Abstract
Urbanisation is currently a global trend. Cities in developing countries are rapidly embracing high-rise living due to various socio-political and geographical factors. Often, high-rise apartments have been viewed as inferior housing options after they failed due to social issues in the UK and North America in the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, most social sustainability studies on high-rise apartments have been conducted in developed countries, such as the UK, the US, Canada, Germany, Sweden, and Australia. This research seeks to find how socially sustainable high-rise apartments are in the context of the developing world, especially in Kolkata, India. Based on the literature review, this study postulates a definition of the Social Sustainability of high-rise apartments. This study applies Qualitative and Quantitative analysis to examine the social issues related to high-rise living in Kolkata. It examines the residents’ experiences of 61 low-rise (G+4 floors) and 59 high-rise (G+5 and above floors) apartments in Kolkata. It compares the experiences of the residents based on the concepts and theories related to social sustainability found in the literature review and tests these against the definition of the social sustainability of high-rise living. The sense of community is higher in low-rise apartments than in high-rise apartments, leading to higher social cohesion and trust between the residents. The results indicate that popular high-rise apartment developments in Kolkata’s newer suburbs are not socially sustainable due to unaffordability and non-inclusiveness. Low-rise cooperative model apartments are socially sustainable because they are affordable, equitable, inclusive, and socially cohesive.
Presenters
Saurav MitraLecturer, Architecture and Landscape Architecture, The University of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY, HIGH-RISE, LOW-RISE, APARTMENTS, KOLKATA
