Letter to the Editors

David Nightingale’s urban design comments in the October 2020 Auroville Today article bring attention, again, to some main town development points. These include: a conventional Crown road would be destructive; parking for polluting vehicles outside the Crown at the radials; and urban spaces on the Crown.

An urban spaces ‘Squares’ on the Crown town planning study, originally called plazas on the Crown, was integral with the petal parks idea and based on the existing land and developments at that time, the early 1980’s. I was working with Dorothee at the Eco House organizing land maps, working with several green-workers, and surveying for water conservation projects partly funded by the Tamil Nadu Forest Department, and developed a fairly comprehensive sense of the land and existing buildings. The nine urban ‘Squares’ seem to fit, at the intersection of radial roads at that time, and in part formed a Crown reference diameter. Part of the idea was by building the Squares/plazas on the Crown, polluting vehicles could come to the plazas along radials, and go out from the plazas, and movement from Square to plaza to piazza on the Crown could be less noisy and polluting, and more easily controlled. Below ground, rain water storage tanks were considered as parts of the urban spaces connected by a Crown bund surrounding the higher grounds containing the Peace Gardens. An urban places on the Crown town plan study was in the Auroville Review No. 5-1981. 

Sincerely, 

Joel Goodman, USA, November 5, 2020