City Renewal

Reflecting on Calcutta renewal

2010-03-23T22:41:00.001-07:00

V Ramaswamy

Renegade Calcutta

It was only many years after I began working in PM Basti did it strike me that if one were to be really honest, then there is no denying what the basti is, and what the basti-dweller is. In a city of cruel and perpetuated disparity and exploitation, in this apartheid city, the basti is the heart of darkness. It represents the city’s discontents. It is a factory of the renegade. The slum youth may sleep at night, out in the open under the rain, clad in a plastic sheet. But so long as the basti exists, the city shall not sleep in peace. Destruction, in the most horrific manner, is writ large everywhere as far as I can see. The slums of Kolkata are powder-kegs for widespread destruction. But it is a humane transformation that I seek, and have been trying to realize, from one place to begin with. And that is Priya Manna Basti.

Some field reports on public policy

In February 2008, the state govt declared its policy to permit construction of multi-storied buildings on thika tenancy land in Kolkata and Howrah, provided the tenants gave their consent. The term “manufactured consent” would get a whole new dimension in Kolkata! The real estate development and builders’ lobby had for long been lobbying to be given the huge plots of land in Kolkata under bastis. It is my honest opinion that the capability does not yet exist in this city to ensure that such commercial developments in bastis do not go against the interests of the basti dwellers.

And in February 2010, the state govt announced its policy of granting land tenure to squatters on public land. 25 years ago, the squatters’ organization, Chhinamul Sramajibi Adhikar Samiti, had demanded the same. But that has come only now, because the next assembly elections are imminent, and now political competition has emerged. Defending the policy the state urban development minister declared that the govt had carried out land reforms in the rural sphere, and through this policy on squatters, land reform was now being undertaken in favour of the urban poor. I am reminded of something written by the author Nikos Kazantzakis: intoxicated by the sound of his own words! Actually, land reform in the city will mean grant of housing title to the city’s basti dwellers. Refugees and now squatters have been granted secure tenure. But the basti dwellers, who number many more than the others, who have been legal tenants for decades, and in some cases for over a century, have been specially chosen to be excluded from any so-called land reform. As the proposal on canal-side renewal demonstrated, it is through basti redevelopment that squatter resettlement is most effectively taken care of.

In the context of the impossibility of top-down development, the Department of Panchayats and Rural Development, in the Govt of West Bengal, has been involved in the SRD, or "Strengthening Rural Decentralisation" programme. Building on that, now a project on "Institutional Strengthening in Gram Panchayats" (ISGP) is to be taken up, with support from the World Bank. Here, the objective is to stimulate bottom-up forces at the grassroots, as the only means of ensuring that resources in the system reach the needy. We need something like that in the urban sphere as well.

But the programmes we have seen in the city have belied that hope. The KEIP and the KUSP may be mentioned. I wonder if ADB, who funded KEIP, have been down here to see for themselves what has actually been implemented in the name of squatter resettlement. And KUSP was in fact was supposed to have a bottom-up planning and implementation methodology. But that is not what transpired. It was a top-down affair, and by the ruling party rather than the state govt, but, interestingly enough, with a kind of whitening cream, in this age of fairness creams, to give it a bottom-up complexion. The JNNURM has also failed to be an instrument for bottom-up development. Now I believe the Rajiv Awaas Yojana is to supplant the JNNURM as the lead programme of housing for the urban poor. So it is to that that our attention must now be trained.

The rot

The riots in Calcutta following 6 December 1992 demolished the delusion that Calcutta and West Bengal were supposedly secular places, places of communal harmony. How blind and apathetic I had been, to the reality all around me.

Since then it was also a personal journey for me of becoming aware of the layers upon layers of one’s own habitual assumption, presumption and prejudice.

I wish I could draw for you a diagram, a kind of X-ray analysis, which depicts the situation we have here, and especially around its lower tiers. The under-life around where light does not fall, but upon which the whole edifice of our city life and its power relations stand. But, to tell the truth, for me the very elegance of that diagram only adds insult to injury, it mocks. For it is not out of ignorance, out of ‘not knowing’ that we have what we have. At root is willful ignorance and apathy. At root is will, or the lack of it, depending upon one’s perspective. I recently had the opportunity to join in some rural surveys in some of the districts of West Bengal. I interacted with rural households, panchayat officials and members, govt officials at district and block level, and finally senior officials from various departments in Kolkata. That was a real eye opener. When pushed to explain matters, some officers admitted that at root was the fact that no one gave a damn for the so-called policy goals, of uplift of Scheduled castes, Schedules Tribes and Muslims.

Perhaps this is what prompted Dr Siddiqui to investigate the roots of communalism in India. He tells us that from the time of our so-called Bengal renaissance, from the time of the earliest stirrings of Indian nationalism, one sees a willful exclusion and demonisation of the Muslim.

What we have in West Bengal is not governance by an elected govt, but rule by a party, in close nexus with criminals and various other vested interests. Public institutions are therefore weak and devoid of any substantive capability. But now that the ruling party is facing a rout, there seems to be a move to push the agenda of governance, as well as a flurry of sops and schemes. And at the same time, in a bid to survive, the ruling party is trying to initiate reform, by purging itself of criminal and other vested interests. A pervasive rot characterizes public institutions and the society at large, including its ruling party. This is a social crisis, a sociological phenomenon. Muslims are marginalized in that overall picture, despite the party’s professed commitment to their uplift, or because of its dominant tendency. But this is not a static situation. Now we are witnessing a frantic effort within the party, to avert rout.

Overturning

I mentioned 6 December 1992. Kolkata is, of course, also the city of 16 August 1946, the day of the Great Calcutta Killings, which put the seal on partition. Partition happened because of the question of the nature of self-rule, about power and governance. That question remains unresolved through these 60+ years. My journey has been an education in how power and governance actually happen, here in Kolkata. My own quest, is for swaraj.

The positive side of all this is that we are fighting for some fairly profound and historic things here. The overturning when it comes, will be a big overturning.

Post-modernism & transport planning

2009-04-19T06:13:00.000-07:00

Oosterwolde, Netherlands

by Sameer Sharma
Economic Times

The emergence of postmodernism as an alternative to modernism has useful lessons for Indian policymakers. Modernism, in the words of David Harvey, “entails a ruthless break with any or all preceding historical traditions” and the west during the pursuit of the “High Modern” project completely disassembled existing historic structures because all historical social systems were perceived to be inherently backward, which held back progress; therefore, had to be abandoned. On the other hand, India never completely let go of its past and the “revalorisation of tradition” has once again made India a wonder for the western mind, in the way described by A L Basham.

A product of Enlightenment, the modernist project rests on the underlying notion that laws of reality objectively exist and by applying scientific principles these can be discovered and mastered to promote human welfare. Hence, modernism searches for general theories and universal laws, disregarding culture and context. On the other hand, a paradigm shift occurred with postmodernism, which tries to understand reality by looking for culture-specific characteristics and unique local conditions.

Similar trends are visible in urban planning, which has veered away from a “Fordist” approach to create technologically efficient urban forms, such as mass suburbia, “international-style” towers in inner cities, and auto-dependent neighbourhoods to recognition of urban diversity and complexity.

Accordingly, Corbusier’s concept of a house as a “machine for living” and claim that a “city made for speed is made for success” has been replaced by Lynch’s “good city form”, Boyer’s search for a “city of collective memory”, and Calthropian human, as opposed to machine-based, planning-scales. Postmodern urban sensibility, directed towards “pluralism, a search for character, urban identity, unique features, visual references, creation of landmarks”, provides a basis to design innovative and inclusive India-specific urban policies and one example is the application of post-modern principles to transport planning and traffic engineering.

Western transport planning is based on creating “traffic zones” to achieve consistency, conformity and predictability in auto and pedestrian movement. Roads are categorised into a hierarchy of road types, suitable for various functions, speeds, and traffic volumes (e.g., national highways, neighbourhood roads). Furthermore, there is segregation between traffic and pedestrian networks on roads.

The principles of categorisation and segregation were operationalised by the west during the last 75 years. Commonly, Eugene Henard is considered to be the progenitor of modern traffic engineering, and Holroyd Smith introduced these principles to the US, which were later codified by Arthur Tuttle and Edward Holmes. Segregation between traffic and pedestrian networks was first tried in Radburn, New Jersey, and the separation principle was further developed in the Buchanan report, Traffic in Towns.

Undoubtedly, such “traffic zones” are required for the exclusive use of vehicles on highways, but recent postmodern practices in Europe are also looking at roads as “social zones”. Unlike traffic zones, social zones integrate car and pedestrian movement. The combination of traffic with pedestrian movements, children’s play, and social activities is based on the “woonerf principles” developed by Niek de Boer and Joost Vahl in the Netherlands. Similar postmodern concepts were also experimented in the UK in the “Home Zones” programme.

Traditionally, transport planning is based on the 3Es — enforcement, education, and engineering. The common belief is that traffic will flow smoothly if traffic rules are enforced, public educated, and roads upgraded to universal standards. On the contrary, woonerf principles envisage streets to be social zones.

For instance, the city of Christiansfeld, Denmark used “ambiguity and urban legibility” in street design to reduce high death rates on the town’s central traffic intersection. Instead of erecting warning signs, road markings, and traffic signals, Bjarne Winterberg and the engineering firm Ramboll removed traffic signals and road markings. No mode of transport was given priority and pedestrians, buses, cars, and trucks used eye contact to negotiate the junction.

Surface treatment, lightning columns, and junction corners were squared up. The purpose was to make the intersection resemble the centre of the town or to create a public realm. Expectedly, the number of killed or seriously injured (KSI) during the last three years was reduced to zero, moreover, traffic backups were reduced. Compared to junctions having traffic signals, ambiguous junctions prevent accidents, reduce delays, and are cheaper to construct and maintain.

Shared space is another woonerf principle that is applied to transform busy traffic intersections. In Friesland market town of Oosterwolde, different types of traffic intermingle giving an impression of chaos and disorder, in fact, traffic negotiates the junction using eye contact and care for other types of transport. No state regulation or control is visible and traffic movement depends on informal convention and legibility.

Living in an urban environment in which kerbs are used to prevent interaction of pedestrian activity with carriageway and painted lines show places humans should walk and cross streets, people coming from the high-income countries are appalled by the absence of kerbs, road markings, bollards, traffic signals, barriers, and signs in India.

What they fail to understand is that the traffic, as it is in Indian cities, reflects the local values and cultural history of the place leading to lack of uniformity and ambiguity, requiring a different set of rules to reconcile competing and conflicting claims for safety, efficient movement, and the quality of the built environment. In this setting, real improvement in traffic congestion is only possible by using contextual designs, based on postmodern ideas, to influence traffic speeds and driver behaviour.

The author is an Indian Administrative Services officer. Views are personal.

The City Imagined

2009-02-27T01:50:00.000-08:00

by Gautam Bhatia
LiveMint

Of the various disciplines that give scope and structure to the idea of a city— among them architecture, planning, demography and sociology—no one would argue that the central premise is aspirational. People come together to live better lives and find opportunities to improve their condition. Yet, in the absence of a public policy related to this ideal, how can the city create equitable conditions of opportunity related to its growth and development?

Campbell Towers, Malibu Gardens

So far, every aspect of growth has been related to consumerist ideals. The parcelling of land to private developers has naturally led to discriminatory patterns of development, related solely to middle-class aspirations. “Live a new life at Campbell Towers, just 12km from downtown Pune”, or “Come to Malibu Gardens, Ahmedabad’s new upmarket address”. Air-conditioned glass houses with seductive titles, copied from European models, spring up overnight in the suburbs: Belvedere Glades, Cameron Manor— business ventures for quick, profitable returns. Everyone knows it is more profitable to build for one man at an 18-hole golf course than for 18 men at one handpump. There is money to be made in exclusive locales—clubs, industrial parks, expensive upscale farmhouses and retail businesses. And the builder is the new city planner.

Singular need, paper attempts

Unfortunately, when foreign ideals and designer townships become realities in the Indian city, few would be interested in cross-examining the contents for ecology or equities in energy, transportation and lifestyle. Yet, if ever there was a need to comprehensively examine the forces of Indian city living, it is now. With growing populations and nagging displacements, a yawning gap between the old settled and the newly arrived, and indeed between liveable and available space, the search for an alternative way of urban living is the single most glaring need for the city. Yet nowhere has there been a serious attempt to define in clear physical terms the kind of setting that would suit the requirements of all sections of urban India.

Certainly there have been many attempts on paper. The Third World Metropolis. City in Search of a Future. New Town Design. The Alternative City. All grand ideals that examine statistics and planning patterns, but do little to create a physical structure that can be built, seen and felt as a future model for growth.Despite monumental problems and annual shortfalls, the incomplete approach to planning and design is part of the psychology of a government unable to take bold initiatives. Only when problems manifest themselves in health epidemics, housing shortages or food contamination does the government initiate action. A Rs 8,000 house designed by an engineer 20 years ago was seen as a great thrust towards a bold future. That the cement and bamboo structure would be hot and cold in the wrong seasons, had inadequate ventilation and was entirely unsuited to local ideas was overlooked owing to the seductively low cost. The house was a winner solely on the thrift of its construction.

Low-cost house or new city?

How then do societies with a far lesser need for change and experimentation promote bolder ideas, with more rigorous parameters? The Masdar Initiative, for instance, is a 64.5 million sq. ft sustainable development outside Abu Dhabi which advertises itself as a zero-carbon, zero-waste city. Planned by Norman Foster, its design integrates the traditional principles of a walled city with advanced ideas in harnessing energy and reusing waste. The ambitious project bills itself as the future desert metropolis. Whether it succeeds in its objective is less important than the will that drives people to such a monumental experiment.

In a place where an ill-conceived but cheap concrete roof is seen as futuristic, a scale of endeavour such as the Masdar Initiative would seem foolishly ambitious, a piece of science fiction. How many bureaucrats, politicians, government files and Planning Commission meetings would it take to bridge the divide between a cement house and a whole new city? It is a question that sinks quickly into parody.

Long road ahead

The need for a new direction in India can no longer be part of a government wish list or the old perception that views city problems merely as a matter of cleaning up—razing slums and replacing them with golf courses. Or whitewashing slum walls and asking people to remain indoors. The fear that a new idea may not work and that the responsibility will come to rest uncomfortably on the shoulders of a bureaucrat or a minister keeps the government from supporting any serious alternatives.

Is there anyone...?

Given the power that builders and developers exercise in the allocation of land and buildings in a city, it is a shame that few among them have taken to experimentation. To be the richest in the world, recognized by Forbes, is enough for the gloating family of Indian business achievers. But with profits in luxury housing dwindling, is there anyone out there—a DLF, Unitech or Raheja— who can summon up enough courage to embark on a different road and direct even a minuscule part of its profits towards the design of a new community? An idea that rejects convention and provides a clear physical representation of a new form of urban living suited to Indian needs—the way people relate to their homes, places of recreation, proximity to markets, desire for leisure, need for security, new types of transportation, and new alternate forms of energy—to produce a real model of a few hundred units among the millions they place in the market every year? In their able and experienced hands, and with inputs on possible alternatives from architects, planners, transport engineers and energy experts, there may yet be hope for an Indian city.

Illustration: Jayachandran / Mint

Basti Redevelopment in Calcutta

2008-07-31T03:55:00.001-07:00

The Statesman of 21 February 2008 reported that the West Bengal land and land reforms minister had agreed to a proposal from the urban development department permitting multi-storeyed buildings on thika tenancy land. The minister reportedly gave his approval provided the tenants agree to it.

Most of the slums or bastis in Kolkata and Howrah are on land under thika tenancy. They occupy huge tracts of land spread all over the city. The 2001 Census estimated that about 1.5 million people in Kolkata lived in slums. There would be over half a million in Howrah. Thus, as a result of the new policy, the habitation of about 2 million people of the conurbation spread across the two banks of the Hooghly is now threatened.

'Basti' (settlement) is the commonly used term to denote the neighbourhoods of the, the workers, low-income and poor of Kolkata, i.e. the underprivilged. These were typically located in the outer fringes of the central business district, and the people living here served in the building of the city. The term slum is also loosely applied to such neighbourhoods, indicating the sub-standard housing and civic amenities in such localities. These settlements came under the purview of the Slum Acts and the slum improvement programme. In western sociology, the term slum connotes an area of habitation of people who are socially disorganised. However, contrary to this perception, the bastis in Calcutta could actually be viewed as quite organised. They continue to remain in a state of backwardness largely on account of the obsolete land tenure arrangement governing them, a relic of the zamindari system, as well as institutionalised neglect and discrmination. 'Thika' (contract for temporary possession) is the name of the arrangement that came up in colonial Calcutta as the city population grew, whereby landlords rented out large plots of their land, hitherto in the form of garden estates, to people, usually members of their retinue, who in turn constructed huts on the plots and rented out rooms therein to workers.

Background

Basti land, formerly owned by landlords, is now largely owned by the state. On this land stand structures, typically tile-roofed, owned by the thika tenants. And in each such building live many tenant (or bharatiya or raiyat) households, each one typically occupying a small room. Following a High Court order, the thika tenants cannot be ousted by the state. The tenant dwellers are protected too, by the tenancy laws and the Slum Act. The thika tenants also have limited development rights on their property.

Basti’s are spread throughout the city. The city’s labouring population, and the bulk of the urban poor reside here. But bastis are also the site of a lot of economic activities. Workplace and residence are inter-woven. A good part of the production of basic items in the city economy, like garments, footwear and paper products takes place in the bastis. Various trades are concentrated in specific areas, making location a crucial factor. As many as three hundred thousand people may be directly and indirectly employed in basti-based manufacturing activity. Among the areas where large, old bastis are concentrated are Metiabruz, Rajabazar, Narkeldanga, Sealdah, Beckbagan and Tiljala-Topsia-Tangra.

The overwhelming majority of the Muslim population of Kolkata and Howrah lives in bastis, and these are among the oldest, largest and most degraded and poorly serviced slums of the city.

Slum improvement

Bastis had suffered long neglect, and by the early 1960s, were in a state of near collapse. Following the planning intervention of the Ford Foundation, through the 1970s and 80s, the Basti Improvement Programme financed by the World Bank was taken up in the slum localities. This involved conversion of service latrines, connection of water taps, surface drainage facilities, construction and widening of roads and pathways, and provision of street lighting and waste disposal facilities within the bastis. While living conditions in the bastis improved as a result, this also opened the way for new construction in bastis, principally of illegal buildings. Bastis improved under the programme today once again face acute deficiencies in services.

Illegal construction

With terrible overcrowding in the bastis, and given the thika tenants’ inability to extend their structures, over the last 15 years or so, illegal construction has been taking place on a large-scale in basti neighbourhoods. This happens through a nexus of builder-hoodlum-party cadres-police. The builder acts in the name of the thika tenant. He pockets the salami (deposit) amount paid by the occupants of the new apartments, and receives the rent from the new occupants for some years. The buildings thus constructed are generally of a poor quality. They discharge toilet waste into the open drains. Population pressure also thus increases on the already overstretched basti services. Little wonder then that the combination of highly inadequate supply of drinking water and inadequate and poor sanitation emerges as the principal environmental health problem in Kolkata, resulting in gastro-intestinal and waterborne diseases, and afflicting principally the city’s poor and low-income.

Key question

For several years now, private builders and their consortium have been eyeing basti land, because their location makes them prime real estate. The key question is: What happens to the dwellers? Would they get alternative shelter? Where? What kind of shelter? And under what terms? Would they, for instance, get title to the shelter units, like the refugee colony dwellers were granted title to land they had occupied? How exactly would the rights and interests of the dwellers be ensured? Can this be assumed to happen on its own? What would be the arrangement for temporary accommodation of the dwellers while construction takes place?

Governance

There is also the larger question of transparency in urban governance. What happens to the land? Under what terms would the land be handed over to the large private builders? What happens to the thousands of illegal buildings that have already come up in bastis? Would the appropriate resettlement of the erstwhile dwellers be part of the builders’ project? Or would that be handled by the state, utilising subsidies from the centre, so that a promoter-friendly government and ruling party gifts the builders the opportunity to make lucrative profits?

Dweller security

Given the very attractive commercial potential from multi-storeyed constructions in the bastis, these areas would only becomes centres of frenzied activity by a range of vested interests, each seeking to grab a chunk of the golden pie. Hundreds of thousands of basti dwellers in Kolkata and Howrah eke out a marginal existence through manual labour. Their daily life circumstances mean that they are least empowered to stand up, be organised and secure their rights. On the face of it, it does appear that they will simply be swept away by the tidal wave of greed and deceit.

Alternative proposal

In the late 1990s, a proposal was prepared by Unnayan and Asian Coalition for Housing Rights for comprehensive renewal of the blighted canal-side area in Beliaghata-Manicktala. The late MS Maitra, a former chief engineer of the state PWD who retired as director general of the Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority, was one of the authors of the proposal. This too was about basti redevelopment, but here it was visualised as being done for the good of the city at large and of basti dwellers in particular. Squatters earlier living along the canal were also to be rehabilitated within the proposed development. The indicative estimates made in the plan suggested that notwithstanding the social and public goals, the project could still yield attractive returns to builders. But such a project calls for a new generation of agencies and organisations, within state and local govt, and at the grassroots level. These are all presently lacking.

City renewal

Since the basti is a unit in itself, both in legal terms and in regard to civic services infrastructure, it is pertinent to ask whether individual basti plots would be available for redevelopment or the basti as a whole. Redevelopment is not just a matter of construction on land. The requisite infrastructure for water, sewerage and drainage have all to be put in place. How far would the private developers’ responsibility go? And what would the municipal corporation do? Would not basti redevelopment across the city require major city-wide infrastructure upgrading?

A blighted basti is typically at the core of a blighted locality. Upgrading the infrastructure of civic services in the basti site has to be part of a larger programme of upgrading the infrastructure of the whole blighted locality. Thus, with blighted bastis spread all over the city, one has nodes of renewal across the city. Integrating all these nodes within a single, long-term, city renewal blueprint would effectively mean a vision for transforming the physical landscape of the city.

Social landscape

There is a huge human development gap between basti dwellers and the city’s middle and affluent classes. The value of the land on which basti dwellers live is the only means of bridging that gap. Hence basti land should be auctioned by the state to the private developers and the money raised should be used to construct good quality apartment blocks for the dwellers on part of the land, with adequate open and community spaces. Alternatively, the construction for the basti dwellers could be part of the private developer’s project. Squatter resettlement should also be undertaken in the redeveloped sites.

Given the huge volume of economic activity in bastis, spaces for production and marketing also need to be created. This would give a much-needed fillip to these trades, whose future is otherwise quite bleak.

A concerted effort needs to be made to ensure basti households are aware and fully informed of all matters, and participate in planning and design of the new housing. After having lived and worked for many decades in the basti - and in some places for over a century – and having suffered harsh living conditions, the households have a natural right to get title to their new apartments. A corpus should also be created for maintenance purposes. And a management mechanism has to be set up, with the participation of the resident households.

This would ensure that the transformation of the physical landscape of the city is also accompanied by a transformation of its social landscape. Such a measure would significantly democratise property ownership in the city, while also strengthening the municipal corporation by enhancing its revenue base.

This is the challenge that the govt should strive to realise.

This article was published in the Economic & Political Weekly, September 20-26, 2008. It is available for download here.

What people want

2008-02-17T22:18:00.000-08:00

Zafar Sobhan, a writer in Bangladesh, has spelt out the basic issues that he as a Bangladeshi citizen sees as pertinent to the people of his country. This is not so different from the issues confronting the people of India too.

Wherever you go, people are all the same. They all want more or less the same thing. They want good schools and opportunities for their kids. They want to be able to live in safety and security. They want a decent job that pays the bills and allows them to put food on the table. Most people's desires are very modest. It doesn't take a great deal to make them happy. ...

... Safe drinking water, not coke. Electricity for light and maybe a fan, not air conditioners. The means and ability to move around cheaply and without undue hassle, not their own personal chauffer-driven car...

Read Zafar Sobhan's article here.

The Nano and our cities

2008-02-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

...all of us should be asking questions about what needs to be done to make our cities better places to live in, as far as mobility and access are concerend. Most of our travel trips in cities are for the purposes of work and education. What about a policy of common neighbourhood schools for all children and the provision of safe space, for walking and cycling? As far as travel to work is concerned, most large Indian cities have multiple business districts and are expanding at the periphery, so that the vast majority of travel is of distances less than 10 km.

At a broader level, we think that our cities can be made into better places to live in if the link between the location of economic activity and the anticipated profit rates is severed. Further, land needs to be publicly owned and democratically managed; the investment process needs to be guided not by profit expectations but by the objective of satisfying the needs of the people. This is of course a different kind of dream, not the kind that is dreamt of by those who want to preserve the easy personal mobility and access that they have secured exclusively for themselves and do not want the Nano to extend this privilege a wee bit further down the line.

Extracted from the editorial "Of Nanos and Cities" in the Economic & Political Weekly, 19 January 2008. The full article is available here. If its inaccessible, email (see profile) your request to receive a pdf copy.

Some articles

2008-01-25T23:43:00.000-08:00

Here are some articles on city renewal in Calcutta, written over the years. (Open the links given below in new windows.)

The city from here, a photo essay (1996)

Falahak, Inshallah (Flowering - God's Will): the struggle of the labouring poor, and a vision, strategy and programme for tenant-led basti and city renewal (1997)

Renewing the City: Efforts to Improve Life in Calcutta’s Urban Slums (2002)

The city from here: urban development and slum communities in Calcutta (2004)

"In Search of Ramrajya", essay written on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of India's independence, 15 August 2007.

Photo: Achinto

Basti redevelopment in metropolitan Calcutta

2008-01-11T14:39:00.000-08:00

Priya Manna Basti, Shibpur, Howrah.

All my dawns cross the horizon
And rise from underfoot.
What I stand for
Is what I stand on.

Wendell Berry

Context

Metropolitan Calcutta’s basti dwellers have lived as tenants in their hutments for several generations. They form the bulk of the poor and low-income population of the metropolitan area.

Through the Basti Improvement Programme undertaken from the early-1970s, some basic, long-due attention to bastis was begun. The living environment was significantly improved through in-situ improvements.

With growth in basti population, living densities have increased. Civic amenities, such as water and sanitation are deficient. Environmental health risk in basti localities is quite serious; incidence of gastro-intestinal and waterborne diseases, infant mortality testify to this. In some areas of Howrah, dry latrines in bastis pose severe health risks.

The population in most – though not all – basti localities continues to remain at a low socio-economic level. Unemployment, insecure livelihood, lack of education and skills, school drop-out, low wage employment prevail in such localities. In the context of economic globalisation, the basti dwellers are not at all well-placed currently to realise secure livelihood and positive stakes in the rapidly changing world. The reach of NGOs is very limited, and their activities are predominantly of a philanthropic nature, rather than for long-term positive change and structural transformation.

The degraded conditions in bastis and the poor quality of life of basti dwellers is most acute in the large Muslim bastis spread across Calcutta, Howrah and the municipal areas on the two sides of the Hooghly.

The time has come for bold, visionary, committed and purposeful action to positively transform the physical and social landscape of Calcutta’s bastis.

Shelter, livelihood and education must form the three basic pillars of any positive intervention in favour of basti dwellers in metropolitan Calcutta.

Shelter, Housing

Just as land to the tiller was the basic slogan inspiring transformative action in rural West Bengal, today one has to call for ‘shelter to the dweller’ in the urban context. Ultimately, the present bharatiyas or tenant dwellers in bastis have to get title to their dwelling. But the dwelling would be something like a 250 sq ft apartment in a redeveloped complex.

This calls for state action to take over all Thika land in the metropolitan area. This requires an appropriate strategy in order to pre-empt any judicial action. It is not simple, but it is not at all impossible. It has to be established that the public interest is being served, and that an offer is made to the Thika tenants which is at least as good as their present status.

Thika land has to be taken over, land consolidation needs to be done, and with the involvement of private developers a new salubrious complex constructed, in phases. All present dwellers would more and better quality built-up and common space, with civic amenities. They would have to pay a modest sum for title to such a unit. Credit financing would support this. And substantial additional residential and commercial built-up area would also be created, for sale at market rates to higher-income sections. This would give a good return to the developer, while also achieving important social ends. The economics of basti redevelopment would also allow for taking care of the interests of the Thika tenants, besides enabling the creation of a fund for ongoing social and community development activities in favour of the basti dwellers.

The Calcutta Corporation has shown remarkable success in undertaking various water supply and sewerage augmentation programmes to meet the emerging needs of newly developing areas. This augurs well for the future, keeping basti redevelopment in focus. To support the newly developed complexes in erstwhile basti localities, augmentation of water supply is needed, and also installation of sewerage lines etc. These would be undertaken by the Corporation or municipal authority. But when the present basti area is being considered for improvement in civic infrastructure, this also becomes an opportunity to assess the infrastructure deficit in the entire locality, and the augmentation plan prepared accordingly. Given the huge spread of basti localities across Calcutta and the metropolitan region, basti redevelopment thus becomes part of a large urban renewal programme, beginning with the city- and metropolis-wide basic infrastructure upgradation.

Large-scale illegal construction in basti localities across metropolitan Calcutta – poses severe threats to the future of basti dwellers. Bastis are becoming even more congested, sanitary conditions are significantly worsened. Most of all, the possibility of wholesome redevelopment of the entire basti, with the requisite civic infrastructure in place to support a completely redeveloped complex, is doomed.

Basti redevelopment rests most crucially on the awareness, active and organised involvement of the basti dwellers. That entails a major programme of grassroots action, education, capacity building, leadership development, organisational building and development. This is also a kind of ‘infrastructure’ development, that must parallel the physical infrastructure programme.

The KUSP project was recently begun (supported by the UK govt). This project’s goals are poverty reduction and habitat improvement in bastis. It has to be ensured that the project does actually improve the lot of poor. Equally, KUSP has to be strategically utilised in furtherance of this vision of basti, city and metropolitan renewal.

Livelihood

Bastis are also the site for extensive tiny-scale manufacturing activity. Several essential products in the city are produced from bastis – e.g. garments, footwear (leather and rubber), paper products. Traditionally bastis have been the sites of a large number of small industries and crafts. But the plight of the workers and owner-workers in all these trades is vulnerable. Given the unorganized nature of these trades, workers and small traders are at the mercy of middlemen and large traders. Lack of access to capital and hence reliance on high interest charging money-lenders; lack of proper marketing opportunities; lack of skill and technology upgradation - are some of the principal problems affecting the trades. Given that all these trades together employ a few hundred thousand workers, their vulnerable situation poses a severe threat to their livelihood and hence also to the future of the city.

In such a context, there is a need for an action-research effort on basti-based manufacture, towards comprehensive structural upgradation of these economic activities. The resulting benefit from such structural upgradation, to the large numbers of workers and small entrepreneurs tied to these trades – is much more than anything the state or NGOs can achieve through their livelihood and employment generation activities. Following upon the research study, a pilot project could be taken up to implement the recommendations in a specific area. Thus, a local skill development and marketing centre could be started in an area where a trade is concentrated.

Such an effort also requires the awareness and active participation of the workers and small entrepreneurs in basti-based manufacture. An action-research project could also be the means for identifying and mobilising all the stakeholders.

Such action is already being initiated by the state govt, e.g. in flower market, zari-making, in Howrah. This has now to be given a larger vision and thrust.

There are several capable and experienced scholars, professionals and researchers in Calcutta who could make a valuable contribution to such an endeavour. The Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, a renowned academic institute, could also conceivably be involved in this. Financial support can be obtained for such an action-research programme – e.g. under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.

Education

In the sphere of education, special mention must be made of Urdu medium primary education. The number of schools is highly inadequate to meet the demand for primary education, existing schools are highly overcrowded, and the quality of the existing schools has to be drastically improved.

An enlightened initiative aimed at Urdu medium primary education is seriously needed. This can begin with a rapid assessment study on the existing schools in Calcutta and Howrah. This could be based on a pilot initiative, taken up in 1 ward in Calcutta and / or Howrah.

Child Rights & the city

2008-01-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

From a children’s rights perspective, the most important issue is child survival. Bastis in metropolitan Calcutta severely threaten child survival. An analysis of child mortality statistics for Calcutta, Howrah and other adjacent municipal areas, would reveal a significant differential between the figures for the Hindu and Muslim communities. This is primarily a proxy indicator of basti / non-basti differentials in environmental health. But there are also specific problems and issues characterizing Muslim bastis. In sum, living conditions in Muslim bastis are very poor, and the final consequence of this is high infant morbidity and mortality.

Perhaps the most acute problem obtains in basti areas (e.g. in Howrah) where service latrines are still in use. Despite a law banning this, and the central govt’s scheme of subsidy assistance to eradicate such latrines, they remain. A major reason is corruption in the local bodies, whereby the subsidy is falsely siphoned off without actually constructing a sanitary toilet.

Over the last decade, the phenomenon of illegal building construction in bastis, and especially in Muslim bastis, has become rampant. This severely worsens the already terrible environmental conditions. For instance, excreta from the flats in the new illegal buildings is discharged into open drains below. Drains are severely clogged, leading to flooding during the rainy season. The incidence of gastro-intestinal and malarial diseases is high. The principal cause is lack of access to adequate supplies of clean drinking water, compounded by inadequate sanitation.

Primary education is also a vital issue in Muslim bastis. Despite the growth of school-going and also female school-going, there are still a large number of children who are unable to go to school. Non-school going still remains deeply entrenched among the poorest section in the bastis. But perhaps an equally deplorable situation exists in regard to the primary schools in Muslim bastis. The quantity and quality of infrastructure and teachers in such schools are highly inadequate to the real needs. Hence, every year, tens of thousands of school graduates are produced, who only add to the ranks of the unemployed and unemployable. Hence, today we are also witnessing the phenomenon of reverse discrimination – where boys are taken out of school to work, though girls are encouraged to continue.

The above rapid summary of some of the crucial issues facing hundreds of thousands of metropolitan Calcutta’s children – is intended to highlight the dimensions of the problems, their structural nature, and the complexity attending them. But they are not insoluble. A number of concrete proposals have been developed by the city’s activists and planners over the years, including in recent times. But these proposals only point to the need for drastic institutional reform, without which any positive change is not possible.

Urban Conservation – Putting The Last First

2008-01-11T10:30:00.000-08:00

House in North Calcutta.

In April 2000, I was invited to speak at the seminar on "Conservation after Legislation: Issues for Bombay", organised by the Urban Design Research Institute. Here is the paper I presented at the seminar. I am grateful to Devananda Chatterji, architect, and Manish Chakravarti, conservation architect, for their valuable contributions to my presentation.

I recalled this yesterday, and shared it with Manish in the context of a dialogue on strategic inititives in urban heritage conservation. I wrote to him:

It is somewhat dated, but still largely relevant. For instance, developments in the last 7 years or so have heralded a new city, leaving out the main city, even south Calcutta, with the bypass, the stretch from Rajarhat to Garia and beyond, condo complexes, malls and private vehicular transport coming to define the city. All infra investments are targetted in this belt, leaving long-neglected areas forever neglected, and converting not so neglected areas into now neglected zones.

The aesthetics dimension is also there, of no more houses, only apartment blocks; some expensive, fancy complexes like Ambuja, Hiland, Merlin, South City etc, with their style of "aesthetics"; but by and large small plots converted into apartments, with the ugliest of buildings replacing handsome houses.

Meanwhile, blighted areas continue, especially slums, without adequate infra; the shadow looms over them of large-scale eviction of basti dwellers, in one form or other, and the puttting out of basti lands into the (legal, large promoter-based) real estate sector. In places like Howrah, and also Jadavpur, complexes are coming up on the site of erstwhile factories; acute disparities coexist, breeding violent tension, waiting to erupt and explode in destruction and loot.

Democracy - in terms of transparency, accountibility, public interest and good governance - is the casualty.

I reproduce my paper here.

1. Sutanuti

North Calcutta, or the district historically known as Sutanuti, even today, despite its largely degraded and blighted character, is a gateway to a rooted awareness of refined urban living, in the personal and private domain as well as the public and communal. Aesthetics is writ large upon the whole environment. The distinctive architecture is a celebration of eclecticism. Local climate, quality of light, space, material, form and function are all woven together to create an engineered space that breeds human comfort, creative stimuli, fulfillment, leisure, social intercourse, cooperation, civics and enlightenment.

Great personalities in history, social reformers, bhaktas, freedom fighters have lived in this place.

But Sutanuti today is largely degraded and blighted. The beautiful buildings themselves are in a highly deteriorated condition. Their inner courtyards run into sewerage flooding. Drainage in the area as a whole is poor, and leads to flooding in the rainy seasons. This poses a grave threat to the physical survival of the structures themselves, and hence to the overall fabric of the locality.

Social services in general are over-stretched, as south Calcutta has come to dominate the life of the city. Wealthy and affluent families based in north Calcutta, would typically either acquire other properties in the south, or even move lock-stock-and-barrel.

What is to be done?

In such a context, conservation should be the preferred form of development and development has to be the preferred form of conservation.

The most crucial lack, is of a vision of a positive, thriving, ethos, capitalising upon the heritage resources. Only that vision could inspire a conviction that something can be done, and therefore the various other related technical tasks should be speedily attended to.

The biggest bang for buck, is in developing a positive vision, and in communicating this to large numbers of local people The inspiring vision should be one that can embrace any other vision of any other stakeholder, rather than negate it. It should be something that is without offence to anyone else’s civic claim.

So whose vision is it - this is crucial.

After envisioning, one is faced with the dirty problems like sewage flooding, which makes any vision crumble in the harsh heat of clear daylight. So the sense and situation of empowerment of the visionary is crucial. How empowered is this entity, to engage in infrastructural, financial and such matters? In a blighted and disempowered environment, such empowerment is rare. Such envisioning would therefore instead come from a more empowered milieu, but from someone who would claim that it is the heritage resources of the disempowered locale that have empowered them.

Visionary policy, legal, infrastructure and financial strategies are called for.

What could Sutanuti be: it could become a completely improved, highly attractive place to live, visit, shop, for recreation, a culture destination, with shops, museums, restaurants, cafes, art galleries, theaters, film halls, music and dance performances. Also expensive residential and office spaces for services-related enterprises. Basic fairness of property transfer has to be ensured, to bless the whole process. .

In the prevailing milieu, there is an inherent notion of the undesirability of commercial activities, in regard to old joint family owned properties. This calls for creative communication essentially, that uses a conservative attitude to promote a new breed of activity, which is commercial, but also simultaneously cultural and social.

The role of the Corporation would be to enable everything necessary to happen. This means appropriate tax and re-use regulations.

The ethic - honest conservation, honesty to circumstances, rather than authenticity. The curatorial issue is of interest to museum conservationists. But how can the buildings stand – that must be the compelling concern.

People must either become a profiting partner of a new regime or give way to it.

2. Metropolitan renewal

The conservation of Sutanuti may be seen in the perspective of renewing the blighted metropolis of Calcutta, of rebuilding this city in the spirit of the aesthetics and public values implicit in the historic quarter. We said the immediate conservation action in the district itself must be inspired by a discernment and appreciation of the valuable sensibility stamped upon the environment. The gift endowed to Calcutta, for its future, by her earlier generations, is this inspiration of a concretised vision of refined urban living.

Past and future are inextricably locked. So far this has been Calcutta’s curse. The challenge is to make it a blessing.

There are a number of very serious threats to the long term health and well-being of Calcutta. The city is sprawling eastwards over the sensitive wetlands (which are part of the Sundarban deltaic eco-system). For over a decade now, the impact of this has been felt on the city’s drainage system. Within the city, there are severe disparities and inequities in provision of civic services. Maintenance and development of service infrastructure is hostage to the free-riding and pillaging by the powerful and rich. Environmental health is consequently seriously threatened by water-borne and malarial diseases. Lack of access to adequate supplies of drinking water, which is compounded by inadequate sanitation – this is the principal environmental problem for Calcutta. Municipal statistics from Howrah suggest that infant mortality rates in slums are significantly higher than that in non-slum areas. A third of the metropolitan population lives in slum settlements, where the conditions are most degraded. In some areas, service latrines are used by over a hundred persons. The city as a whole becomes a zone of conflict and violence, between the haves and the have-nots, with the middle-classes getting it from both sides. The degraded and poverty-ridden slums of the city are like subterranean boiler-rooms producing crime and riots, which can make city life nightmarish.

Frontally addressing such larger, fundamental questions, with a view to humane transformation is the greatest act of homage to the city’s historic heritage. This can only help to protect the continued existence of the fabric woven out of the structures.

3. Canal-side renewal

Immediately adjoining the historic district is the Beliaghata canal-side area, that is today one of the most blighted, decrepit and foul environments. Large numbers of squatters live beside the canal, on its sides and over its bed. There are large congested, low-rise basti or slum pockets. A quiet process of illegal conversion goes on. There are closed, sick or obsolescent factories. Large tracts of vacant land. And a canal, that was once navigable is now dead, and a foul sewer.

The renewal of the canal-side area would directly be in the interest of conservation of Sutanuti. It would lead to the installation of infrastructure access points. It would demonstrate that a blighted area can indeed be transformed. And bring about a thriving residential, commercial, institutional, civic and cultural complex right next door, which would bring in powerful currents of change.

Flooding occurs because of the siltation of the canal and building upon the east Calcutta wetlands. In 1999 October, flooding reached peak levels and is likely to continue unless de-silting is undertaken from the Bidyadhari river to the inner city. The authorities say they are doing this, but given the presence of squatters along the canals and the apparent lack of land for their relocation, there will continue to be a problem. And if force is used to evict the squatters, and then the canal work is done, the basic social problem will remain. Experience has shown that they simply return after some time.

It is this very blight that affords the possibility of comprehensive area redevelopment, something that could integrate the aesthetic, environmental, social and commercial. In 1995, an independent, civic effort was initiated, through Unnayan, to develop a viable plan for the proper rehabilitation of the canal-side squatters. Eventually, this led to a blueprint for highly remunerative area renewal, involving revitalisation of the canal and navigation, and large-scale residential, commercial and institutional developments – which would also satisfactorily provide for squatter resettlement. Together with visionary and committed conservation-related regulations, such an area renewal focus and its infrastructural investment could also catalyse a major restoration process in Sutanuti. The proposal also enabled a bold new vision of Calcutta’s future as a bio-technic city, a powerful organism for the sustainable and bio-regionally appropriate development of city and hinterland in the riverine, deltaic southern Bengal.

Conservation should therefore also mean conservation of the natural features like the canal, whose health is vital to the long-term well-being of the city.

The canal nework of Calcutta stretches into the city’s hinterland, the lush green deltaic ecology of Sourh bengal which includes Sundarbans. A canal city was conceived of for a culturally vibrant populous lively city, a green tropical city with water, reflecting the articulate nature of its presently distressed people.

Broadbasing conservation - so that it becomes something reaching out to and touching the everyday life of ordinary people. Thus conservation related to urban activities : well-known shops and markets, open spaces, water-bodies, cafes, book shops, cinema halls, associations and Puja committees, trees (and hence place names), cemeteries, shrines, etc.

4. Building civic ownership from below

But something like this calls for an institutional ownership and capability that is currently non-existent. Nor has the civic consciousness of the citizens reached a stage of taking unequivocal and unassailable ownership for the future of the city – something that would then drive city planning and management.

The lack of public ownership of public domain concerns – that is the key limitation. Privatisation of the public domain is the character of the age, and to see that happening through an apparent public domain concern is terrible, with deep damage. Building such civic ownership – when formal authorities and institutions are riddled with incompetence, apathy and corruption – is the foundational infrastructural requirement.

The conservation domain is not now occupied by someone empowered, visionary and transparently public rather than private. It is time to move in this direction.

City and metropolitan renewal has thus perhaps necessarily to begin with community and slum renewal. Planning wisdom has to discern that empowering the vulnerable, for social and economic betterment, improved shelter and habitat, and building public ownership and cooperative action for environmental justice may be the foundation and catalyst for rebuilding the blighted city. Public ethics is the key to renewal.

Conservation has to get out of its ghetto by addressing the problems of ghettos.

Whose heritage? It is the duty of a conservationist to explore and discover the myriad unknown hidden sensibilities to place, manifested in humble shrines and other sites. All these offer powerful potential to connect people to place in a visionary forward movement. And these would tend to be in blighted unserviced areas, where the sensibility can be an important element in opening up a local renewal process. The sprouting points of renewal initiatives. This calls for transcendence from an elitist fixation with the city, which in the ultimate analysis is very limiting, and devoid of imagination.

In systemic terms, lack of awareness, disempowerment allows the free-riding and pillage, and this makes he city a fount of inefficiency, unreason, ugliness, all of which should be seen and felt to be as distasteful as they are. Hence, improvement in the lot of the disenfranchised should be in the direct long term interest of anyone wanting the city to be a thriving, well managed, efficient place.

Slum renewal begins the process of infrastructure upgradation and improved urban management – which conservation goals can only benefit from.

The action orientation has to be one of constituency building, building of alliances, for the future of city. Conservationists must seek to educate the others about aesthetics of built form, even as they learn the aesthetics of civics.

Public ethic, public domain activity – is a subject that needs to be looked at, and not assumed. Public issues are used instrumentally for private ends. Instead organisational means must be used instrumentally to serve public ends.

Photo: Achinto.

5. An initiative in Howrah

It is only the potential value of land under present depressed use that offers the resources to address the huge social development and infrastructure gap, in a capital-starved environment. But in the present climate, even this requires some initial economic growth which eludes the metropolis. In 1994, the Govt of West Bengal announced its new economic and industrial policy. But nothing substantial has materialised, simply because there is no land for industries proximate to Calcutta. Howrah, with its huge tracts of industrial land, presently under closed, sick and obsolescent industry, could provide the answer. And this could also afford the means to begin the long-term process of laying the much needed infrastructure.

The whole effort may be dedicated to the future of the children and the children of the future. For environmental health risk ultimately translates into infant mortality. Today in PM Basti, and the larger locality of Ramkrishnapur, in Howrah, Calcutta’s historical ‘other’, where large numbers of small children in slums die prematurely, such an effort at rebuilding the city from the bottom upwards is actually being made. Currently this is focused upon building Howrah Pilot Project, a grassroots organisation to be a capable vehicle of community awareness, cooperation and empowerment of the poor. In parallel, there is an advocacy and constituency-building effort for neighbourhood-level area improvement. This can catalyse attention to the basic problems of degradation, lack of adequate sanitation etc, as well as neighbourhood-level institution building. The effort in Priya Manna Basti is also sought to be replicated in slum neighbourhoods in other parts of Calcutta.

Post-script

The well-being of Calcutta can be seen in the light of the highly polluted state of the river Hooghly, along whose two banks the metropolis lies. But the nearly extinct Hooghly dolphin, locally known as shushuk or shishumar, and mythologically identified as a protector of children, still finds cause to leap up from the polluted river. There may be hope yet for its cousins in the Brahmaputra, Karnali, Yamuna and Indus.

A rescued Ganges River Dolphin.

Reference to context

2008-01-11T10:15:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture from Calcutta. Its on the Prince Anwar Shah Road connector to the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass.

What does this picture show?

How is it that this happens?

What does it say about the city and the state?

Where Architecture is a Rotting Corpse

2008-01-10T05:38:00.000-08:00

Salt Lake, Calcutta.

In August 1995, while I was working as a consultant on an environmental management strategy & action planning project for metropolitan Calcutta, I requested my friend Devananda Chatterji, architect, to write a note about the nature of building regulations in Calcutta and how this affected architectural aesthetics and practice. Deva was kind enough to comply promptly. He wrote a note titled "Where Architecture is a Rotting Corpse."

I remembered that a couple of years ago, and searched in vain for Deva's note. Fortunately, Deva managed to find his copy and shared it with me. He wrote:

I have not changed the content though my views about urban densities have changed after doing the canal proposal (of Unnayan). In fact, in all other aspects the canal study demonstrates the ideas discussed here, as all these were done around the same time. I guess things are not so bleak now as compared to the situation when this was written, though current developments remain thoroughly lop-sided, as we had discussed in our long dialogue on slum development a year ago.

I reproduce Deva's note here.

A note on Building & Planning Regulations in Calcutta

Though one would understand that the object of formulating building and planning regulations would be to ensure an acceptable standard of public health and safety for the citizens, here in Calcutta we have a situation that is restrictive to the point of effectively shutting out quality and creativity in the built environment. As we know, a city can never be noteworthy without a high standard of architecture, urban design and public spaces. So where do we stand in contemporary Calcutta?

At present, building regulations here seem to be based on the premise that every individual or agency putting up a building is simply out to make the maximum profit from it at any cost, and therefore such intent must be thwarted. But in practice nothing is thwarted and in spite of the customary demands and impositions by the approval functionaries, real estate profiteering at all cost remains unchecked, thanks to the massive and well-oiled network of corruption and local politics.

In the context of the current industrial decay, property development is one of the few fields where business is flourishing and permissible building densities in Calcutta are high as compared to other Indian cities. Among other shortcomings, the regulations and controls are so framed, that to avail the maximum permissible saleable area at least cost, that every developer wants, in almost all cases the result is a monstrosity, even with frequent attempts at external cosmetics. While various rules concerning different parts of buildings prove to be unnecessarily restrictive in practice, increasingly the buildings are of dubious liveability and often unsafe.

Since exceptions prove the rule, what happens when for some reason, a well-meaning person or group sets out to put up some genuinely creative, innovative and pathbreaking project in terms of design or construction? But such a situation is off course a long shot and the situation at present is such, that even mainstream buildings of good and decent architectural quality are difficult to put up without the intervention of powerful backers.

Architects, non-architects and regulations

Because of past practice, a large section of building professionals allowed to prepare building plans and handle their implementation in the Calcutta area, are not qualified architects. Nor are most functionaries handling the statutory building approval process in the relevant departments. Few, if any, among either of the above groups have any concern for or exposure to quality, imagination and subtlety of design. Though architects are the only professionals trained to conceive buildings from different aspects and in their totality in the complex world of today, they remain marginal players in the building field in Calcutta and of very uneven abilities and goals. Though such trends are likely to persist for now these can only plunge the city into further depths of disgrace.

A way to address this impasse could be to develop different approval systems for different kinds of projects within a flexible system of controls and guidelines. First of all, building and planning regulations and urban design guidelines need to be framed for lower densities by a body of professionals known for their creativity, knowledge, liberal-mindedness, foresight and integrity. Departmental staff handling the approval process need to be adequately trained to understand such regulations and can then assess average building plans submitted following such regulations.

At another level, developers, or other promoters, organisations and patrons can be offered tax, FAR or other suitable incentives to put up buildings of architectural quality and creativity and with public oriented features such as arcades, open spaces, terraces and landscape. Only a body of appropriately qualified people can approve such projects. Some form of screening process may be required for submitting such plans for approval by such a body, as this is not just a matter of cosmetics or ostentation. But all approval processes need to be streamlined and flexible and avoid delays.

While professionals can be made accountable with respect to regulations laid down by their professional bodies and associations, unless the approval authorities are also made accountable, the prevailing chaos is bound to prevail. Some of the personnel in the municipality have even been known to act on individual whims and prejudices. In view of recent events in the city, although there may not be any foolproof and practicable method of extensive checking for structural risks and fire or other hazards, it may not be a bad idea to conduct some form of periodic inspection of premises and recommend steps to be taken by the owners and occupants.

As things stand however, Calcutta has neither a development plan nor any urban design guidelines for different areas, not to speak of any environmental or conservation policy, but only some lopsided building rules, resulting in a situation that only contributes to the degradation of the city. There is an urgent need to bring together the best minds in each of the above categories and frame relevant regulations and guidelines. Things being what they are today, it should be noted that, contrary to popular perceptions, the best minds may or may not be among those who are commercially the most successful or able to hold senior positions in government departments or academic institutes.

In this context, one may think of certain approaches to building that have been practised in various cultures at different periods of history, including ancient India, and some form of these have been considered across the world in recent times. For the bulk of building activity such as mass housing and commercial and office accommodation, systems of different building patterns and details can be developed by highly talented professionals and popularised through building manuals. Engineers, technicians and even some architects, can then adopt such systems, within the framework of imaginative and farsighted planning, urban design and environmental guidelines.

Naturally, such systems of building patterns and details must offer sufficient variety and flexibility for individual needs, with the possibility of extensions and alterations and of combining different systems, but involving simple, cost-effective and environmentally friendly construction methods and technical systems, as far as possible. Before they are propagated, the systems for adoption need to be carefully selected on the basis of their merit. Exercises such as these would require intensive studies and public discussions may be considered.

All public, prominent or important buildings, facilities and areas must be designed and supervised by registered architects, landscape designers, urban designers, planners etc. as the case may be. Aesthetics, originality, innovation must be encouraged rather than suppressed for all levels of building activity but such projects, large or small, must be done by professionals who are fully qualified in the relevant field. Obviously, such work can only be assessed and approved by a body of people who are likewise qualified in that field. This approval body can have discussions with the authors of the plans and should have the authority to make allowances and exemptions from specific provisions of the regulations, if need be, to achieve a high standard of excellence, at their discretion, as well as the authority to reject substandard work or suggest improvements.

At present, though the Calcutta Municipal Corporation allows different professionals to prepare building plans and handle their implementation, registered architects are permitted to take up any project, whereas others are permitted to take up projects of any size, complexity or importance, provided these do not exceed a certain height. It is meaningless to impose restrictions in terms of height alone but should also involve project size, type, importance and design manoeuvres. In architectural terms, tall buildings are not necessarily difficult projects but because of their civic prominence, they need to be designed and implemented with care. As mentioned earlier, in practice the abilities and ideas of architects and related professionals vary widely and if need be, truly unconventional or pathbreaking work may be referred to an independent panel of relevant professionals of proven creativity, discernment, openness and personal integrity.

The city beautiful

Whatever exists in the name of a planning process in Calcutta, there seems to be little awareness of various aspects of modern day city building. For instance, a diversity of street and plot layouts can be encouraged rather than the same gridiron pervading the entire city and leading to dreariness, monotony, uniformity and confusion since most places appear the same. Urban design guidelines specific to different areas need to be framed with adequate attention being given to public open spaces, heritage conservation, mixed-use areas with multi-use building complexes. Pedestrian plazas, alleyways, covered streets, arcades, overhangs, terraces, different levels above and below ground, pedestrian bridges and underpasses etc. are some of the features that can greatly enhance and enrich the urban experience.

Row houses with inner courtyards and other building typologies can be viable in specific situations. Landscape or other features such as the recently built musical fountain in the maidan need to be located with much greater care. Public amenities with barred access and heavy railings around them are a testimony to the pointlessness of the whole exercise. As mentioned above, all public areas must be designed by talented professionals with relevant qualifications. Needless to state, the entire planning approach needs to be in tune with the unique riverine ecology of the region with sufficient consideration for greenery, water, wildlife, fisheries, recycling and renewable energy systems.

Though it not within our scope here to discuss infrastructure, it may be pertinent to make certain observations in this regard. Apart from the small road areas in Calcutta, the chaotic mix of different types of transport and the pathetic condition of the road surfaces, much of the traffic congestion is a result of disruption caused by digging. When new areas are developed, public road networks and their widths and parking areas must be predetermined after careful studies of projected building and traffic densities. Separation of slow moving vehicles and adequate bays for bus stops are essential even at the cost of saleable plot area.

Building rules need to address the problem of dumping building materials on roads and pavements. Although urban roads are unthinkable without pavements, when these are completely appropriated by stalls and dwellers, movement of people is reduced to naught. The present system of door-to-door garbage collection in some parts of the city needs to be rigorously enforced and maintained in all areas and local people must be organised to prevent any form of litter in the streets and public spaces.

Sewerage, underground drainage, conduits for underground cables and pipes should be laid out at the time of road construction to avoid disruption once the road is in use. Surface drains are not just unsightly but also breeding grounds for disease and cause of accidents while overhead wiring is also unsightly as well as hazardous. Unless there is adequate supply of treated piped water, the proliferation of tubewells can only lead to the lowering of the water table, arsenic and other forms of poisoning and soil subsidence leading to building collapses. All this is well known but what is lacking is the political will and administrative mechanism to make things happen.

Construction alternatives

In the present economic situation all but the moneyed classes are being priced out of the city. The issue of land prices is also too complex to be discussed here but the other aspect of real estate prices is construction cost. The most expensive construction materials here are cement and steel. Where tall structures and large spans are involved there is at present no alternative to large quantities of cement and steel. But where smaller structures are concerned there are several sound techniques to reduce the input of these materials. Since labour costs are low in India and unemployment high, labour intensive construction techniques can reduce construction costs appreciably and many of these techniques have been included in recent editions of the National Buildings Organisation (NBO) code.

Although the current building rules of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation officially accepts the provisions of the NBO code, in practice only standard construction methods in RCC and brick are acceptable to the Corporation functionaries because they lack the awareness of, and the competence to deal with other systems. This is certainly a good situation for the cement and steel industries and their dealer networks since, no matter how much under financial strain, prospective house builders or purchasers have no alternative but to beg, borrow or steal to afford buildings constructed with conventional materials and technology.

As a matter of fact there are various construction methods such as hollow walls made of brick, thin folded, curved and mullion walls in brick, arched and corbelled openings, vaulted, domed and corbelled roofs, reinforced brick and filler slabs and roofs, hollow RCC slabs and roofs, jack arches, lime plaster and mortar, lime concrete, composite lime-cement mortar and plaster, which are only some of the methods in use outside Calcutta or in other parts of the country.

Hollow walls and roofs as mentioned above, not only economise on material but also provide insulation from heat while being strong enough for smaller buildings. Construction with soil-cement blocks with brick or RCC inputs where necessary, can reduce costs and are environmentally friendlier than burnt clay products as they eliminate the energy required for firing. These are all included in the NBO code but it is unlikely that much of these construction methods would be acceptable to the Corporation and neither professionals nor house builders, developers or organisations would take chances for fear of work getting held up.

One can think of CGI roofs with adequate insulation, which can be perfectly viable as a cheap roofing alternative and so can terracotta tiles, if their quality is improved. Though asbestos is controversial, in the form of sheets and other building products it is known to be harmless. In certain situations, thatch roofs with fire retardant chemicals can be quite feasible. Plastic sheets may be used as a waterproofing backup if need be. Composite roofs of tile or thatch with CGI or asbestos backing are also possible and economically sound. Some of these are standard approaches yet they are no longer considered respectable and it is doubtful whether their use will meet with approval, except in the case of sheds or temporary structures.

The brickfields in Ranigunge and nearby areas used to manufacture beautiful glazed terracotta floor and cladding tiles with different colours and designs till the early part of this century. If such products can be revived and sold at reasonable prices, it would be a welcome addition to the aesthetics of building. The feasibility of manufacture of hollow concrete blocks, micro-concrete and foam-concrete products etc. in this region needs to be explored as these can provide various constructional options.

At larger scales of operation, various prefabricated systems were considered promising not so long ago. Although some attempts were made in this direction by government agencies nothing much came of it eventually. Much more R&D work needs to be done and the setting up of building centres by non-profit organisations and funded by government or industry should produce results, since there is no dearth of people with talent, ideas and experience, but good marketing and promotional skills are equally important. However, if the local bodies reject all new development the whole enterprise would be reduced to a colossal farce.

Finally, no amount of legislation and regulation can improve matters unless these can be enforced in the face of mounting corruption, vested interests and political and factional one-upmanship.

About architects

2008-01-10T05:32:00.000-08:00

My friend and former fellow researcher-planner, Devananda Chatterji, who is an architect, sent me this a couple of years ago. He wrote:

"Architectural aesthetics is not seriously addressed in the building regulations here, but any aesthetics at a regulatory level is so difficult in a plural and fluid world. We can see this in terrible form with the cartoon."

The aesthetics of Calcutta's public spaces

2008-01-10T03:05:00.000-08:00

by Madhumati Dutta

You pave paradise, put up a parking lot ~ Joni Mitchell.

Middle class Kolkata is happy to have at last joined the international consumer club. Whilst our common facilities ~ roads, urinals, water, electricity, public transport and so on ~ remain poor, enormous retail chains are springing up, so are flyovers, food multinationals, entertainment parks, and so are millions of cell phone shops, cyber cafés and STD booths.

Come, let’s admit it, we all like the fact that we don’t have to ask our cousins in America to get us non-stick pans. But whilst we celebrate our new consumerist status (and I’m not going into “how much a person should consume” a la Ramchandra Guha), I want us to think a bit about the sorts of public spaces we want.

If we assume that malls are a must, let us at least get architects with imagination to make them. Let them be out in the open air instead of in closed, air-conditioned holes, with trees and water bodies, and places to sit and chat, have tea.

Right now, the City Centre (Charles Correa) is an exception. Most of the malls are walled in, and some older ones can kill hundreds if a major fire breaks out.

Less said about the post-independence public buildings, the better. Most of them are unimaginative boxes, and many of them, most pathetically, have ugly protrusions in the front that succeed in concealing the windows (I never knew windows were an ugly sight).

Sometimes exceptions (like Rabindra Sadan with its unnecessary flourishes) can be worse, and I marvel at how the ugliness of these buildings is accentuated by a combination of wall paint (blue, brick red, yellow, lime green, off white, white, plus a design in mosaic in the case of Rabindra Sadan) that just doesn’t gel.

Can we not at least imitate the amazing architecture of Laurie Baker, Revathi Kamath, Vijay Matai, Kamal Mangaldas, Gautam Bhatia and many others, which is, at the same time, at one with nature, open, balanced, inexpensive, easy to maintain and indigenous?

Baker, for example, has used simple exposed brick structures, with traditional black cement or red tile flooring, arches, corbels, double walls to keep the buildings cool. His ornaments are the sloped roofs and large windows, small water tanks with lilies, interesting steps, arches, local woodwork and greenery ~ none of which look out of place, and most of which have an utility.

The divide between the haves and the have-nots has become more marked with the presence (or absence) of air-conditioning ~ glassed enclosures keep in the fortunate whilst heat and pollutants are let out into the streets for the benefit of the unfortunate masses. A few people are keeping cool at the cost of global warming, which will impact their as well as others’ children.

One cannot wish away air-conditioning, but perhaps we should try to avoid it through more carefully planned structures. Large windows, cross ventilation, more open spaces, double walls, hollow bricks on the roof, various types of insulation (for example, thermocol), canals around the building and similar methods should be explored.

In fact, we (or rather our contractors) say that we can no longer afford the thick walls and high ceilings of the past ~ but have we made an honest calculation ~ where we take into account the direct and indirect costs of air-conditioning over the entire life of the building? Grills are a huge favourite with Kolkatans. They keep thieves and birds out, of course, but they appear to have gone far beyond their utilitarian purpose. Not only are they everywhere, but they also insist on your attention with their elaborate curves or geometry.

Much of the house-builder’s creativity is invested in creating his/her own unique grill design, which sometimes ends up strongly resembling the white alpana that young girls use to paint on floors for festive occasions. Yet grills and alpana are not the same. Grills are made of iron, and they keep you and your vision in. And so minimising them is the best possible course of action. They impose the least when the gaps are maximised and the lines are straight. One can even do away with them if one doesn’t keep much money or valuables at home. Even if the city planner cannot do much about the individual Kolkatan’s taste in grills, he/she can set an example by simplifying the grills in public spaces ~ railings, dividers, traffic police sit-outs and so on.

The attention being given to the city’s public greenery is far from adequate. There are not enough trees, and the parks are very run-down. Dust collects on the leaves; the grass looks like the sparse hair on a balding head. Some of the open areas are suddenly blocked by monstrous structures like the green-walled swimming pool on Southern Avenue’s central boulevard which, if it can continue to exist, makes the road one of the prettiest in the city.

I find it difficult to understand how somebody could have thought it necessary to build something on a green space in the middle of a road that many consider to be the city’s loveliest. I fear the tasteless whims of one corporation boss after another. I fear the cuts that are going to be available from one construction project after another.

Another space that one may call semi-public is the office ~ private as well as government. Those who run these offices and even those who occupy them usually have a very limited idea about the service that these offices should provide. In their view the home is where we need to be comfortable and the office is for work, and work does not require any ambience or physical comfort.

Thus toilets are a preview of hell, the furniture and equipment is laden with dust, the walls have a generous spattering of betel leaf juice, gaudy calendars, cobwebs and nothing much else, and the floors look uncared for. The food, provided by grimy canteens or roadside shacks, is often unhygienic and unhealthy.

Yet many of us spend the major part of our lives in these offices. If anyone talks about unsanitary toilets or puts up paintings on the walls, he/she is laughed at. The mindset is such that attempts to make the office a more attractive and comfortable space is considered “feminine” and there is no room for “femininity” in a place that deals with the big bad world. This mindset has to change.

The office may not be a place for leisure activities such as watching TV, but making it cleaner and visually attractive, providing facilities for physical health would only enhance productivity and encourage employees to spend longer hours there. Customers and clients would also be more comfortable. Making the office a better workspace does not, by the way, mean disposing of all the old furniture and fittings.

I have seen the disposal of beautiful wooden furniture in exchange for plastic and synthetic cloth, for example, which is artificial, non-biodegradable and non-lasting. Old mosaic floors have been covered by garish red vinyl, which, over the years, turns maroon with accumulated dirt. Disposal has to be done cautiously, and not with the sole purpose of filling the pockets of contractors.

I have dealt with a few issues ~ there are many others ~ like the need to have flyovers and their negative visual impact, the amputation of trees to accommodate hoardings that block the sky to promote consumerism, temporary structures that are ugly and obstruct movement (but which also represent employment in the unorganised sector), disappearing or ill-maintained water bodies, the indiscriminate disposal of waste, and overflowing garbage vats.

All these issues are contentious, none of them have easy solutions, but we have to start giving them the importance they deserve, and we can, at worst, find compromise solutions.

I love this city. And so I want it to embrace change without losing all that it already has ~ age, culture, character. And I want it to be choosy about the direction of change. Let it not take up change that breeds inequality, that encourages consumerism and that is not environment friendly. Let change be, in every sense of the term, aesthetic.

The author is Professor of Economics, Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, Howrah.

Transforming the landscape

2007-10-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

Given the specific socio-economic conditions and history of Calcutta, under the existing conditions in Calcutt’s bastis (which is where the overwhelming majority of Calcutta’s poor live) there is very little scope for effective improvement in the quality of life and dwelling conditions of the urban poor, without involving the Corporation and linking this simultaneously with a larger basti, area and city renewal intervention. Enhancement of water supply and installation of sewer lines - the kind of major infrastructure works planned for Calcutta under ADB and World Bank projects - are ultimately needed to make a dent on the severe service deficiencies prevailing in specific basti areas. Major incidence of illegal constructions within bastis further worsens the problem and constrains improvement, and all the more demands action by the local body.

Severe overcrowding, acute service deficiencies and consequent environmental degradation, with serious health impact on the vulnerable sections; illegal developments, through which the lot of the ordinary basti tenant dwellers is significantly worsened; capital shortages, together with potential for land sharing in bastis; all these factors point to the unavoidable imperative of socially equitable basti development, in order to ensure basic and long-term improvement in the quality of life of the poor and low-income sections.

On the other hand, given the socio-politico-cultural milieu in Calcutta, at the basti level as well as in a city-wide sense, it may be argued that Calcutta today is faced with a tremendous opportunity for feasible comprehensive city renewal - a process that begins from the bottom, in a few places, and builds upwards and spatially from there, within a strategic programme, that involves convergent action by a number of actors and institutions.

The strategic initiative could begin with a survey of bastis in Calcutta, in terms of vulnerability and socio-cultural organisation of the dweller community, physical infrastructure deficiency, and development opportunities. This would enable the preparation of a city map within which bastis are ranked in terms of a composite index, with each indicated type calling for a specific intervention mix, to be undertaken within a specific time-frame, towards achieving a specific goal in terms of community empowerment, environmental improvement, basti development and area renewal.

Boundary conditions for basti-level development could provide the starting points for moving to an area-renewal focus, from basti development. In turn, a number of such basti-area development and renewal nodes spread across the city could provide the basis for an overall long-term city renewal and improvement plan.

For the local body, redevelopment significantly enhances its property tax base. More fundamentally, with proper research, it provides the opportunity and justification for the preparation of a blue-print of potential neighbourhood redevelopment zones across a number of locations in the city. From a city planning viewpoint, redevelopment in a neighbourhood could occasion an analysis of long-run infrastructure adequacy in adjacent areas as well. This can ultimately lead to a complementary long-term financially viable plan, with requisite initial feasibility, for substantial investments in infrastructure upgradation and enhancement. The neighbourhood redevelopment zones provide the initial justification market for such infrastructure.

Real city planning now comes alive, even as the social horizon for the city’s vulnerable citizens is transformed from one of despair and conflict to one of participation in city development and empowerment. Neighbourhood redevelopment can catalyse long-term city development and thus renewal.

In effect, this would be an action methodology for renewing blighted cities. Taken together, a few projects on basti development and area development would very quickly transform the socio-political and institutional environment. The attainment of basic justice in the city can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And these early projects would become the new sacred sites of the transformed urban landscape.

Pictures and drawings courtesy Devananda Chatterji, architect.

Towards Bio-regional Planning

2007-10-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

In the context of this estuarine region of canals and rivers with its extensive spread of water bodies and waterways, when we talk about landuse planning, one must simultaneously talk about ‘wateruse’ planning. This is akin to the concept of ‘water space strategy’ that has gained currency in town planning. The predominant issue raised by the idea of sustainably reviving the canal is that of ‘bio-regional’ planning, based on the unique specificity of the region - a riverine, deltaic area. There is a need to evolve a planning framework that is relevant to such an eco-system.

To begin in this direction, analysis of remote sensing images of the canal system of Calcutta and the surrounding region, for two seasons (dry and wet) would yield a number of insights about the existing situation and planning can proceed on the basis of such information, among others.

Today, more than ever before, it is possible to bridge the age-old rift between town and country, while each retains its own identity. The revitalised canal may be seen as enabling a major transformation in the local economy.

Disasters – natural & man-made

2006-12-22T21:56:00.000-08:00

Natural disasters may strike a people, but its impact depends upon the existing situation within society. In that sense, the fundamental causes of the resultant devastation have to be found within the functioning of society, government and institutions, and in social relations.

Rehabilitation is therefore essentially a process of awakening to the critical necessities for building a humane, just, and sustainable society. A natural disaster could serve to initiate a process to address long-neglected matters. Rehabilitation could act as a means for renewal of a moribund society.

Read the full essay here.

Photo: © Raghu Rai / Magnum Photos

A poem to commemorate new beginning

2006-12-08T01:19:00.000-08:00

The Lifting of the Dread

(for Rama)

James Christopher Aboud

Here's to the lifting of the dread, to the ball of hair
choking us without strangulation
that is spat out suddenly without explanation;

Here's to the unnoticeable things that once noticed
unlock the doors that lead us back

that remind us that everything is temporary
including this day, this beautiful day,
this moment of lightness seeping through the heavy sky

O let us memorize this moment as a prayer is memorized.

Painting: New Beginning, by David Miller.

Uplift them before they rise in revolt!

2006-12-06T23:53:00.000-08:00

The Statesman (Calcutta) recently carried an interview with the Vice President of India, Mr Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.

Mr Shekhawat makes some strong comments. That he says this after long years of holding high public office - should make one think.

"A vast segment of our population, more than 26o million, are living below the poverty line. They constitute the fifth pillar of our democracy ~ rather the most important pillar of democracy. The other four pillars ~ legislature, executive, judiciary and media ~ cannot harm each other, but if the fifth pillar gets organised and rises in revolt due to protracted poverty and distress, then not only the four pillars but also the very foundations of our democratic system can be jeopardised."

"The stark reality is that about 26o million people are living below the poverty line, about 25 % men and 47 % women are still illiterate. Our country, which was self-reliant in the production of food grain till some time ago, is compelled to import food grain, pulses and oil seeds. Farmers commit suicide because of indebtedness. We have acknowledged primary education as a fundamental right, but about 30 % children are deprived of basic education even today. The drop-out rate before reaching 8th standard is 53 % and by 10th it is about 63 %. Can we deny the fact that despite having more than 300 universities and about 12,000 colleges, only about 8 % are able to get higher education? In many developing countries this figure is as high as 25 %. It is my firm opinion that we may secure high levels of GDP to whatever extent we want, we may add to our foreign exchange reserve as many millions of dollars we want, we may attain dominance in the fields of technical knowledge, industry and trade, but unless we improve the living standards of the fifth pillar of our society or provide them the right to live with dignity we cannot have all-inclusive development."

"Despite having higher education, children belonging to poor families attain a low level of employment with marginal salaries whereas children belonging to affluent families with similar educational attainment get lucrative employment opportunities with handsome salaries. Here comes the role of the state. We need to establish a system in which poverty should not be a hindrance to one’s development and everyone gets equal opportunities to ensure there’s no sense of dissatisfaction among poor children."

"While the edifice of democracy rests on its four estates, the key pillar of strength of democracy is people’s welfare. In my view, this pillar ~ the fifth pillar ~ needs to be nurtured and strengthened by everyone because the actual strength of democracy lies in it. Uplift them before they rise in revolt."

Read the full interview here.

Rights, like a dream

2006-12-05T23:39:00.000-08:00

Childhood is like a dream.

Childhood, like a dream, is evanescent. Children grow up into adults. Dreams fade away when we awaken. But childhood does not end with a child’s growing up. Neither does dreaming end with one’s awakening. Childhood remains, to remind us of our humanity. We continue to dream too, and sometimes someone may try to turn a dream of a better world into reality.

Ensuring the human rights of children is like granting humanity the right to dream.

Do we have the right to dream?

Painting: Dream of my Childhood, by Lela Maharobeli.

The river

2006-12-04T01:06:00.000-08:00

The river Hooghly flows between Calcutta and Howrah. There are regular ferry services connecting a number of points in Calcutta and Howrah. And there are two magnificent bridges connecting the two cities.

The river is near the end of her course here, before flowing into the Bay of Bengal (having begun her long journey in the snowy Himalayas and flowed through the huge north Indian plain). Hence it is highly silted, and the water is brown with clay. The Kolkata Port Trust studies the river course and when cargo ships enter the mouth of the river from the sea, they are steered by the expert Hooghly Pilots of the Port Trust.

To many people in Calcutta today, the fact that they live next to one of the major rivers of the world, or the sacred river of the Hindus – has nothing to do with their lives. But earlier, people used to want to live close to the river, so that they could walk down for their daily bath and ritual prayers. Today, for a large number of labouring people, the river and the river-side are one big public toilet and bath.

The river is very polluted, with industrial effluents and municipal sewage being discharged into it. Animal carcasses can be seen floating. In recent years, there has been an effort to control the pollution, with some success.

The river is home to the Ganges Dolphin, which can occasionally be seen leaping up from the water.

The river is also the principal source of drinking water for the metropolis, with water treatment plants making the water potable.

For me, the Ganges Dolphin is an icon of the city. It symbolises the child in the city, whose mythic protector it is. If environmental management in the metropolis is sound, the dolphin will flourish, as would the city's children. Now both are endangered.

Unintended city

2006-12-01T00:34:00.000-08:00

‘Goats grazing on the Maidan.’ Thus began the essay “The unintended city” by Jai Sen, written in 1976.

In this essay, Sen argued that hidden within the commonly perceived ‘respectable’ city, of wealth, institutions, planned improvements, intellect and culture, was another city, an unintended one, of the laboring poor. This city was characterized by the survival struggles of its inhabitants. Every planned improvement for the ‘intended’ city also necessarily meant displacement and hardship for the unintended. It was the unintended who ensured that a range of services and products were available to the city; in a sense, they subsidised the quality of life of the citizens, through their own deprivation.

Sen called for a programme of empowerment of the unintended, through community-based action-planning initiatives. Such initiatives could become the basis for a holistic understanding of the city, and hence a planning intervention that sought to advocate the interests of the unintended and integrate such concerns with the formal planned developments. And thus lead to the transformation of such planned development itself, as well as of the cityscape and its social relations.

Sen started a social action group in 1977, called Unnayan to take up an ambitious, long-term programme in east Calcutta, which was just about to witness major infrastructure investments by the state government in middle-class housing, water supply, drainage, transportation and electrification. Unnnayan anticipated that the process of displacing development would again result, and sought to intervene in such a context - towards enabling a future for east Calcutta that would be more in keeping with the lives and aspirations of the marginalised laboring communities settled there.

Through Jai Sen and Unnayan, I was initiated into and apprenticed in public domain activism for the rights of Calcutta’s labouring poor. Our specific concern was housing, or a place to live, for the city’s squatter population.

In the 22 years since I first met Jai Sen – much has changed in Calcutta, and in Jai’s and my lives. But the situation experienced by the city’s labouring poor – has only worsened. Some small advances have been there – such as the acceptance by the state govt of the resettlement rights of the dwellers along the Eastern Railway rail-line near Lake Gardens in south Calcutta. Even there, the actual story is something that does not satisfy the basic guidelines for resettlement of agencies like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank etc.

But more fundamentally, life for the city’s labouring poor and low income sections has become grimmer, in terms of livelihood, housing, habitat, education, healthcare. Moreover, public activism on such matters is also hardly discernable, notwithstanding the proliferation of NGOs (and the uprising of professed concern for and solidarity with the “underprivileged”, especially by aspiring starlets, models etc). The whole physical, social and psychological landscape of the city I have lived in all my life is being rapidly transformed. The emerging new city – is something entirely alien to me. I don’t have much hope of being able to survive in that new city.

And what of the millions of people whose toehold on life is even more feeble than mine?

Achinto

2006-11-29T02:30:00.000-08:00

I would like to pay tribute here to Achinto, the Calcutta-based documentary photographer. I have carried several of his pictures on my blogs. He has documented people, labour, community, life,and habitat in India’s cities and villages. But it is the labouring people of Calcutta that he has worked on most extensively – reminding one of the tradition of F Engels, P Mayhew, Jacob Ris, and Walker Evans.

My long association with Achinto has been a very important element in my personal growth. His images brought to life for me something William James had written:

“…the sight of a workman doing something on the dizzy edge of a sky scaling iron construction brought me to my senses very suddenly, and now I perceived by a flash of insight that I had been steeping myself in pure ancestral blindness and looking at life with the eyes of a remote spectator. Wishing for heroism and the spectacle of human nature on the rack I had never noticed the great field of heroism lying around about me. I had failed to see it present and alive. I could only think of it as dead and embalmed, labelled and costumed, as it is in the pages of romance; and yet there it was before me in the daily lives of the labouring classes. ... There everyday of the year, somewhere, is human nature in extremis for you. And wherever a scythe, an axe, a pick or a shovel is wielded, you have it sweating and aching and with its powers of patient enduring racked to the utmost under the length of the hours of the strain.”

Photo: Achinto

International Literacy Day

2006-11-11T01:39:00.000-08:00

8th September, is International Literacy Day.

This date has powerful resonances for me. On this day, in 1998, we had organised a women and children’s rally, in Priya Manna Basti, a jute-workers’ settlement in Howrah, the blighted industrial city across the river from Calcutta.

That was a very special occasion indeed, in the early days of our community empowerment initiative in Howrah slums. We had been working on women’s literacy (in Urdu), and we had also just started Talimi Haq School (Right to Education School), a non-formal learning centre for poor and working children. Hence we thought it was appropriate to observe Literacy Day.

There was also a funny aside to that successful rally. We had made arrangements for biryani (a fragrant, succulent rice and meat dish) to be cooked, to feed all the rallyists after the programme. The responsibility for the biryani had been given to a local man, who had solicitously volunteered to help. On the morning of the rally, Amina and Huma, my colleagues in PM Basti, discovered that this man had other plans of his own. He had organised a party for his wife’s birthday. And the feast for his party – was to be our rally biryani! And so they intervened, ejected the fellow and took charge of the cooking. And everything eventually turned out fine.

Most of all, I remember singing out resonantly with the children, as our rally wound its way through the narrow slum lanes, the beautiful song that used to be broadcast over national television in the late-80s, under the National Literacy Mission:

Padna likhna sikho, o mehnat karne walo
Padna likhna sikho, o bhook se ladne walo

Ah aah ih eeh ko pehchano, alif ko likhna sikho
Kuh kha guh ghah ko apna hatiyaar banana sikho
Andhere se ujiyare tak paer badhana sikho

Padna likhna sikho, o mehnat karne walo
Padna likhna sikho, o bhook se ladne walo

In translation:

Learn to read and write O toiling people
Learn to read and write O you who’re battling hunger

Learn to recognise Ah Aah Ih Eeh, learn to write Alif
Learn to make Kuh Kha Guh Ghah your weapons
Learn to extend your foot from darkness towards light

Learn to read and write O toiling people
Learn to read and write O you who’re battling hunger

We observed International Literacy Day for a couple of years after that, with other women’s programmes. Then I swallowed the fact of our failure and inability to do anything substantive in the face of the utter perverse apathy and unresponsiveness of the authorities and institutions, and let this day pass. But my colleagues in Howrah, and especially Amina and Binod, always remember this day and observe it in some fashion.

To people in India - Calcutta and Bengal used to be identified with learning, culture, the arts, political consciousness etc. Even today, educated people of the older generation in other parts of the country hold this city and state in high regard. But the reality today is somewhat different.

I know that in my lifetime I shall not see a literate Calcutta, or even a Calcutta where every child receives basic education. And nothing I might do personally will make a difference. I know that those who have the power and responsibility to address such matters – just don’t care. Nor do the systems exist to enable such goals. Yet, I go on, trying to do whatever little I can, to make a small difference, to a few children, in one place.

I am in, of and for my city. But yet I stand apart, and am an exile in my own land. When one is out in the streets of Calcutta, at every moment everything all around defies law, orderliness, civility, rationality, taste, aesthetics, hygiene, sense, concern for the other. The image of the person of Calcutta that I am constantly filled with – is of a base, brutish, boorish, ugly, foul, filthy, violent, selfish, blind, malevolent, hateful, herd-driven, mob-mentality, beast.

And yet even that is not the full truth. A visitor to the city can also conclude that this is a warm, humane city, of sensitive, refined, aware people. Nature in this city – is also similarly ambiguous: this is the most frightfully hot, humid, infernal place; and yet, a gentle breeze, the quality of light, the feel-fragrance of the air, can be uplifting and endearing.

Poverty, squalor, filth, apathy, civic indiscipline etc – are also of course there in other cities of India. But yet perhaps Calcutta strikes one as different, and especially symbolic of all these things. There is also the long tradition of westerners’ gaze on Calcutta, which offends the educated, middle-class and affluent people here; they’d like their city to be well thought of, without themselves having to do anything in their lives towards that.

A concerned, aware citizen has to grapple with all this for herself, come to her own understanding, which is informed, unbiased, rational and compassionate, and act accordingly.

I like to think that there must be a higher reason and purpose behind Calcutta’s travails, something of significance for all of humanity. It is here that all the issues and challenges of life are out in the raw. Calcutta is something elemental. Here, every day, at every moment, darkness and light, knowledge and ignorance, apathy and compassion, high and low, good and evil - confront each other and battle. It is a theatre of humanity, the kitchen and alchemical laboratory of life, where the “human” is cooked and distilled.

I hope like the biryani which we successfully rescued, something fragrant and delicious results!

Rebuilding Calcutta from below

2006-11-10T11:00:00.000-08:00

Something like the Unnayan renewal proposal calls for institutional ownership and capability that is currently non-existent. Nor has the civic consciousness of the citizens reached a stage of taking unequivocal and unassailable ownership for the future of the city – something that would then drive city planning and management.

The lack of public ownership of public domain concerns – that is the key limitation.

Privatisation of the public domain is the character of the age, and to see that happening through an apparent public domain concern is terrible, with deep damage. Building such civic ownership – when formal authorities and institutions are riddled with incompetence, apathy and corruption – is the foundational infrastructural requirement.

City and metropolitan renewal has thus perhaps necessarily to begin with community and slum renewal. Planning wisdom has to discern that empowering the vulnerable, for social and economic betterment, improved shelter and habitat, and building public ownership and cooperative action for environmental justice - may be the foundation and catalyst for rebuilding the blighted city. Public ethics is the key to renewal.

Whose city? We have to move from an elitist fixation with the city, which in the ultimate analysis is very limiting, and devoid of imagination.

In systemic terms, lack of awareness and disempowerment of large numbers of the poor allows the free-riding and pillage, and this makes the city a fount of inefficiency, unreason, ugliness, all of which should be seen and felt to be as distasteful as they are. Hence, improvement in the lot of the disenfranchised should be in the direct long term interest of anyone wanting the city to be a thriving, well managed, efficient place.

Slum renewal begins the process of infrastructure upgradation and improved urban management – which the city can only benefit from.

Public ethics, public domain activity – is a subject that needs to be looked at, and not assumed. Public issues are typically used instrumentally for private ends. Instead organisational means must be used instrumentally to serve public ends.

In a capital-starved environment, it is only the potential value of land under present depressed use that offers the resources to address the huge social development and infrastructure gap that Calcutta suffers. Howrah, with its huge tracts of industrial land, presently under closed, sick and obsolescent industry, could provide the answer. And this could also afford the means to begin the long-term process of laying the much needed infrastructure.

Building regulations in Calcutta

2006-11-09T11:00:00.000-08:00

Building regulations in the city would definitely not permit what Unnayan's proposal for canal-side renewal visualised e.g. extensive terraces, open spaces or even such high densities as proposed in the mixed use complexes.

Thus, small plots with small box-like structures is all that the regulation ions can promise. All kinds of detailed regulations on internal spaces and mandatory lines would also affect the project. Arcades as proposed would be unthinkable. Hence there is a case for reviewing the entire body of regulations, towards transforming these into something that positively encourages urban renewal and architectural excellence.

The kind of complexity and richness suggested in the Unnayan proposal is very difficult to achieve under the existing regulations. There are very few qualified people running the building department in Calcutta Municipal Corporation, and they are incapable of conceiving the scope of architectural design. The sole motivation is to increase the pressure of restrictions and thus enforce a clamp-down on errant developers. Errant developers are not dissuaded by this and buildings still collapse thanks to incompetence and corruption. The final result is enforcement of mediocrity. With no scope for excellence or aesthetics or urban environmental quality.

Thus the Unnayan proposal is something that highlights the existing limitations of the system and challenges these. Even if the proposal is never accepted, it remains as a document that can strike at the conscience of the city.

I am grateful to my friend Devananda Chatterji, architect, who was responsible for developing the renewal proposal on behalf of Unnayan, for his clarifications on this subject.

Towards renewal in Calcutta

2006-11-08T09:00:00.000-08:00

The Beliaghata canal-side area in Calcutta is today one of the most blighted, decrepit and foul environments. Large numbers of squatters lived beside the canal, on its sides and over its bed. There are large congested, low-rise basti or slum pockets. A quiet process of illegal conversion goes on. There are closed, sick or obsolescent factories. Large tracts of vacant land. And a canal, that was once navigable is now dead, and a foul open sewer.

Flooding occurs because of the siltation of the canal and building upon the east Calcutta wetlands. In 1999 October, flooding reached peak levels and underscored the crucial importance of de-silting the Bidyadhari river. That work was taken up. The squatters were evicted. But there will continue to be a problem. The basic social problem – of squatter resettlement - remains. Experience has shown that they simply return after some time. Squatters were recently evicted from along the rail-tracks adjacent to Lake Gardens. They are to be resettled in Nonadanga in east Calcutta. While the state govt’s acceptance of their resettlement is a major advance, what is being done is very far from the resettlement norms of international development agencies, like the World Bank or Asian Development Bank.

In 1995, an independent civic effort was initiated by Unnayan, to develop a viable plan for the proper rehabilitation of the canal-side squatters. Eventually, this led to a blueprint for highly remunerative area renewal, involving revitalisation of the canal and navigation, and large-scale residential, commercial and institutional developments – which would also satisfactorily provide for squatter resettlement.

The proposal also enabled a bold new vision of Calcutta’s future as a bio-technic city, a powerful organism for the sustainable and bio-regionally appropriate development of city and hinterland in the riverine, deltaic southern Bengal.

The canal nework of Calcutta stretches into the city’s hinterland, the lush green deltaic ecology of South Bengal, which includes Sundarbans. A canal city was conceived of for a culturally vibrant populous lively city, a green tropical city with water, reflecting the articulate nature of its presently distressed people.

Greatest challenge facing Calcutta

2006-11-07T12:15:00.000-08:00

There are a number of very serious threats to the long term health and well-being of Calcutta.

The city is sprawling eastwards over the sensitive wetlands (which are part of the Sundarban deltaic eco-system). For over a decade and a half now, the impact of this has been felt on the city’s drainage system. Within the city, there are severe disparities and inequities in provision of civic services. Maintenance and development of service infrastructure is hostage to the free-riding and pillaging by the powerful and rich.

Environmental health is consequently seriously threatened by water-borne and malarial diseases. Lack of access to adequate supplies of drinking water, which is compounded by inadequate sanitation – this is the principal environmental problem for Calcutta. Municipal statistics from Howrah suggest that infant mortality rates in slums are significantly higher than that in non-slum areas. A third of the metropolitan population lives in slum settlements, where the conditions are most degraded. In some areas, service latrines are used by over a hundred persons.

The city as a whole becomes a zone of conflict and violence, between the haves and the have-nots, with the middle-classes getting it from both sides. The degraded and poverty-ridden slums of the city are like subterranean boiler-rooms producing crime and riots, which can make city life nightmarish.

Frontally addressing such questions, with a view to humane transformation, is the greatest challenge facing the metropolis of Calcutta.

Go to the people!

2006-11-06T11:00:00.000-08:00

“Go to the people, live with them, learn from them, start from what they know, build from what they have.”

Mahatma Gandhi

Chance encounter

2006-11-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

The city is a place for multiplying happy chances and making the most of unplannable opportunities.

Lewis Mumford

Ten years ago I discovered the remarkable book An Intimate History of Humanity, by Theodore Zeldin. This was published in 1994.This is an investigation of emotions and personal relationships which looks at how people, past and present, escape from loneliness, fear and aimlessness, find new forms of affection and adventure, and can avoid being prisoners of their memories or mistakes.

Here’s the final section of the book.

‘My life is a failure.’ Those were the words with which I began this book, and I finish it with the story of a murderer who repeated that phrase many times, until one day …

Half a minute is enough to transform an apparently ordinary person into an object of hatred, an enemy of humanity. He committed a murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Then in his desolate jail, half a minute was enough to transform him again, into a hero. He saved a man’s life and was pardoned. But when he got home he found his wife living with someone else and his daughter knew nothing of him. He was unwanted, so he decided that he might as well be dead.

His attempt at suicide was also a failure. A monk summoned to his bedside said to him, ‘Your story is terrifying, but I can do nothing for you. My own family is wealthy, but I gave up my inheritance and I have nothing but debts. I spend everything I have finding homes for the homeless. I can give you nothing. You want to die, and there is nothing to stop you. But before you kill yourself, come and give me a hand. Afterwards, you can do what you like.’

Those words changed the murderer’s world. Somebody needed him: at last he was no longer superfluous and disposable. He agreed to help. And the world was never the same again for the monk, who had been feeling overwhelmed by the amount of suffering around him, to which all his efforts were making only a minute difference. The chance encounter with the murderer gave him the idea which was to shape his whole future: faced by a person in distress, he had given him nothing, but asked something from him instead. The murderer later said to the monk: ‘If you had given me money, or a room, or a job, I would have restarted my life of crime and killed someone else. But you needed me.’ That was how Abbe Pierre’s Emmaus movement for the very poor was born, from an encounter of two totally different individuals who lit up a light in each other’s heart. These two men were not soul-mates in the ordinary, romantic meaning of that word, but each owes the other the sense of direction which guides their life today.

It is in the power of everybody, with a little courage, to hold out a hand to someone different, to listen, and to attempt to increase. Even by a tiny amount, the quantity of kindness and humanity in the world. But it is careless to do so without remembering how previous efforts have failed, and how it has never been possible to predict for certain how a human being will behave. History, with its endless procession of passers-by, most of whose encounters have been missed opportunities, has so far been largely a chronicle of ability gone to waste. But next time two people meet, the result could be different. That is the origin of anxiety, but also of hope, and hope is the origin of humanity.

A tale of two cities

2006-11-04T00:52:00.000-08:00

The ancient Hindu epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, which are aids to instilling an organic consciousness in human society, are also essentially about the cities of Ayodhya, and Hastinapur.

In the same way as an epic serves to guide seekers of truth and wisdom through the slings and fortunes of their own lives by upholding a personalisable figure, such as Lord Rama, and describing his exile and wandering, similarly, the mythic cities are also metaphors for the process of becoming of any city, to an Ayodhya, the city of compassion and justice.

Thus, one can think of the journey of a city, through history, in terms of a cycle of birth, growth, prosperity, stagnation, decay, blight, recrudescence...

Mythology becomes the means for continuous renewal through the living culture of the people, as individual, institutional, city and social life trajectories act out, anew, contemporary versions of the epic events, with consequences that mirror mythic outcomes.

Or shatter mythic patterns and bonds to now enable otherwise unimaginable new possibilities.The tale of the two cities, of Calcutta and Howrah, may easily be viewed mythically - for instance, in terms of the story of the two brothers, fated to be king and sage respectively, that is common to both Hindu and Islamic thought.

Few cities in the world have experienced what these two did - in terms of their rapid growth and massive industrial edifice, their wealth, and size and scale of their vast rural hinterland, the extent of their regional economic linkages - and the weight of the apathy to their labouring people.

More fundamentally, this process of urban growth was accompanied by profound enlightenment in the social and cultural sphere, through which elite, European-inspired accomplishments and deep-rooted spontaneous folk sensibilities were integrated, to produce giants of creativity, intellect and wisdom - like the revered poet-sage Rabindranath Tagore.

The story of the rise of these cities is also the story of the renewal of a tradition, of awakening, re-connecting with roots, and building with this strength. The subsequent process of decline, decay and blight in the economic, environmental and social spheres in turn leading to a moment when the wheel is again ready to be turned, and a heroic journey begun, through which a barren, arid wasteland is now to be made verdant.

Howrah has always been viewed as a ‘coolie (i.e. labourers’) town’ that did not merit any serious civic effort. The history, the context of resource scarcity, the survival imperative in the people of Howrah, and the parasitic greed and activities of profiteers, all interact to make today’s Howrah the ultimate planning nightmare, or challenge, depending upon one’s perspective.

The very blight that characterises Howrah today, can also be seen as a rare opportunity to shape the Howrah of tomorrow. This is the gift of Howrah’s history.

Lewis Mumford

2006-11-03T12:15:00.000-08:00

Lewis Mumford, American social philosopher, and one of the leading thinkers and writers of the 20th century.

Born in Flushing, New York, Mumford assiduously and single-mindedly devoted himself to writing. Over a period of 60 years, Mumford wrote some thirty books, covering subjects as diverse as the history of cities, the history of machine technology, art and architectural criticism, and literary criticism. He is most widely known for the books The City in History and The Myth of the Machine: The Pentagon of Power. He passed away on 26 January 1990. Though widely honoured during his lifetime, with fellowships, professorships, awards and honorary doctorates, he remains largely unknown in his native America.

Mumford may be seen as one of those who have enabled today’s environmental consciousness. Environmental historian Ramachandra Guha has referred to him as ‘the patron saint of environmentalism’. Mumford's ‘organicist’ philosophy was deeply ecological. His varied concerns converge on the problem of defining an ethic which would fuse the classical socialist values of justice and community with what we would today call environmental values. As early as 1930, we find him writing that the three main threats to modern civilisation were the destruction of forest cover, the depletion of non-renewable resources, and the awesome destructive power of modern weaponry. His first major work, Technics and Civilisation (1934), underlined the links between industrialisation, the increasing intensity of energy use, and pollution.

Mumford recognised that ecological degradation was, at least in part, the outcome of a flawed value system which had “missed the great lesson that both ecology and medicine teach - that man’s great mission is not to conquer Nature by main force but to co-operate with her intelligently and lovingly for his own purposes.” Ecological degradation, he believed, is inescapable in an economic system driven by the belief that quantitative production had no natural limits. Indeed modern technology is profoundly anti-ecological - “driven by the desire to displace the organic with the synthetic and the pre-fabricated”, it exhibits a “barely concealed hostility to living organisms, vital functions, organic associations.”

Mumford anticipated the alternate theorists of today. He was a critic of both capitalism and communism, holding them to be but two variants of a centralising, destructive and violent system of production. But he did not wholly turn his back on modern technology, seeking instead to bend it to serve human and environmental needs.

In an age of specialisation, Mumford was a sociologist, philosopher, cultural historian, art and literary critic, and authority on architecture and city planning, a true Renaissance man. In 1923, Mumford was a founding member of the Regional Planning Association of America, an experimental group that paved the way for several projects in regional development, including the Tennessee Valley Authority. In 1932 Mumford began to write a column of architectural criticism, ‘The Sky Line’, for the New Yorker.

Mumford was deeply influenced in his youth by the work and thought of Patrick Geddes, the eccentric Scottish biologist, town planner, educator and peace activist (1854-1932). For Mumford, Geddes’ work provided the basic direction and the skeleton which he then added flesh to. In 1938, as consultant to the City and County Park Board in Honolulu, Hawaii, the follower of the ‘garden city’ Master prepared a booklet Whither Honolulu? based on his study of the parks and playgrounds of that city. Again, recalling Geddes’ efforts at organising ‘cities exhibitions’, in 1939, Mumford worked on a documentary film The City which was shown at the city planning exhibit at the New York World’s Fair.

Geddes’ young son Alisdair was killed in the First World War. He saw Alisdair in Mumford and wanted him to assist him in his work. Mumford was very oppressed with Geddes seeing in him the return of his dead son. Later, after his own son, who was named Geddes, was killed in the 2nd World War, by which time Patrick Geddes was no more, Mumford became a leading propogator of Geddes’ thinking and diligently assisted his biographers.

Mumford was deeply interested in India. He studied Indian history and religion and closely followed Geddes’ town planning work in India. Mumford was personally acquainted with Radhakamal Mukherjee, the Indian professor of sociology and disciple of Geddes, whose work dwelt on human interactions with nature - which he called ‘social ecology’. Mukherjee has written extensively on the ecological basis of civilisation in Gangetic Bengal, culminating in the emergence of Calcutta as a metropolis - but one that makes a dysfunctional break from its ecological and social roots.

Read the Time magazine cover story on Lewis Mumford (18 April 1938) here.

Mumford's moment of epiphany

2006-11-03T12:10:00.000-08:00

Mumford was, in his own words, a child of the city. Beginning from the time of his childhood walks in the city with his grandfather, his ‘Manhatta’, in all its resources, was his true university.
Here's an extract from his autobiographical volume Sketches from Life.

“I loved the great bridges and walked back and forth over them, year after year. ... One twilight hour in early spring, starting from the Brooklyn end, I faced into the west wind sweeping over the rivers from New Jersey. The ragged, slate-blue cumulus clouds that gathered over the horizon left open patches for the light of the waning sun to shine through, and finally, as I reached the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, the sunlight spread across the sky, forming a halo around the jagged mountain of skyscrapers, with the darkened loft buildings and warehouses huddling below in the foreground. The towers, topped by the golden pinnacles of the new Woolworth building, still caught the light even as it began to ebb away. Three-quarters of the way across the Bridge I saw the skyscrapers in the deepening darkness become slowly honeycombed with lights until, before I reached the Manhattan end, these buildings piled up in a dazzling mass against the indigo sky. Here was my city, immense overpowering, flooded with energy and light; there below lay the river and the harbour, catching the last flakes of gold on their water ... And there was I, breasting the March wind, drinking in the city and the sky, both vast, yet both contained in me, transmitting through me the great mysterious will that had made them and the promise of the new day that was still to come. The world at that moment, opened before me, challenging me, beckoning me, demanding something of me that it would take more than a lifetime to give, but raising all my energies by its own vivid promise to a higher pitch. In that sudden revelation of power and beauty, all the confusions of adolescence dropped from me, and I trod the narrow, resilient boards of the footway with a new confidence that came, not from my isolated self alone but from the collective energies I had confronted and risen to."

Like a gardener ...

2006-11-02T17:30:00.000-08:00

"Town planning is not mere place-planning, nor even work-planning. If it is to be successful it must be folk-planning. This means that its task is not to coerce people into new places against their associations, wishes and interest - as we find bad schemes trying to do. Instead its task is to find the right places for each sort of people, places where they will really flourish. To give people in fact the same care that we give when transplanting flowers."

Patrick Geddes

Beyond the Prison of Mirrors

2006-11-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

Night.
Ascent.
Lights of the city.
Memories:
of funereal processions of once beloved saints,
and conflagrations, of riotous arson,
spreading hatred's poison fire.
The stars, far away, faint dots in the black sky.

Day.
Descent.
The needle of eternal knowledge
poised on the still waters of the ocean of sacrifice,
ringed by the pearls of devotion and service.
The light of the city dispells the noon of despair.
Streets, paved with jewels of wisdom, beckoning the children,
to come, and build tomorrow's citadel of peace.

From great killings partitioning the soul
to joint celebrations for union of hearts:
now is the city truly lit.
The light of the city
glows
with an infinitude of starlight...
a symphony of illumination.

Rebuilding the city, from the grassroots

2006-11-01T18:30:00.000-08:00

Children must play

2006-11-01T18:00:00.000-08:00

Irrespective of the surroundings, irrespective of their plight, children are after all children, and they will play, come what may.

Watching children play, amidst a blighted, squalid environment – yields clues about the child’s imagination.

"The child in sunshine sees the violet shadows upon the dusty road just as the impressionist paints them: it is only the mis-educated grown up, who has been trained from old pictures, or perhaps still more from printed descriptions of them, who persuades himself that the same shadow is brown. To escape from common literary epithets and to be encouraged to observe how often earth is purple, grass gold, and the sea all possible colours is a training which most of the older generation have missed and which the younger are not by any means sufficiently receiving."

Patrick Geddes