[Urbanstudy] Unless citizens are motivated to live in ways not imagined before, the death of Indian cities will be rapid

[Vinay Baindur]

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/The-city%E2%80%99s-bleak-future/article17029708.ece?homepage=true
The city’s bleak future
Gautam Bhatia <http://www.thehindu.com/profile/author/Gautam--Bhatia-4953/>
 JANUARY 13, 2017 00:15 IST
UPDATED: JANUARY 13, 2017 01:54 IST


BOXED IN: “The municipal and civic mayhem of the country’s big cities on
which Narendra Modi seems to be unjustifiably directing his efforts are the
obvious lifeblood of Indian urbanity.” The Delhi-Gurgaon expressway. PHOTO
BY MANOJ KUMAR   | Photo Credit: Manoj Kumar
<http://www.thehindu.com/profile/photographers/Manoj-Kumar/>
Unless citizens are motivated to live in ways not imagined before, the
death of Indian cities will be rapid

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for a
new metro system in Pune
<http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/Modi-inaugurates-Pune-Metro/article16939633.ece>.
He also gave financial approval for a Shivaji statue in the Arabian Sea off
Mumbai. Earlier, he sought Cabinet approval for highway projects in Odisha
and Punjab; in June, his Smart Cities Mission launched 83 projects
throughout India, including several for new city roads, sports
infrastructure, Bus Rapid Transit systems and waste management.

The city is never a function of concrete objects assembled in space, but
rather, how people live together, prosper and create better lives for
themselves. Though Mr. Modi's intentions cannot be questioned, there is
little evidence to suggest that he will meet these objectives. The history
of urban renewal does not speak well of a city’s expansionist ideas.
Uncontrolled growth

Over the past decade, despite flow of funds for infrastructure, most Indian
cities have been unable to expand road networks and metro lines in keeping
with the growing demand. Uncontrolled populations have made plans for
public facilities ineffective. In the case of Delhi Metro, for instance,
since it opened in 2002, it has had to increase the number of coaches, the
frequency of trains, the size of stations and the length of platforms. Yet,
it struggles to accommodate the mounting numbers. In big towns, 3,000-4,000
cars are registered each week, so more roads are constructed, lengthening
already clogged networks. Yet, distances between home and work are rising,
commutes increasing 3-7 km on an average. Migrant flow into cities has
exceeded all expectations, with a weekly influx of 4,000 families in Mumbai
alone. In housing, while builders have promoted high-end luxury homes,
public projects in most cities remain woefully inadequate.

When over 60 per cent of the city is unrecognised in the planning process,
it has already gone beyond bureaucratic control and design. When the
capital’s Chief Minister gives direct amnesty and legitimacy to unlawful
occupants of urban land, the game is lost. In the seasonal voter counts in
slums that alter civic capacities and neighbourhoods, or those that allow
population and vehicular trends to be readily accommodated, the failure of
the big city is most apparent.
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<http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/homes-and-gardens/How-realistic-is-the-Smart-Cities-Mission/article16700300.ece>


This is truly unfortunate, for the struggle between India as competitive
economy and India as equitable society is most visibly felt in the
development of its towns. The reduction of economic ideals to stock market
highs and the city to commercial symbols is a convenient method to bypass
the more pressing demands of real economics and humane expectations of the
city. Throughout the world, the culture of cities has always emerged out of
local desires. Los Angeles as film city, Copenhagen as fishing village,
Boston as trading post — commercial, cultural and professional attributes
have invariably defined the nature of citizenship. But nowhere has the city
been treated with such contempt as in India.

The municipal and civic mayhem of the country’s big cities on which Mr.
Modi seems to be unjustifiably directing his efforts are the obvious and
noticeable lifeblood of Indian urbanity
<http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/Govt.-announces-list-of-first-20-smart-cities-under-Smart-Cities-Mission/article14027175.ece>.
Sadly, conventional approaches to their mega size which may work in Rome
and Shanghai are doomed to fail in Indian conditions. Indian cities are
vastly varied. They range in three types: metropolitan accretions such as
Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, with the cumbersome statistical dimensions of
small States, spreading by usurping surrounding towns. Or Tier-2 cities
such as Pune, Jaipur, Bhopal and Lucknow, merely smaller replicas of the
metros, but similarly unable to control the suburban sprawl and increasing
numbers. Finally, there are small towns such as Meerut and Hubli — part
rural, part cantonment — mandi townships, essential to maintaining
commercial links to surrounding villages. Restricted in growth and size, it
is there that the Prime Minister needs to lavish his efforts.

Unless the government becomes serious in intent and chooses a rigorous
twofold path, the demise of the Indian city will be rapid. It must devise a
development strategy for small Tier-3 towns that is itself a departure from
conventional practices. It must take into account new forms of public
housing, regulate bye-laws that restrict commuting and delineate public
space over private commerce. If even 70 years after Independence, the
Indian city has been unable to define the kind of life urban Indians should
live, then Tier-3 towns are a clear opportunity for that experiment.

Second, the process must simultaneously relieve larger towns of the burden
of new citizens. The government's unrealistic plans need to reverse the
processes of long-range connectivity, in favour of local outlooks that
include pedestrianisation, conversion to mixed-use streets, reduction of
commercial activity and an eradication of gated neighbourhoods. Any new
expansion of ideas on the ground needs to motivate all participants to live
together in ways not imagined before, and encourage a sense of community
and inclusion that erodes differences of ethnicity, profession, caste,
social and economic position. Within the current insulated demographics of
Indian urban life, this may be an impossible task. But given that the city
of the future will most likely be an unstable configuration, its survival
rests on having a mix of race and class, rural and urban, rich and the
future rich.
Fluid migration

The new city’s values will be grounded in a shifting set of people no
longer bound to place. For millions of new migrants, the future citizens,
home will be a job, a quenching of thirst, a place to lie down.
Consequently, the public fields of bureaucratic intervention will only be
enablers to migratory tasks, accommodating potential and making physical
possibilities happen on the ground when possible. Rather than defining
walls and boundaries, the architectural brief too will be informed by these
fluid transformations.
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<http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/Urbanisation-has-not-led-to-hotter-summer-days-for-many-Indian-cities/article17013420.ece>


In the new city the traditional structures of justice and legislature will
be forgotten, replaced quickly by people with private needs. The potential
for an urban life without buildings will only be generated by a resolution
of migratory forces operating in the city, and encoding something of their
own culture, on their own terms. In a culture of expediency and spectacle,
the idea of architecture as a theatre for settlement will have none of the
responsibilities of its glory days. In fact, the architect and planner will
be just like another citizen on the run.

Before that happens, attitudes will require serious realignments. The
Indian city’s undisguised fawning and mimicry of Western models bodes ill
for an urban culture steeped in an altogether different life and pattern.
Stockholm and Berlin may present a cohesive picture for initiating a
computerised smartness into Indian urbanism, but they can hardly be
imitated wholesale. When 60 per cent of the citizens are without local
housing or access to municipal utilities, 40 per cent move about as
pedestrians, with a third of those without conventional livelihood, the
needs of urbanity are closer to those of Lagos or Cairo than of European or
Chinese cities. A more generous and open-minded comprehension of
traditional town structure by the government can provide a constructive
direction to the country’s urban future.

*Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based architect and sculptor.*
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