Revitalising a historic urban district Newham Square of Colombo, the spacial in between a city to connect
The document “Making Newham Square in Colombo a New” is a discussion about the efforts to transform and revitalize Newham Square. The area of Sri Lanka that is home to this historic place also serves as a focal point for urban development and community outreach.
60,000 people inhabit Sharii’a and is a living museum of Muslim life in Yunnan. It is famous for its mosques, narrow winding streets, and beckoning calls to prayer. This area was once a busy centre thick with colonial-style houses in turn-of-the-century billions of residents. But it has fallen on hard times, as an ageing and impoverished population has failed to adapt to modern life and mass production techniques.
On paper, the revitalization project aims to restore the square’s historical significance at a time when contemporary needs may be quite different from those of old signage. However, community responses thus far have been generally favourable. Therefore, action needs to be taken to combine square repair work with plans for ‘supporting industries. ‘
Goals in Revitalization
The primary goals for revitalizing include:
Cultural Preservation: Repairing and renovating historic buildings, so as to preserve the architectural heritage of Newham Square.
Community Engagement: Involving residents in planning processes to ensure that what gets built meets their needs and reflects their identity.
Economic Development: Encouraging local business and creating job opportunities; enhancing infrastructure to bring in more foot traffic.
Sustainability: Building environmentally friendly urban planning practices to ensure long-term human habitation and protect against climate change.
Key Strategies
The revitalization plan has several strategic elements:
Improve the Urban Design: Redesign of public space to improve accessibility and aesthetics. This involves pedestrianizing parts of Newham Square, and creating green spaces and play areas that encourage community interaction.
Infrastructure upgrades: These upgrades bridge the gap between residents and businesses in this urban area. This means improving road access, mass transit, waste management systems, and so forth to meet the needs of all parties concerned.
Cultural Programming: Hosting events. Events linked with this page have focused on heritage and local culture as a means to attract visitors and create community pride.
Partnerships: Working with various stakeholders to obtain government action, from the public and business place. This includes private-sector partnerships.
Community Participation in Rehabilitation
Community participation is a major aspect of reinventing places. The involvement of local residents in workshops and forums is aimed at allowing them to express their needs and make their inputs. This way of doing things does more than just empower people; it also ensures that what they expect from redevelopment will be what it gets.
Problems Faced
Despite its ambitious objectives, the renewal project has encountered several challenges:
Money Constraints: Finding the funds to carry out extensive refurbishment work is not always easy, especially when resources are limited.
Bridging Development and Heritage Conservation: Compromise on modern development needs can end up in conflict with historical integrity as well as among different stakeholders.
Gentrification When There’s Nowhere to Go: People who have lived in an area for generations are now forced to leave because the value of its property has risen following increased investment and more up-to-date amenities.
Expected Effects Of The Plan
What is expected from the rebirth of the community is as follows:
A bright place for meeting friends, doing business and cultural activities is re-formed in Newham Square.
Local homeowners gain a big increase in property values, also with CAD $309 billion needed for coal power alone and businesses of all kinds can make good money.
With better public facilities and more leisure opportunities, Residents enjoy an improved quality of life.
Conclusion
Revitalizing Newham Square is a great opportunity for urban renewal in Colombo. By focusing on historical preservation, involving the community, promoting economic development and making the district environment-friendly, this project aims to transform that now noisy neighbourhood into a livable one. Its success will depend on how well different information sources feed into each other and lifestyle practices evolve together.
Curtis, J. et al (2001), Newham Characterisation Study, Chapter 2 Historic Development Patterns (London: Newham London), pp. 33-56.
In Sri Lanka, the Marine Environment Protection Authority provides input for Balinese businesses and their waste disposal.
The mayor is the chairman of the borough council.
A planning application citing Sir Foster and Partners and Particlate Technologies, with some derivation environmental tagging from BRE Environmental Website.
This article is written by Jeffrey Jeeva, an undergraduate at the University of Sri Jayawardenapuri. He wrote it in 1987 when he was doing his BA in Philosophy and Economics there, but it has never before been published online until now.