A Storytelling Perspective Of Street Diversities In Indian Small Towns: The Case Of Roorkee, India

The Indian city improvement programs are aligned with the generalized ideas of infrastructure requirements in cities. The ineptness of city planning resulted in a series of top-down initiatives. As a result, public spaces, particularly streets, lose their value and opportunity to contribute to a city positively. Streets in Indian cities are appallingly insufficient, and whatever streets are available in the cities are extremely overcrowded. Activity and diversity are important criteria to determine a successful street, but overcrowding and intense activity may jeopardize the street experience. This paper examines a semantic structure for urban narratives that applies elements of tales to construct stories of the activities and relationships of people with the commercial streets in Indian small towns. Much initial theorizing on planning has focused on the planner’s role as a storyteller. The paper studies the diversity of street activities and the contextual settings in Indian small towns and their use for mobility and community interactions. We aim to establish meaningful insights on Indian street diversity necessary for developing public spaces in Indian small towns.