Section – 4

DESCRIPTION OF PULSE

Basic Features of PULSE

PULSE adheres to the principle that development plans should be founded on the three fundamental aspects of sustainability: environment, society/culture, and economy. While region-specific sustainability issues will need to be examined at the local level, PULSE would propose a model for a land and public infrastructure reform as a vital enabler of development and growth. This model can be tailored to suit any particular region.

PULSE model aims to create a 'level playing field' for all sections of the society by providing the most appropriate, distributed social and economic environment and offer all the people the freedom to strike out on their own path to economic prosperity. It would be a formal, structured and inclusive development framework that synergizes the best aspects of various ideas already available in the public domain. It represents a bottom-up approach.

Key Ideas and Components of PULSE

The following highlight the key features of the proposed model:

Sustainable and Holistic Regional Planning

Factors influencing environmental integrity, societal equity and economic vitality are necessarily locality/region-specific and need to be factored in specifically for each case. PULSE attempts to achieve this in the following broad terms:

PULSE deals with a plan for perpetuating social and economic prosperity in a sustainable environment, and not a plan for short-term recovery. The approach will not only remove the inequality of opportunities between urban and non-urban centers but will also ensure economic sustainability.
PULSE would envisage integrated 'green' development of all built environment.
Use of local hydro-geology in a closed loop, preservation of the ecosystem, biodiversity, natural resources, etc., provision of eco-friendly energy systems, etc will be important considerations so that human activities mimic the natural ecology of the planet. Efficient management of all natural resources, pollution, waste, etc. will be planned for.
Water resources planning will be a vital element in the planning. It will be holistic in outlook, with emphasis on recycling and preservation & protection of local water bodies.
Energy needs will be met by "clean electrons" (Friedman, 2008). Use of "dirty electrons" may continue only for a short period and it is hoped that alternative sources of energy will become affordable sooner than later.
PULSE would show equal respect for every individual, whatever his/her diverse background, and offer equal opportunity for employment, wealth creation and freedom of life choices. The proposed model would create the right infrastructure to achieve this aim.
Other socio-economic aspects like, governance, health care, education, human rights, social justice, etc need to be considered, but are not elaborated here.

Building Blocks of PULSE Reform Model

The basic building blocks of PULSE reform model are human settlements. In modern times, providing an urban landscape wherever people live has become a social and economic imperative. In developing nations, providing differing urban landscape with a limited hierarchical structure of human settlements would be necessary from considerations of local culture, economy, etc. PULSE calls these human activity settlements Development Centers and structures them at three levels, viz., (1) People Centers, (2) Business Centers, and (3) Nodal Hubs. These centers would be identified or located based on existing facilities, social and economic importance, geography, etc.
The second building block would be the efficient networking of all development centers. These linkages are known as Logistical Corridors in PULSE, which, again, would be structured based on the traffic they would be expected to carry. The primary logistic corridors connecting nodal hubs form Development Triangulations that are configured into a lattice structure over a region/country providing for spatially distributed and efficiently networked physical infrastructure for development.
These building blocks provide the necessary environment for people to pursue their chosen livelihood option, lead happy and contented lives, and contribute to growth and harmony of the society. To this end, PULSE provides the basic and broad specifications for these building blocks. The exact configuration of the lattice structure, the networking and the design of development centers are a matter of detailed region-specific planning and design.

No More Urban-Rural Divide - Only Networked Growth Centers

A holistic view of the entire region/state as a landscape of urban-like facilities. No more urban-rural divide. No more classifications like cities, towns or villages, based on the population or other parameters. Three centers of human activities (both economic and social) will be recognized based on their functionalities, viz., People Centers, Business Centers and Nodal Hubs.
All these centers will be provided (or existing centers 'renewed or retrofitted') with infrastructure of appropriate standards, with due consideration to the local ecology, hydrology, geography, culture and specific people skills, needs and practices.
These centers will be seamlessly and efficiently networked through a system of logistic corridors. These corridors will be fully serviced to promote economic activity on either side. The roads will not be 'car-friendly' like in the western world; they will foster public-transport at the optimal level.
Addressing what were described as rural issues through a nearby urban-like center is considered the right way forward.

Various PULSE components are conceptually configured in a triangular lattice as illustrated in Fig. 4.1, 4.2 & 4.3 below.

Fig. 4.1: A region viewed as an assemblage of many Development-Triangulations

Fig. 4.2: Typical Development Triangle effectively connected through physical infrastructure

Fig. 4.3: Components of the basic Development Module

Nodal Hubs

The largest of human activity centers is the 'nodal hub'. Only the major functions of the central and state governments will be performed from these nodal hubs. Local governance will be decentralized and devolved geographically among other centers at the other two levels.

Nodal Hubs will ideally be located 150-180km apart. They will be connected by primary logistic corridors (consisting of road, railway and/or inland waterway or possibly a combination of the above). These corridors will be the primary development corridors for mostly heavy/large industries located on either side.

Nodal hubs will have the following major infrastructure, among others:

Governance support services (both central and state)
Specialty health care facilities & major hospitals
Major business offices
Logistic hub, preferably including an airport.
Supply-chain hubs and stockyards
Major hospitality providers
Universities & Research facilities
All business related services as in Business Centers
All people related services as in People Centers

Business Centers

Business Center will be the major local government center.

Such centers will ideally be located 15-20 km apart. Business centers will be connected by secondary logistic corridors. Such corridors will be the secondary development corridors for medium industries.

Business Centers are the places where businesses can buy some of their raw materials, consumables, etc. and receive business services from public and private entities. They do not necessarily mean the places where business units are actually located. However, it is to be expected that businesses may prefer to locate their units as close to a business center as possible.

Business centers will have the following major infrastructure, among others:

All business (including local specialty business) support services
Ancillary Industries
Help-centers for region-specific industries
Warehousing & Cold Storage
Industrial Training, Vocational development & Research centers
Hotels
Industrial power
All people related services as in People Centers

People Centers

People center provides the first level of local governance. These centers will be located 15-20km apart in between secondary corridors. Business/People centers will be connected by tertiary roads. Fully serviced roads will attract business investments for small and traditional/cottage industries. These roads will generally circumscribe agricultural areas, water bodies, mining areas, hills/forests, tourist centers, etc. To access the interior agricultural lands, etc., more roads may be laid, taking off from these tertiary roads as necessary. There will be human settlements on either side of these tertiary roads.

People Centers will serve as a market place for a sizeable local population and so will attract viable urban-like social and business capital investments. They do not necessarily mean the places of residence for the people. People can live in the residential areas on either side of tertiary corridor and travel a short distance to the nearest People Center to buy goods and receive services. Human settlements in various patterns are noticed in the developing countries as seen from a few satellite images shown in Fig. 4.4, 4.5 & 4.6, and the pattern is essentially a matter of choice by the individual community/culture.

Fig. 4.4: In most countries, people have settled in small villages (like in the above imagery from Burma), some of them in interior locations. (Image Courtesy: Google Earth)

Fig. 4.5: In some countries like Vietnam, people have settled all along an access (road or canal). The above picture provides an example of both linear (strip-like) as well as spatial settlements found in Thailand. (Image Courtesy: Google Earth)

Fig. 4.6: People Centers (as also Business Centers) are naturally located at road/canal junctions, as seen in the image from Mekong delta, South Vietnam. Note the linear settlements along the road and canals. (Image Courtesy: Google Earth)

People will have essential services like water and power delivered to them in their residential corridors, but they will have to travel a reasonable distance to the nearest People Center for other economic services. Most people may eventually choose to live in the fully serviced People Centers.

People Centers will have the following major infrastructure, among others:

All residential and community facilities, including cultural and religious centers
Support services for agriculture and other location-specific skills
Schools & colleges (universities in some centers)
Vocational & industrial skills development centers
Primary health care facilities (Specialty hospitals in some centers)
Parks and recreation facilities like theaters
Shopping malls
Trading Centers for local produce
Communication Facilities
Local Government Offices for business & people services
Police and emergency services
Transport support services
All utility services (water, sanitation, solid waste disposal, power, gas, etc)

Integrated Green Development

While all these centers of economic and human activities are seamlessly integrated into a thriving region/state, the historical and cultural characters of the region will be carefully preserved.
All buildings will be 'green'. Movement of people and goods will be minimized. Clean energy technologies will be employed. The concept of waste will be revisited (Friedman, 2008). All 'wastes' will be managed in a close loop to the extent possible. There will be adequate incentives provided to use the locally available business/manufacturing/people skills, geography, hydrology, non-conventional energy sources (solar, wind, geothermal), etc.
A clearly defined land use strategy, as proposed, will encourage people to walk or cycle down to work and the commute will be a maximum of 10km. People will not need to travel more than 75-90km to obtain any service from the central/state governments or specialty medical care. Efficient public transport systems will make for hassle-free commutes under this system. This also provides for energy efficiency.
The most efficient infrastructure to support various economic and human activities in clearly demarcated functional areas will boost people's confidence and inspire them to achieve their full potential. Such polarization and empowerment of people will help evolve a great sustainable society.
There will be no compulsion on people to abandon their traditional livelihood options like agriculture, agronomy, handicrafts, fisheries, forestry, etc., or their places of residence. It is inevitable though that the number of workers engaged in agriculture or traditional livelihood options will eventually reduce as a result of modernization and mechanization of agriculture and other traditional manufacturing activities. The surplus labor will need to be provided with alternative livelihood in the respective areas. Else, the 'rural-urban migration' towards better economic opportunities will happen with major consequences. The proposed model would help avoid this situation since it provides for creation of alternative employment opportunities by encouraging modern manufacturing businesses to come up in the locality, even as the traditional livelihood options are encouraged to flourish as the world definitely needs them to.
The proposed development framework is essentially modular by design and thus lends itself to be implemented in phases over a convenient timeline to suit availability of resources.
In India's fast-developing economy, identifying centers for development, assign them their functionalities and their sustainable renewal will be the key to smart growth. (It may be mentioned here that PULSE model provides an ideal framework for the development of the northern regions of Sri Lanka recovering from unfortunate troubles of the recent past)
Local ecology, bio-diversity, natural resources, etc. will be the key elements in the detailed planning process.

Political Aspects

While PULSE aims for an almost non-hierarchical social structure, a limited hierarchy for economic and political governance seems inevitable. Inherent to PULSE are political, societal, economic and other project decisions that would shape up the final evolution of the development plan.
The proposed infrastructure reform will enable effective governance at all levels. Appropriate government services will be made available to people at various development centers.
The systematic development as envisaged by PULSE will ensure equitable and organic distribution of opportunities for wealth creation and exchange across the region or state. It will also aim to provide uniform working conditions for all.
Facilities for promoting health and well-being of people would be planned at various levels, including centers for the community development, cultural expression, education and training, public safety, etc.
Although they are serious, the current levels of corruption in the third world countries should not deter the planners, especially given the currently growing public sentiments against corrupt practices. As Subramanian (2007) notes, "There is a major and urgent potential in India and meaningful reform. ….Prerequisite for the successful implantation of the desired new processes would be both a major drive to eradicate corruption at all levels and assurance of significant judicial recourse." Corruption can be subverted by a participatory planning process that is transparent and inclusive of community residents and major stakeholders. Such participatory planning has been successfully executed in the US in various regions to redevelop the physical and human infrastructure of its cities, by partnering with neighborhood organizations, developers, policy makers and institutions to co-opt conflicting interests as well as abate the primacy of powerful but myopic interest groups, and transform public and private systems in a democratic fashion. Vibrant democracy like in India provides an ideal environment for replicating such models effectively to ensure community-driven sound development decisions.
If only visible sustainable development can be demonstrated even at a few select locations, people will be emboldened to demand for more such development everywhere. This phenomenon was evident in India when the fast-paced infrastructure development was taking place to cater to IT-enabled businesses. Perhaps the IT majors should have gone away from the big cities in the first place. All they needed were a computer and a wire or a small antenna to connect them to their clients and the rest of the world. If they needed to travel, they could well have afforded a private helicopter service to and from the nearest metropolis. Bangalore set a bad precedence in this regard. On the contrary, Tatas had chosen to transform a sleepy village called Sakchi into a modern industrial city called Jamshedpur in the past decades. Tatas had the vision for a revolutionary paradigm shift and the proposed PULSE model merely gives a formal expression to such inspiring success stories.
No modern development proposal should attempt to render ineffective any ongoing development programs and the resources already committed to them. It should ideally provide a master framework for seamlessly integrating and incorporating both the currently ongoing as well as future development programs. A plan developed using such a proposal will help avoid redundancy in planning even while leaving no aspect of development uncovered. This holistic approach will need to be chalked out, aiming to achieve sustainable economic progress, welfare and happiness of the people.

PULSE provides such an inclusive development framework that incorporates the best aspects of various ideas already proposed that it can be adapted for implementation in various geographical locations in India.

The model will, of course, need to be tailored to suit local conditions such as local geography, resources, livelihood prospects, etc. For example, human settlements in hilly areas and forests are necessarily isolated with very little networking with the rest of the region, and, much less, with urbanized centers. They will be best served by a strategically located heliports and public helicopter services. The communication facilities in these are also vital. The logistical development in coastal areas will necessarily be linear and not spatial as in interior areas. Such special conditions will need careful planning and effective integration with the rest of the region.

PULSE and Existing Urban Development Models

Urban geographers have proposed a number of development theories. CSISS Classics (2009) provides summaries and illustrations of major contributions to spatial thinking in the social sciences. Fig. 4.7 provides a pictorial summary of some important urban models.

Fig. 4.7: Illustrations of some important urban development models (Image Courtesy: www.csiss.org)

The city of Los Angeles is believed to have grown by incorporating a number of 'edge cities' (or urban realms) as illustrated in Fig. 4.8.

Fig. 4.8: Edge Cities of Los Angeles' development per Urban Realms model. (Image Courtesy: www.csiss.org)

Central Places Theory [CPT] can perhaps be interpreted as an extension of the ideas of urban realms theory to the wider context of a region. Walter Christaller, a German geographer, originally proposed CPT. He was studying the urban settlements in Southern Germany and advanced this theory as a means of understanding how urban settlements evolve and are spaced out in relation to each other.

Fig. 4.9: Walter Christaller's Hierarchy of Settlements and Service Areas in his Central Plate Theory (Image Courtesy: www.csiss.org)

Fig. 4.9 reveals a few common features between CPT and PULSE. Table 4.1 compares and contrasts certain aspects of CPT and PULSE.

Table 4.1: CPT and PULSE compared

CPT	PULSE
A theory in economic geography that attempts to explain the size and spacing of human settlements and the arrangement of their market areas.	An inclusive development model for planning regional infrastructure development (or, renewal) that will foster social equity, environmental sustainability and economic prosperity in a region/state.
A hierarchical model consisting of market areas of hamlets, villages, towns, cities and mega-cities.	Also a hierarchical model, but based on functional human service centers (core spaces) like, people centers, business centers and nodal hubs, each having a specific land use pattern. In the current context, people from small and isolated settlements like villages (non-core spaces) may be expected to eventually relocate to people centers nearby. Proposes the kind of urbanization that is economically decentralized, not the kind of urbanization around big cities, happening because of lack of adequate economic opportunities elsewhere.
Deals with the formation of central places and their service areas (hinterland).	Presents a proposal on how fully networked, functionally efficient, equitably distributed, environmentally sustainable and economically prosperous human activity centers can be developed on a regional scale.
Envisages availability of higher order products/services at corresponding higher level central places	Given the current technological advancements and the proposed logistic network, people can buy any products/services from anywhere in the region at reasonable costs.
A means of understanding how urban settlements evolve and are spaced out in relation to each other.	Although the human settlements are shown a triangular latticework in the model, such geometrical pattern cannot be achieved in practice. Actual geographical conditions and constraints will be considered in the finalization of implementation plans.
Transportation was not among the main aspects of the study. Sustainability was a non-issue in 1933 when this study was undertaken.	Physical networking/logistical infrastructure is a major aspect of the model. Sustainability issues are factored in.
May be considered a reinterpretation of urban realms model in a regional context.	Provides a modern conceptual framework for the development of all basic infrastructure that will seed social and economic prosperity of a region with due consideration for the region's culture, resources, choices, etc.
Studies a highly hierarchical structure with each higher level of human settlement dominating a non-linearly increasing larger area of human activity.	Characterizes development in a regional form that avoids mega-cities/ metropolis and strengthens decentralization principle. Envisages all levels of services being made available anywhere, with minimal need to travel by walking, cycling or using efficient public transportation.
CPT has been criticized for being static; it does not incorporate the temporal aspect in the development of central places. Furthermore, the theory holds up well when it comes to agricultural areas, but not industrial or postindustrial areas due to their diversified nature of various services or their varied distribution of natural resources.	PULSE addresses the current economic environment wherein traditional as well as modern livelihood options will need to coexist. It is also designed to remain dynamic enough to respond appropriately to changes as they happen.

Two interesting messages found posted on the web may be mentioned here. The first was from geographer and planner who blogs in the name of UNplanner (2005). He talks about a global human settlement pattern that now concentrates most people in major metropolitan regions and Mega-cities. This growth in mass-urbanization of course was made possible by an abundant and inexpensive supply of energy, which subsidized the increasing costs of constructing and maintaining ever larger settlements. This enabling condition is not satisfied any more. Hence he proposes a new concept of Central Places with physical, resource-driven, economic and administrative linkages. He believes that such hierarchical arrangement of settlement patterns should become the basis for all human settlement. He then goes on to discuss how communities can be hierarchically distributed and linked. Interestingly, these ideas bear quite a few similarities with PULSE.

Vail (2006) in his blog suggests a non-hierarchical rhizome-lattice structure for spatial distribution of human settlements. PULSE also will attempt to implement such decentralization principle to achieve social equity all across a region, but a limited hierarchical structure appears inevitable - economically, because of the natural distribution of resources, and politically, given the political structure of today's world.

Retrofitting with PULSE

Except perhaps in regions recently hit by natural calamities and civil disturbances, green-field-like development is not called for in other regions. Yet, PULSE can be the basis for all renewal and reconstruction programs, as a retrofitting concept in existing human settlements that do not meet current sustainability requirements. The following self-explanatory diagrams (Fig. 4.10, 4.11, 4.12 & 4.13) illustrate various phases of this retrofitting process as conceptually applied to a typical PULSE module.

Fig. 4.10: Current stage of developing leaving much to be desired

Fig. 4.11: Proposed logistic corridor development to encourage creation of economic opportunities

Fig. 4.12: Current development initiatives already underway will be dovetailed into the proposal of logistic corridors

Fig. 4.13: The module when fully developed.

REFERENCES

CSISS Classics(2007) CSISS(Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science) Classics: Spatial Innovators and Innovations before 1980. University of California, Santa Barbara, CA. Last retrieved on January 17, 2014 from http://www.csiss.org/classics/

Friedman, T. L. (2008) Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why The World Needs a Green Revolution - and How We Can Renew Our Global Future. London: Penguin/Allen Lane

Subramanian, T. S. R. (2007) Building Regional Growth: Elements of Successful State Strategies. In C. W. Wessner & S. J. Shivakumar (Eds.), India's Changing Innovation System: Achievements, Challenges, and Opportunities for Cooperation:Report of a Symposium (pp. 54-58). Washington D. C.: The National Academies Press. Last retrieved on January 17, 2014 from http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11924&page=54

UNplanner. (2005, July 28) Paging Dr. Christaller. Message last retrieved on January 17, 2014 from http://unplanning.blogspot.com/2005/07/paging-dr-christaller.html

Vail, J. (2006, April 14) Rhizome & Central Place Theory. Message last retrieved on January 17, 2014 from http://www.jeffvail.net/2006/04/rhizome-central-place-theory.html

Description of PULSE Model