Understanding Notion of Public Spaces: Learnings from Historic Cities in Rajasthan for Planning Sustainable Urban Habitats

Public spaces are at the heart of urban life. They are crucial to the smooth and seamless enactment of activities across public and private realms and also critical for physical and emotional well-being of inhabitants. Exponential urban growth has negatively impacted both the distinctive idea of public space and its attributes in Indian historic cities threatening their existence. Significant research has been conducted on public spaces however notion of public spaces in inner core areas in historic cities remains to be crystallized. Based on literature review and empirical work, a comprehensive theoretical framework has been developed for understanding ‘Notion of Public Spaces’ in inner core areas. Using the theoretical framework public spaces in four historic cities in Rajasthan were systematically analyzed. Findings indicate that ‘Notion of Public Space’ in historic cities is that of a seamless, hierarchical, and shared domain of multi-functional spaces exhibiting a strong sense of place, belongingness, and bonding in which day-to-day activities of people unfold. Findings further reveal that the material public space has been conceptualized as an armature for sustaining the public realm. Four fundamental principles ‘accessible, unrestrained, sociable and free to use’ define the notion of public space in inner core area, firmly establishing that public spaces comprise of physical, non-physical, and user components which can be further characterized by five physical and nine intangible attributes. Findings of this research are critical for safeguarding public spaces in inner core areas and offer important learnings for the design of new sociable, liveable, and sustainable urban habitats.