through a case study of Jabalpur. Their approach considers location, poverty, housing and services, using a matrix to help prioritise intervention. The research is useful because it directs attention towards differences between settlements before redevelopment choices are made. Read the settlement-typology study.

Building on that approach, a contemporary neighbourhood assessment should combine physical observation with residents’ accounts. A map might show a water connection, while interviews reveal that supply arrives unpredictably. A road may appear adequate in width, yet parked vehicles, seasonal flooding or poorly positioned steps can make movement difficult. Household conditions also differ within the same settlement.

Typologies should consequently support judgement rather than become permanent labels. Authorities should explain how categories are created, which indicators receive priority and how residents can correct errors. Classifying an area as highly deprived should strengthen its claim to improvement; it should not automatically become a justification for clearance.

For students, the central lesson is methodological. Begin with a question that classification can answer, collect evidence at an appropriate scale and recognise variation within each category. A useful typology guides a decision while remaining open to revision when new information becomes available.

Housing improvement must protect the wider conditions of living

Housing is more than an enclosed floor area. It can also provide space for earning income, caring for children, storing work equipment and maintaining relationships. Redevelopment proposals need to account for these functions if they are to improve living conditions beyond the physical quality of the dwelling.

Bouddha, Dhote and Sharma (2014) review approaches to slum redevelopment in relation to environmental management and inclusion. Their discussion connects the treatment of informal settlements with residents’ well-being and broader urban conditions. The reference supplied under “Charumitra, B.” identifies the same publication, rather than a second independent study. Read the publisher’s record.

The planning implication developed here is that alternatives should be compared through household consequences. In-situ upgrading, selective rebuilding and relocation can each create different benefits and burdens. Evaluation should consider service reliability, housing costs, travel expenditure, livelihood continuity and disruption during construction. The preferred option should emerge from this comparison and meaningful engagement with affected residents.

An illustrative household makes the issue clearer. A person who repairs garments at home may depend on nearby customers and a flexible ground-floor workspace. A replacement apartment could improve sanitation while creating difficulties for that livelihood. This example does not establish that apartments are unsuitable; it demonstrates why housing design needs information about actual activities.

Affordability should also be assessed after occupation. Maintenance charges, utility payments and additional transport costs can change what a household must spend each month. A credible redevelopment proposal should make those recurring obligations visible before residents are asked to evaluate it.

Choosing between renewal, repair and redevelopment

Cities contain buildings and neighbourhoods of different ages, conditions and cultural significance. Improvement can involve repairing structures, reorganising services, adapting buildings to new uses or replacing unsafe components. The scale of change should follow a diagnosis of the problem.

Dhote, Silakri and Onkar (2013) distinguish urban renewal and redevelopment and propose a framework for selecting appropriate interventions. Their paper considers physical and social infrastructure alongside community participation, emphasising the need to understand a locality before changing it. Read the urban-renewal paper.

A practical application would begin by identifying what already works. An older market might have adaptable shopfronts, a useful street network and established customer relationships, alongside drainage failures and deteriorating structures. Addressing those failures may require selective reconstruction and service improvements. The assessment should explain whether wholesale replacement would offer additional public benefits sufficient to justify its disruption.

Decision-making should also identify who receives those benefits. Higher land values or new commercial floorspace are incomplete measures when existing residents cannot remain or traders cannot return. Project evaluation should track occupancy, livelihood access and service quality, alongside financial and construction indicators.

Renewal is therefore best understood as a continuing public responsibility. Inspections, routine maintenance and timely repairs can prevent manageable defects from becoming major failures. Universities can support municipalities by documenting building conditions, mapping service problems and developing accessible options for discussion. Such work is especially valuable when it helps communities understand the choices available to them before a project becomes difficult to change.

Learning from vernacular architecture without romanticising it

Vernacular architecture offers a record of how communities have organised buildings around materials, climate, terrain and social practices. Its educational value lies in understanding those relationships. Copying a visual style without investigating how it functions misses much of that knowledge.

Dhote, Onkar and Das (2012) document tribal settlements and habitats in central India, considering site selection, settlement organisation, building materials and climatic responsiveness. Their published paper explicitly proposes adapting underlying principles to contemporary needs. This creates a useful bridge between documentation and design rather than a demand to reproduce historic forms unchanged. Read the published vernacular-architecture study.

For contemporary practice, the first question should be why a feature exists. Does a shaded transition space support social activity? Does the layout respond to terrain? How do occupants adjust openings or use different rooms across seasons? These questions encourage architecture students to observe buildings as occupied environments.

Any proposed adaptation must then be tested. Material durability, structural requirements, accessibility, sanitation and maintenance capacity remain essential. A traditional technique may need modification to meet present expectations or environmental conditions. Local availability alone does not demonstrate low environmental impact, just as industrial manufacture alone does not establish poor performance.

The people who maintain this knowledge should participate in its interpretation. Craftspeople and residents can explain construction sequences, repair practices and changes in household needs that measured drawings cannot capture. Collaborative documentation should credit their contribution and return useful information to the community. The goal is an informed exchange between established knowledge and contemporary evaluation, with benefits for those whose practices make the research possible.

Thermal comfort belongs in the discussion of housing quality

A dwelling can meet basic space requirements yet remain difficult to occupy during hot periods. Comfort deserves attention because residents experience buildings through temperature, air movement, light, noise and the ability to control their surroundings. Housing quality assessments should make room for these lived conditions.

Sharma and Dhote’s (2003) paper, Thermal comfort and heritage buildings, belongs to the earlier literature linking building heritage with environmental performance. Its bibliographic details are retained here, but the original text was not available for direct examination; no measured temperature reductions or specific experimental findings are attributed to it.

The broader design proposal is to evaluate comfort at several scales. Within a dwelling, shading and the arrangement of openings can be considered alongside occupancy, privacy and security. Across a building, layout affects the relationship between internal spaces and shared circulation. At neighbourhood scale, exposed surfaces and the availability of shaded routes shape the experience outside the home.

These considerations should be investigated through observation and measurement, rather than assumed from appearance. Students can compare indoor and outdoor conditions at consistent times, record building characteristics and ask occupants how they use spaces. Short monitoring exercises should be described as limited observations, not evidence of performance across an entire year.

Retrofit decisions also require attention to heritage significance and present use. A building should remain workable for its occupants while valued features are protected. The most useful proposal explains the problem, identifies reversible or carefully justified interventions and sets out how improvement will be checked after implementation. Comfort then becomes an accountable design objective.

Connecting green buildings with sustainable neighbourhoods

Green-building discussions become more useful when they extend beyond individual properties. A resource-efficient building still depends on the surrounding transport system, drainage network and public realm. Neighbourhood sustainability requires examining these connections rather than assuming that the performance of one building represents the entire area.

Sharma, Singh, Kumar, Pandey and Dehalwar (2025) review the role of green buildings in sustainable neighbourhoods, discussing resource efficiency, indoor environmental quality and community considerations. Their contribution provides a basis for connecting building decisions with wider urban objectives. Read the authors’ available paper.

The editorial argument here is that project boundaries should not define the limits of responsibility. Designers should ask how occupants reach everyday destinations, where stormwater goes and how waste is collected. They should also consider whether public-facing edges support comfortable movement or create barriers along otherwise useful routes.

Affordability must remain part of this assessment. A proposal should explain installation costs, recurring expenses and who will maintain its systems. Equipment that requires unavailable expertise can become a burden even when its design specification promises efficiency. Procurement should therefore consider repair arrangements, user understanding and realistic operating conditions.

Post-occupancy evaluation offers a way to learn from completed projects. Comparing expected and actual resource use can reveal operational difficulties, while resident feedback identifies problems that meters cannot explain. Results should inform subsequent design decisions. For educational institutions, documenting a modest improvement honestly can be more instructive than presenting an elaborate scheme without evidence about how it performs in everyday use.

Public transport as access to opportunity

Transport planning shapes access to education, employment, healthcare and social life. Its public value should be considered through the opportunities people can reach, the effort required and the reliability of the journey. A road network that moves vehicles efficiently may still serve people unevenly.

Jaiswal, Dhote, Krishnan and Jain (2012) examine Ahmedabad’s Janmarg bus rapid transit system as a case of sustainable transport. Their discussion addresses coordinated bus infrastructure and operations, offering a historical contribution to debates about improving urban public transport. The case should be read in its original period rather than treated as a current audit of the system. Read the Janmarg study record.

For present planning, the appropriate technology should follow local travel requirements and implementation capacity. Corridor design, operating arrangements, service coverage and transfer conditions need to be considered together. A capital investment does not remove the need for continuing attention to scheduling, maintenance and passenger information.

Housing decisions belong in the same conversation. Before selecting a redevelopment site, planners should examine the destinations residents use and the services available at relevant times. A route that operates near a site may not support early work shifts, evening classes or journeys involving several stops.

Students can explore accessibility through simple comparisons of complete journeys. Recording the walk, waiting period, in-vehicle time and transfers reveals what a passenger actually experiences. Such exercises should include people with different abilities and responsibilities. The aim is to understand whose needs a service meets and where its design or operation leaves gaps.

Passenger experience should guide service improvement

Transport performance becomes clearer when operational information is considered alongside passenger experience. Travellers can identify difficulties with boarding, waiting, information and comfort that a route map does not show. Their feedback needs to be collected systematically and connected to decisions.

Lodhi, Jaiswal and Sharma (2024) investigate bus-user satisfaction in Bhopal using a survey of 1,313 respondents and discrete choice models. The study identifies comfort and safety among the prominent concerns, alongside several operational and vehicle-related attributes. It illustrates the value of examining service quality from the user’s perspective. Read the Bhopal passenger-satisfaction study.

A practical response would connect each identified concern with an action that can be monitored. Problems with waiting might require investigation of service regularity; difficulties boarding might require reviewing the vehicle-stop interface. Passenger information should explain disruptions clearly and be available to people who do not use smartphones.

Survey design matters as well. Interviewing only current passengers can overlook people who stopped using the service or cannot access it. A more inclusive assessment could supplement onboard surveys with neighbourhood interviews and consultations with potential users. Findings should be separated by relevant characteristics where the sample supports meaningful comparison.

Researchers should also avoid interpreting every statistical association as a causal effect. A model helps organise evidence, but intervention choices still require operational understanding and follow-up evaluation. The educational opportunity lies in connecting analysis with a specific service problem, implementing a feasible response and checking whether passengers experience an improvement.

The first and last mile connect transport with urban design

Public transport journeys usually begin before passengers board and continue after they leave the vehicle. These access and egress segments connect transport planning with footpaths, crossings, shade, drainage and neighbourhood layout. Ignoring them can make a well-equipped service difficult to use.

Yadav, Dehalwar and Sharma (2026) review environmental influences on first- and last-mile mode choice. Their synthesis identifies microclimatic conditions, environmental quality and infrastructure continuity as relevant influences, while recognising differences in context and measurement across the literature. The study supports treating environmental exposure as part of accessibility assessment. Read the first- and last-mile review.

The practical proposal is to audit complete routes rather than isolated improvements. A short missing footpath section or an inconvenient crossing may interrupt an otherwise usable connection. Site visits should examine the route at times when people actually travel, including conditions after rainfall where relevant and safe to observe.

Audits should also investigate competing uses of street space. Vendors, pedestrians, loading activities and parked vehicles may occupy the same limited area. Design discussions should look for workable arrangements that support livelihoods and safe movement. Clearing one activity without understanding its role can simply transfer the problem elsewhere.

Coordinating access improvements with transit investment is therefore essential. The responsible agencies should agree on delivery, maintenance and complaint handling before construction finishes. For a resident, the journey is continuous even when administrative responsibilities are divided. Planning should make those divisions less visible in the everyday experience of using the city.

Public open spaces must be reachable and usable

Parks, squares and other public spaces offer settings for recreation, rest and interaction. Their value depends partly on whether people can reach them and feel able to use them. An attractive space behind difficult access routes may contribute little to residents who face mobility constraints.

Lalramsangi, Garg and Sharma (2025) study route choices to public open spaces in Aizawl using space syntax. Their work highlights the importance of considering hill-city conditions when analysing pedestrian movement, rather than relying entirely on a flat representation of the street network. Read the public-open-space study.

This suggests a useful planning question: what does proximity mean for different users? A destination that appears nearby may involve steps, steep gradients or an indirect route. Accessibility mapping should therefore be accompanied by observation and consultation. Where a fully accessible route cannot immediately be delivered, planners should explain constraints and examine alternative improvements rather than claim universal access.

The quality of the destination matters too. Seating, shade, understandable entrances and ongoing maintenance can be investigated through user feedback. Different groups may use a space at different times, so a single observation period can give an incomplete picture.

Public-space projects should include a clear plan for care after opening. Responsibilities for cleaning, repairs and responding to complaints need to be assigned. Student exercises can combine route mapping with observations of use and discussions with nearby residents. The strongest outputs connect spatial analysis with an achievable change that people can recognise in their daily surroundings.

Environmental services require both systems and stewardship

Waste management, drainage and water services are often most noticeable when they fail. Their routine operation nevertheless underpins neighbourhood quality. Environmental improvement requires attention to the entire service chain and the people responsible for keeping it functioning.

Sharma, Dehalwar and Singh (2024) discuss emerging solid-waste-management techniques, including recycling, composting and waste-to-energy approaches, together with their benefits and challenges. The chapter provides an entry point for understanding available options rather than a universal prescription for a particular technology. Read the waste-management chapter.

For local planning, technology selection should begin with evidence about waste streams, collection arrangements, available space and operating capacity. A treatment facility requires a workable supply and maintenance system. Household segregation requires instructions that people understand and collection practices that preserve the separation.

Environmental services also involve livelihoods. Waste pickers, collection workers and small recovery businesses should be considered when systems are redesigned. Consultation can reveal how material recovery currently works and what changes would affect income or working conditions. Proposed improvements should specify responsibilities and resources for worker protection and service continuity.

Educational projects can contribute through carefully scoped waste audits, service maps and interviews with workers. Students should state sampling limitations and avoid extending a short observation into an unsupported citywide estimate. The objective is to produce usable evidence: where collection gaps occur, what materials are being mixed and which operational changes deserve examination. A sound environmental proposal connects its technical choice with realistic arrangements for daily work.

Participation should change the decisions being made

Community participation is useful when residents can influence a proposal while meaningful choices remain open. A meeting held after the layout, budget and relocation arrangements have been fixed offers little room for that influence. Participation should therefore be designed around decisions, with clear explanations of what can change and what constraints require discussion.

An illustrative process could begin with separate conversations about housing, livelihoods and movement, followed by a shared review of priorities. Different meeting formats may be necessary because working hours, care responsibilities and confidence in public speaking affect who participates. Written submissions and smaller discussions can complement a large gathering. Attendance alone should not be treated as agreement.

The project team should then publish a simple response explaining which suggestions were incorporated, which require further investigation and which were not accepted, with reasons. This creates a record that residents can examine and gives future meetings a concrete purpose. Disagreements should remain visible rather than being removed from a polished account of consensus.

Students supporting such work need to understand the limits of their role. They should explain the purpose of interviews, seek consent and avoid suggesting that participation guarantees a housing entitlement or project benefit. Maps and reports should protect personal information. Returning an understandable account of the findings is part of responsible engagement, especially when communities have contributed substantial time and knowledge.

Digital tools should answer a defined public question

Geographic information systems, digital surveys and simple dashboards can help organise neighbourhood evidence. Their usefulness depends on the question being asked. A map intended to locate drainage complaints requires different information from a model intended to compare access to employment. Selecting the tool before defining the decision can produce impressive outputs with little practical value.

Consider a proposed student project comparing routes between a housing area and a bus stop. The team could map available paths, record barriers and discuss preferred routes with residents. Its digital output should show where information came from, when it was collected and which conditions remain uncertain. The result would support a focused conversation about improvements without pretending to represent every possible journey.

Data quality requires continuing attention. A blank area on a map may indicate missing information rather than the absence of residents or services. Informal addresses and changing street conditions require local checking. Automated classifications should be reviewed where errors could affect access to assistance or the priority assigned to a neighbourhood.

Digital access should also remain optional for public participation. Printed maps, telephone contact and face-to-face assistance allow people to contribute without a particular device or account. The strongest use of technology makes evidence easier to question and decisions easier to understand. It should leave municipal staff and residents better able to work with the information after the research team has departed.

Finance and maintenance determine whether improvements last

A neighbourhood proposal needs a financial account that extends beyond construction. Designers should identify recurring expenses, replacement needs and the organisation responsible for each asset. These obligations influence whether a facility remains useful after its opening, particularly where household contributions or municipal maintenance budgets are limited.

For example, a shared space with lighting, planting and seating requires arrangements for electricity, watering, cleaning and repairs. The initial design should reflect the resources available to perform those tasks. Choosing durable, understandable components may be appropriate where specialised repair services are difficult to obtain. This is a proposed decision principle, not a claim that any particular material or technology is always preferable.

Project appraisal should also make distribution visible. Who contributes money or land? Who experiences disruption? Who receives improved access, additional space or commercial benefit? A financially viable project may still require redesign if its burdens fall heavily on people with limited capacity to absorb them. Presenting those consequences openly helps residents and decision-makers compare alternatives.

Phasing offers another practical consideration. Delivering essential service improvements before more complex building work may provide earlier benefits, provided temporary arrangements remain safe and coordinated. Each stage should have a responsible organisation, a realistic operating budget and a way to report faults. Sustainable investment is partly the discipline of ensuring that promised improvements have people, resources and workable routines behind them.

Putting the connections into practice

An integrated neighbourhood programme should begin with a shared baseline. Housing conditions, service reliability, livelihood locations, travel difficulties and environmental exposure can be recorded together. Residents should have opportunities to correct the account before it becomes the basis for investment.

The next stage is to compare alternatives openly. Each option should explain expected benefits, disruption, household costs and maintenance requirements. Some actions may be immediate, such as addressing a service fault; others may require design development, funding or coordination across agencies. The programme should identify those dependencies and assign responsibility.

Evaluation should continue after delivery. Useful questions include whether households can afford occupation, whether journeys have become easier and whether services work consistently. Results should distinguish construction completion from actual improvement. Where outcomes fall short, the response should be correction and learning rather than reliance on the original project promise.

For Track2Training readers, these connections offer a productive educational agenda. Architecture, planning, engineering and social-science students can investigate the same neighbourhood from complementary perspectives, while sharing evidence with residents. The literature discussed here encourages careful diagnosis, attention to context and evaluation through lived experience. A sustainable city is built through repeated decisions that make secure housing, useful mobility and a healthy environment attainable together.

References

Bouddha, C., Dhote, K. K., & Sharma, A. (2014). Slum redevelopment strategy: A way forward to urban environment management through inclusive approach. Research Journal of Engineering Sciences, 3(7), 28–37. Publisher record.

Dhote, K. K., Onkar, P., & Das, S. (2012). Identifying the sustainable practices from the vernacular architecture of tribes of central India. American Transactions on Engineering & Applied Sciences, 1(3), 237–251. Published full text.

Dhote, K. K., Silakri, R. K., & Onkar, P. (2013). Urban renewal and redevelopment: Identification of appropriate planning intervention for Indian cities. International Research Journal of Social Sciences, 2(7), 42–48. Published full text.

Jaiswal, A., Dhote, K., Krishnan, R., & Jain, D. (2012). Bus rapid transit system: A milestone for sustainable transport: A case study of Janmarg BRTs, Ahmedabad, India. OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development, 4(11), 45–62. Study record.

Lalramsangi, V., Garg, Y. K., & Sharma, S. N. (2025). Route choices to access public open spaces in hill cities. Environment and Urbanization ASIA, 16(2), 283–299. https://doi.org/10.1177/09754253251388721.

Lodhi, A. S., Jaiswal, A., & Sharma, S. N. (2024). Assessing bus users satisfaction using discrete choice models: A case of Bhopal. Innovative Infrastructure Solutions, 9, Article 437. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41062-024-01652-w.

Sharma, A., & Dhote, K. K. (2003). Thermal comfort and heritage buildings. Institution of Engineers (India), Architectural Engineering, 84, 1–3. [Original full text not examined; bibliographic form retained from the supplied reference.]

Sharma, S. N., Dehalwar, K., & Singh, J. (2024). Emerging techniques of solid waste management for sustainable and safe living environment. In M. Nasr & A. Negm (Eds.), Solid waste management (pp. 29–51). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60684-7_3.

Sharma, S. N., Singh, S., Kumar, G., Pandey, A. K., & Dehalwar, K. (2025). Role of green buildings in creating sustainable neighbourhoods. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 1519(1), 012018. https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/1519/1/012018.

Singh, P. O., Dhote, K. K., & Soni, N. (2013). Development of typologies of slum settlements: The case of a million plus city of India. WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, 179, 153–164. In The Sustainable City VIII: Urban Regeneration and Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.2495/SC130131.

Yadav, K., Dehalwar, K., & Sharma, S. N. (2026). Exploring the environmental determinants of mode choice in first and last mile connectivity: Evidence from a systematic review. Innovative Infrastructure Solutions, 11, Article 204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41062-026-02614-0.