The condition, improvement and town planning of the city of Calcutta and contiguous areas : the Richards report
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The condition, improvement and town planning of the city of Calcutta and contiguous areas : the Richards report
(Studies in international planning history)
Routledge, 2015
- : hardback
- Other Title
-
Report by request of the Trust, on the condition, improvement and town planning of the city of Calcutta and contiguous areas
Available at 1 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Facsim. reprint. Originally published: Hertfordshire, Eng. : Printed by Jennings & Bewley, 1914
Includes bibliographical references
Description and Table of Contents
Description
By 1900 the British had undertaken various types of urban planning in their colonial territories, but the early twentieth century brought new ideas and the birth of the modern planning movement. In India these new planning ideas inspired several specialized reports after 1900, most of which drew explicitly on British, or occasionally German, ideas. The most complete of these studies was the Richards Report on Calcutta, prepared for the Calcutta Improvement Trust and published in 1914.
Its major concerns included the building and widening of roads, slum clearance and improvement, legislation, and suburban planning. As background, it included written and visual documentation of living conditions, through charts, photographs, and maps. Richards emphasized that conditions in Calcutta differed greatly from those in urban Britain, and made some allowance in that regard. In general, however, his report exemplifies the attempt by British planners, along with Indian elites, to impose their vision on colonial cities.
Richards' report was well-received by leading British planners of the day. A notice in Garden Cities and Town Planning claimed that it was "the most complete report on town conditions and possibilities which has yet been issued". While the immediate impact of the report in Calcutta is moot - Richards was highly critical of the past practices of local officials, and his views were unpopular with his superiors - the Richards Reports remains a crucial insight into both the development of modern town planning and the colonial period in India.
Table of Contents
Introduction, 1. General, 2. City Main Roads, 3. Schemes and Estimates for Intra-City Main Roads, 4. Calcutta Slums, Insanitary Congested and Streetless Areas, and the Best Means Available for their Improvement, 5. Legislation and the City Plan, 6. Mostly on Suburban Planning and Development at Calcutta
by "Nielsen BookData"