Hectares Are Not Access: Measuring India's Maidans by Edge, Walk, Gate and Ground

Indian plans count open space in hectares and square metres per person. Residents meet it differently: as a ground they can see from the street, reach on foot, enter without a ticket and share with other games. This article reviews research on park access and use, Indian planning norms and court records, then measures open grounds in Mumbai's Fort and two Bengaluru neighbourhoods. It argues that a maidan works only while its edge, walk, entry rules and form stay open, and proposes a five-part test.

Sujeet S. Thakare
Urban Design & Planning

The maidan is one of the few Indian urban forms that almost everyone recognises and almost no plan describes: a large, flat, mostly unplanted ground, open at its edges, where several cricket games, a rally, a wedding pandal, walkers and vendors can share one surface. Mumbai's Oval, Cross and Azad maidans and Kolkata's Maidan work this way, as do countless smaller grounds in district towns. In plans the same places are counted as hectares of "recreational" or "organised green" land.

That accounting misses most of what makes ground public. A field can be large and unreachable, central and locked, or shaped so that only one game fits. This article argues that the per-capita norm tends to hide the conditions that decide whether open ground is used: whether its edge meets the street, whether people can walk to it, who may enter and when, and whether its shape and programme leave room for many uses at once.

The argument is set out as a five-part test, OPENS: Open edge, Proximity, Entry rules, Neutral ground and Size and shape. The article summarises the research and regulatory base, describes the method, presents measurements for three Indian windows and closes with implications for practice.

What the research says

Research on parks and health has gradually moved from asking how much green space a city has to asking who can reach it. A widely used European indicator proposes that residents should live within 300 m, in a straight line, of a public green space of at least one hectare (Annerstedt van den Bosch et al., 2016). UN-Habitat's guidance for Sustainable Development Goal indicator 11.7.1 goes further: it measures the share of the population within 400 m of open public space along the street network, recognises that some spaces are accessible only in daylight hours, and recommends that 15–20% of urban land be open public space in addition to streets (UN-Habitat, 2019). Its city-wide assessment toolkit adds free entry and controlled opening hours to the indicators of accessibility (UN-Habitat, 2020).

The record on distance is mixed, which matters for how norms are written. In Los Angeles, residents living closer to a park visited it and exercised more often (Cohen et al., 2007). In Perth, people with very good access to large, attractive public open space were about 50% more likely to walk at high levels (Giles-Corti et al., 2005). In Kansas City, the number of park features was associated with physical activity while size and distance were not (Kaczynski et al., 2008). Comparing accessibility metrics in the Netherlands, Ekkel and de Vries (2017) concluded that cumulative-opportunity measures, which count how much green space lies within a given distance, related to health more consistently than measures of distance to the nearest space. Reviewing 49 studies, Rigolon (2016) found evidence on proximity inconclusive but inequities in park acreage and quality striking. Proximity, on this reading, is necessary but not sufficient: what lies at the end of the walk, and whether one may enter, also shape use.

Urban design research makes a parallel argument about form. Jacobs (1961) observed that neighbourhood parks are used or left empty according to the life and diversity around them, and that large single-use territories create "border vacuums". Talen (2010) argued that the spatial logic of parks should combine proximity, diversity of park types and social need rather than standard ratios. Mehta's (2014) Public Space Index treats inclusiveness, meaningful activity, safety, comfort and pleasurability as distinct, measurable dimensions of a public space. Carmona (2010) distinguishes critiques of public space that fear over-management, such as privatisation and exclusion, from those that fear neglect; both apply to Indian grounds.

Indian evidence is thinner but consistent. In Delhi, Gupta et al. (2012) showed that two neighbourhoods with the same overall green index could differ in usable neighbourhood green, which was higher in low-rise than in high-rise areas. Interviewing park visitors in Delhi, Paul and Nagendra (2017) found that most daily visitors lived within about half a kilometre, while only a small minority travelled far to large parks. For Bengaluru, Bhor and Mayavel (2024) used street-network service areas and found that 19 of 198 wards had no park, and that 29% of wards had no neighbourhood park within 400 m.

Indian norms remain largely quantitative. The national URDPFI guidelines suggest that 10–12 m² of open space per person may be desirable, list maidans within the hierarchy of organised green, set population thresholds for parks from a 0.5 ha housing-area park to a 100 ha sub-city park, and classify "multi-open space (maidan)" as a distinct land use (Ministry of Urban Development, 2014, pp. 362–363, 382). They also carry a National Building Code provision that open spaces and maidans "should be spatially distributed and multiple function in time to be promoted" (p. 363). Whether those hectares stay open is another matter. For Mumbai, Udas-Mankikar (2020) documents a policy that handed public open plots to private caretakers, whose clubs could build on up to a quarter of the land and restrict entry to members; the municipal corporation began taking plots back in 2017. In Bengaluru, the Supreme Court held that land reserved as a public park in a development-authority layout could not be allotted to a private body for a hospital, treating the reservation as a public trust (Bangalore Medical Trust v. B. S. Muddappa, 1991). For the Fort maidans, the UNESCO inscription of Mumbai's Victorian Gothic and Art Deco ensembles treats the Oval Maidan as the open centrepiece between two architectural fronts (UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 2018).

Method and sources

The analysis combines a review of studies, national guidance and legal and heritage records with original measurements on OpenStreetMap (OSM) data for three windows: Mumbai's Fort and Churchgate (1.4 by 1.8 km around the three maidans), and two Bengaluru neighbourhoods at one scale (1.1 by 1.1 km each), the planned layout of Jayanagar and the peripheral growth of Marathahalli. Open grounds were taken from OSM park, garden, pitch, playground, recreation-ground, common, stadium and sports-centre features. They were classed as restricted where tags or names indicated private, member or fee access, a stadium or sports centre, or a club, school, college or institution, and where a ground lay inside such a restricted ground.¹

Each ground's boundary was sampled every 4 m with an outward ray of 24 m, recording whether a public street or path was met before any building (street edge), a building first (back turned), or neither. Walking reach was computed as the shortest path along public OSM centrelines, footways included, from points within 15 m of every public ground of at least 0.5 ha. Results are reported as the share of building footprint area within 400 m on foot, alongside the share within 400 m in a straight line. Entry was read from mapped access, fee, gate and opening-hours tags, and form from area by mapped type and the diameter of the largest circle that fits inside each ground. OSM coverage is incomplete, so every figure is "as mapped"; the sections are indicative.

Analysis

Open edge: the Fort maidans from their boundaries

Figure 1 draws the Fort window as a figure-ground in which public open ground is shaded sage, restricted ground is stippled and buildings are solid; numbered circles mark the three maidans, and each maidan's edge is unrolled beside the plan as a strip. As mapped, the frame holds about 31 ha of public open ground and 16 ha of restricted ground; stadia, a club house and a college ground account for about a third of all mapped open land. The three maidans differ more at their edges than in size. The Oval Maidan (9.4 ha) meets a public street along its entire boundary, but a fence is also mapped along all of it and no gate is recorded. Cross Maidan (7.2 ha) meets a street on about 44% of its edge, while on 29% buildings back directly onto it. Azad Maidan's main parcel meets a street on about half of its edge, and the rest is open or unmapped.

Figure 1. Ground, edge and gate: the Fort maidans of Mumbai as a Nolli-style figure-ground, with each maidan's boundary classified every 4 m and unrolled.
Source: Author's drawing and measurement based on OpenStreetMap data (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL), 2026.

Figure 2 shows why the edge matters. In the upper section, a maidan edge is built from an arcade, a footpath with a street tree, the carriageway, a katta (a raised sitting ledge) and a waist-high railing that people can see through, then a tree rim and open ground. Anyone on the footpath can sit, watch a game and step in. In the lower section the same ground sits behind building backs, a service lane with parked cars and a 2.1 m compound wall, with entry through a single gate. The ground is no farther away, but it now has to be entered rather than joined, close to what Jacobs (1961) described as a border vacuum. The chain under each section makes the difference legible: building, arcade, street, katta, rim and open ground in one case; building, lane, wall, gate and lawn in the other.

Figure 2. An edge you can step across: an open maidan edge (A) and a walled park edge (B) on the same ground datum, each read as a sequence from building to ground.
Source: Author's indicative sections, 2026.

Proximity: near on the map, far on foot

Figure 3 compares Jayanagar and Marathahalli at one scale. Each street is drawn at a weight that fades with walking distance from the nearest public ground of 0.5 ha or more; a dashed line marks the 400 m straight-line "circle". In Jayanagar, about 67% of building footprint area lies within 400 m of such a ground in a straight line, but only about 49% within 400 m on foot. The median walk is about 410 m, because the large parks run as a linear chain along one side of the frame. Counting smaller grounds of 0.2 ha or more raises the walking share to about 66%. In Marathahalli, no public ground is mapped in the central frame at all. The only mapped grounds, about 2 ha, are restricted: private gardens and playgrounds inside gated complexes, pitches and a sports academy. About 11% of footprint area falls within 400 m in a straight line of Munekola Lake Park, just beyond the frame, but none of it is within 400 m on foot. The median walk to a public ground of 0.5 ha or more is about 1.3 km.

Figure 3. Near on the map, far on foot: walking reach to public open ground in two Bengaluru neighbourhoods, drawn as a graded line field beside the 400 m circle.
Source: Author's drawing and measurement based on OpenStreetMap data (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL), 2026.

The gap between circle and walk is the gap between UN-Habitat's network-based method (UN-Habitat, 2019) and the straight-line habits of many plans and indicators (Annerstedt van den Bosch et al., 2016). In both windows the circle flatters the neighbourhood, consistent with Bhor and Mayavel's (2024) finding that park access in Bengaluru is uneven.

Entry rules: hours, fees and membership

As mapped, Horniman Circle Garden in the Fort window opens from sunrise to sunset; Yediyur Lake Park in Jayanagar opens 07:00–21:30; and Munekola Lake Park in Marathahalli opens in two windows, 05:30–10:00 and 14:30–18:00. That last schedule closes the park for most of the working day and after dark. Such schedules rarely enter open-space reporting, although UN-Habitat's toolkit lists opening hours and entrance fees among its indicators of accessibility (UN-Habitat, 2020). Membership is a sharper filter. The caretaker arrangement Udas-Mankikar (2020) describes for Mumbai allowed a club pavilion on part of a public plot and members-only use of the rest, a pattern Carmona (2010) would place among the risks of over-management. In Marathahalli the restricted grounds are commons inside gated complexes. They count as open space on a land-use map but admit only residents.

Neutral ground and size: room for many games

Figure 4 draws one plot of about 105 m between building lines under two briefs. As a neutral maidan it holds vendors at the tree rim, a seasonal pandal, three informal cricket games, a football game and walkers, all at once, on about 90 m of clear, level ground. As a programmed park it holds a members' pavilion on about a quarter of the plot, hedged lawns, a fountain and a gazebo; the largest clear lawn is a fraction of the plot. OSM supports the first reading for the Fort. Cross Maidan alone carries ten mapped pitches, eight of them for cricket. Across the frame, about 23 ha of public open ground is mapped as recreation ground against under 6 ha of park and garden. Shape matters too. The largest circle that fits inside the Oval Maidan's main parcel is about 150 m across, about 125 m for Cross Maidan and about 170 m for Azad Maidan. That is room for several games; a linear park of the same area may have none.

Figure 4. Room for many games: one plot as a neutral maidan (A) and as a programmed park (B), with uses at once numbered.
Source: Author's indicative sections, 2026; pavilion share after the caretaker arrangement described by Udas-Mankikar (2020).

OPENS as a field test

Figure 5 assembles the five tests as a board at three scales. The first row reads the edge: whether the ground meets the street and who may enter, set beside the Cross and Azad edges as mapped and a sketch of an edge made of footpath, katta, a gap in a low railing and a tree rim. The second row reads the ground itself: whether it is flat, clear and free of set pieces, and how wide its largest clear circle is, shown on the Oval Maidan and in a section with several games at once. The third row reads the neighbourhood: how much of it lies within a 400 m walk, drawn on Jayanagar, beside a sketch of grounds linked by streets in which a gated common does not count. The strip at the foot of the board states the shift the tests ask for, from counting hectares to measuring edge, walk, gate and ground. In the field the order follows a site visit: walk the edge, trace the walk in along real streets, check each gate, then judge the ground. None of the tests needs more than OSM, a walk and a notebook, and each can be repeated after an intervention.

Figure 5. OPENS at three scales: edge, ground and neighbourhood, each with its questions, an as-mapped figure-ground and an indicative sketch.
Source: Author's drawing and measurement based on OpenStreetMap data (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL), 2026; sketches indicative.

Figure 6 applies the test to Cross and Azad maidans in three states: a generalised maidan with a permeable edge, the grounds as mapped today, and a proposed reopening with a public rim, an entry about every 80 m and new fronts where buildings now turn their backs. Below each plan, an axonometric of a typical edge shows the same change at street level: a katta and a low railing that can be stepped across, a 2.1 m wall with one gate, and a reopened rim with seats, shade and marked entries. The proposal adds no land; it changes the edge, the way in and the rules.

Figure 6. Maidan, enclosure, reopening: Cross and Azad maidans in three states, the third a proposal, with the edge in axonometric below each plan.
Source: Author's drawing based on OpenStreetMap data (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL), 2026; stage 1 generalised, stage 3 proposed; axonometrics indicative.

Discussion

Three implications follow. First, per-capita norms and accessibility are not interchangeable. A city could meet the URDPFI range of 10–12 m² per person (Ministry of Urban Development, 2014) by adding a regional park on its edge while most neighbourhoods remained, as in Marathahalli, more than a kilometre's walk from any public ground. The health and equity literature points to distance, quality and entry as the variables that bear on use (Ekkel & de Vries, 2017; Rigolon, 2016), so norms might better be written as walking-distance thresholds by size of ground, as Talen (2010) and UN-Habitat (2019) propose, with the per-capita figure retained as a city-wide check.

Second, the edge deserves the same attention as the area. The Oval's fully street-fronted but fenced boundary and Cross Maidan's partly back-turned edge are design facts, not natural ones, and they can be revised without acquiring land. Kattas, see-through railings, tree rims and frequent entries are cheap relative to land, and they recover the watching and joining that Jacobs (1961) and Mehta (2014) associate with lively public space. The caution from Wolch et al. (2014) still applies. An edge made more attractive can raise land values and invite exclusionary management, so reopening needs to be paired with rules that keep entry free.

Third, neutrality has to be defended. Set pieces are easy to fund and photograph, and club arrangements can make them self-financing (Udas-Mankikar, 2020); a neutral maidan looks like nothing until it is used. The courts have treated reserved parks as a public trust (Bangalore Medical Trust v. B. S. Muddappa, 1991), and URDPFI already asks for open spaces to serve "multiple function in time". Development plans could carry that further by protecting a minimum clear, level, unprogrammed area in larger grounds.

The evidence has limits. OSM under-maps gates, fences, hours and in places buildings, so the edge and entry figures are prompts for a field visit. Walking reach was measured from footprint area rather than population, and it ignores the quality of the route: a walk of 400 m across a six-lane road is not the same as one through a quiet lane. The windows are small and chosen for contrast, not to represent their cities. Finally, most studies of use come from high-income contexts; Indian evidence on how far people walk to grounds, and what they do there, remains limited, though visitor surveys such as Paul and Nagendra's (2017) begin to fill the gap.

Conclusion / Implications for practice

Open ground in Indian cities is defended in hectares and lost at the edge, the gate and the timetable. The measurements suggest that a ground can be central yet fenced, near on a map yet far on foot, and counted as open yet reserved for members. For practice, five steps follow:

1. Edge. Audit every ground of 0.5 ha or more for its street-edge share and its building backs, and set an edge brief (katta, see-through rail, tree rim, entries about every 80–100 m) in place of perimeter walls.
2. Walk. Report open-space provision by walking distance along streets, by size of ground, alongside per-capita figures, and fix the gaps through new links as well as new land.
3. Entry. Publish opening hours, fees and any membership rules for each ground, and make free, all-day entry the default for public grounds.
4. Neutral ground. Protect a minimum clear, level, unprogrammed area in larger grounds, and limit permanent structures and leases on public open plots.
5. Size and shape. Test new reservations for a clear-circle width at which a game fits, not only for area, and avoid satisfying open-space quotas with strips and leftover corners.

None of these replaces the need for more open land in dense cities. They ask only that the land already counted be open in the ways residents use it.

Notes

¹ The classification rules, walking-network construction and all outputs are archived in the figure package (analysis.py, analysis_ns.py, stats.json). Shares are of building footprint area within an inner window, so that grounds just outside each frame still count for buildings near its edge. ↩

Data. Figure-ground drawings and measurements use OpenStreetMap building, highway, leisure, landuse and barrier extracts (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL), retrieved through an Overpass mirror and redrawn by the author, 2026. Sections, axonometrics and the sketches on the framework board are indicative analytical drawings, not surveyed designs.

Interests. No competing interests.

Preparation note. Planning norms and court holdings are summarised from the published texts cited and are not legal advice; readers should consult the current notified versions.

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