Urban Planning Blog

The legacy of Jane Jacobs and importance of her work is often doubted by market-based economists. Although I too [for most part] support the market mechanism, I also believe that at certain points, there are other arguments for promoting a cause other than brute efficiency. Jane Jacobs’s seminal work, The Life and Death of Great American Cities addressed the haughty approach practiced back then by evangelist planners who had lost touch with ground realities. Of course, everything fell in place and people were better off but the places that emerged lacked character. People were better off economically but definitely desired more than just a reliable and efficient way to obtain utilities and places to shop. California may be one of the most expensive places in the country yet people choose to live there due to intangible factors like great climate and quality of life that may be difficult to transfer elsewhere. Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolutions considers Jacobs “tiny-teeny bit overrated”. He says,

It is fine to juxtapose the old Greenwich Village against the gargantuan planning of the corrupt Robert Moses. Few other social scientists of her time grasped the idea of spontaneous order. But what to do if a city grows from one million to ten million people, as has happened many times in the Third World?

To be sure, favelas and shanties work far better than their reputations. Drug gangs aside, they embody many of the best qualities of Jacob’s analysis, or for that matter Hayek’s. But surely it is a problem when there is no piped water or reliable electricity. How can you get those services into new areas without some serious planning? You can call for private sector involvement but it is planning nonetheless and it probably will involve some use of eminent domain. Or how about new roads?

I believe he straddles an important middle-ground that has plagued much of planning literature. Planning, everyone agrees is important and necessary but they differ on how much planning or control is required. Libertarians argue that the market should be allowed to let a city organically grow according to the economic needs of the people. But then, we have a resulting city like Houston that you definitely wouldn’t pride living in. Complete top-down approach, like that empowered Le Corbusier gave rise to Chandigarh which I believe, failed to connect with the people and still remains a mystery even to the people who live there. Jacobs may have leaned a wee bit too much toward the left but her opposition to Moses, who built much of New York’s infrastructure, was well-intentioned. Moses’ creations may have helped New York be the city that is today but at the same time, social injustices cannot be overlooked in the name of progress. Equal representation to all sections of the society must remain planning’s overarching objective.

Times are much different from when Moses and Jacobs practices their professions and it may not be possible to adhere to simply one process of planning. Globalization and urban agglomeration has made Jacobs’ idyllic sense of a community redundant whereas the global melting pot of cultures and ethnicities in any metropolis worth its salt has refocused attention on social justice.

Is it time to develop a new theory for planning that focuses on changing times, social and economic, as well as keep an eye on sustainability? Or does one already exist that needs a little tweaking?

New Orleans brings to mind several images dominated of course by the debauchery-riddled and flamboyant Mardi Gras. But death, destruction, despair, and desolate landscapes are far from your mind. The city stands on a rich cultural heritage and although (ecologically) as I argue, the city should not exist; it not only does but also prospers and throbs with urban vibrancy. However behind the glitz and glamour of the chic French Quarter with its colonial architectural trimmings lived one of America’s poorest cities. Crime was rampant and racial divisions were never more pronounced. I had stopped over for a night while traveling to Texas last year just before Katrina hit so it was an immensely sad experience to see a city shaken at its very foundations. We talked to a local architect who had nothing but frustration and disgust writ all over his countenance over the rest of the country’s apathy. And rightly so too. People seemed to have forgotten that this is just the beginning and the worst might be lurking behind the next hurricane.

The basin of the world’s third largest river (after Nile and Amazon), New Orleans and much of Louisiana stands on unstable ground that constantly changes its geographic form every thousand years. The mouth of the Mississippi has moved left and right since forever and it continually seeks to do so. But it finds itself restricted and controlled by the sub-standard levee system (the Dutch do it better). New Orleans is famously known to exist below sea level and if you look at the cross-section of the city, you will see a great depression in a bowl-like fashion protected by feeble contraptions erected by man. In spite of many warnings by scientists and climatologists, stubbornness of American people (in the region) often mistaken as resilience failed to inspire any preventive action. The result – Hurricane Katrina literally exposed the dangers of human impact on marshlands by destroying nearly 80% of the city. Levees snapped like twigs and all talk of their engineering prowess was muted.

We walked through the Ninth Ward and even after six months we could see destruction and wrecked home as far as our eyes could see. It is almost that this part of town has been declared a ghost town and no cares to rebuild. The catch however might be that probably the best option is not to rebuild. Easier said than done; this area was inhabited by mostly low-income people because no one else wanted to live on ‘that’ side of the town. The low-income people also happen to be mostly African-American so the issue of not rebuilding slowly transcends from that of rational thinking to resolving issues of social and racial equity. Can we genuinely deny these people from coming back? If we can stop them from living in this vulnerable location, where do we put them? Of course, New Orleans needs people who can work low-end jobs at the bars, restaurants, grocery stores and those people cannot live in flood-safe areas occupied by the middle- and upper-class residents. So technically, the low-income people have a choice of living in flood-prone areas that are cheap to build in but face risks of destruction almost every year or not living in New Orleans at all. So will New Orleans exist as an urban space without its share of poor people that are needed (relative and in an economic sense) in a society? Probably not; no matter how much the upper class of New Orleans citizenry secretly wishes. Hence my conclusion that New Orleans may or must not exist in its current urban form; it should either drastically evolve to live sustainably and densely so as to reduce its ecological footprint in a worsening ecosystem or in a worst-case scenario, count its losses, cherish its history, pack up and move on.

Cities have died before either gradually due to economic or social decline or suddenly due to natural cataclysmic changes. Our capacity to absorb havoc wrecked by nature might have increased and it might take one heck of a natural disaster to wipe off a city especially in a developed nation. As I mentioned, the next hurricane season is expected to be worse and so will be subsequent seasons; natural processes or global warming – the consequences are similar. If at all we choose to rebuild, the way we do it will be paramount in testing the hypothesis that man learns from history. Sadly, I think that we often prove that hypothesis wrong.

See this, Mumbaikars and think again if you want your city to be another Shanghai. For crying out loud, more flyovers will not help. They just make people buy more cars and negate the advantage. If you don’t believe me, read Gary Becker’s opinion. The Texas Transportation Institute (a block down the street from my college) estimated that the extra time and fuel spent in driving as a result of traffic congestion in 1994 was worth over $75 billion and might have already toped $150 billion [prediction for 2005]. Is economics the answer, like it usually is? A fee for driving into central London reduced the traffic inflow by 20%. People took to public transit that was widely available, carpooled or explored other means of joint transportation. All vehicles entering Manhattan already pay stiff tolls at the bridges but are those toll charges enough to deter people from driving in.

One of the biggest changes I saw during my visit to India was the horrific increase in traffic and to make it worse, it was unruly traffic compounded by Neanderthal behavior. I was informed that suddenly many cars have hit the streets due to a booming economy and ease of loan availability; especially for two-wheelers. At the same time, we are fully aware of the lack of any strictness in conducting driving road tests, if at all they are conducted, for obtaining a license to drive. We condemn the rash driving habits of film stars but forget the thousands of other incidents that never make it to the newspapers. First of all, the solution to traffic management is to inculcate a sense of responsibility and association with the fact that driving is not a right but in fact a privilege (printing it on the back of the licenses probably isn’t enough).

The problem with implementing economic disincentives for traffic management is that those that can afford to pay can easily get around the system. For every solution, there is a counter-argument of infringing on individual behavior but as Becker explains, a driver does not consider the effect of his driving on the other users of the road, but only on himself. It is a classic negative externality.

Much of Louisiana’s history mostly in modern times is peppered with controlling nature to suit man’s commercial purposes [read John McPhee's Control of Nature for more]. The Army Corps of Engineers unfortunately bounded by legislative intent draws much ire. However, they are as much to blame as the next person stamping his authority on a fragile ecology. Man’s control of nature stems from affixing an economic value to nature’s resources and adapting them for his personal use. Nature conservancy for the sake of preservation or aesthetic appeal hardly finds takers in a fertile and plentiful landscape of Louisiana. The lazily meandering muddy Mississippi drains much of continental United State carrying tons of sediment to the Gulf Coast. Nature entertains itself in a cyclic dance over thousands of years of reclaiming land and giving it back. It must not have envisioned the rise of a dominant species such as man to alter its natural cycle and attempt to achieve the impossible i.e. control or even alter the course of natural evolution. For proponents of the fact who believe in the natural order of things irrespective of man’s role in this world, it would be a worthwhile experience to see the impact of human presence in an otherwise fragile yet resilient environment. You need not go far to see this impact.

Living in Mumbai and dealing with the phenomenon of “annual floods” that brings the city to a screeching halt causing tremendous loss in both economic and emotional terms offers you enough justification. Even passionate Mumbaikars didn’t know of the existence of the river Mithi that is supposed to be a city river. We dismissed it as one foully oddity in the city center and a place for us to pollute so we can live in relative ease elsewhere. We always considered the mighty sea as the city’s focal point. Take a walk after any major festival especially Ganpati immersion, you would get a classic example of a city’s continued apathy toward its natural environment. The brashness with which we pollute our cities deservedly gets us cloudbursts and flash floods. Those who fail to see a connection are simply in a state of denial. If man hadn’t intervened, Mumbai would still be a group of seven islands in nature’s blissful arms. Of course, the economic potential wouldn’t then be realized and any progress has its costs, right? But each time the costs are borne by Mother Nature. Never can we envisage partaking in few of the costs that might be a direct result of civilization.

Why the sudden shift from New Orleans to Mumbai; because I see much in common in the existence of the two metropolises on two sides of the earth. They exist where realistically no city should. I wouldn’t argue for complete abandonment of these cities but definitely would argue for more respect to nature and the natural environment it exists in. Attention to a more sustainable living wouldn’t undermine the city but instead elevate its position in the list of some of the greatest cities to live in. After all, that is exactly what we aspire for, right; to live in a city that makes living enjoyable and does not engage in a constant struggle with nature. Like it or not, nature always win. She always has more time and energy that we can ever possibly dream of. It is just a matter of time before she decides to crack the whip.

Coming back to India after a longish interval of time has its reverse cultural shocks to account for. The maximum impact is made by the unruly traffic. No matter how long you have lived in India and how little time you have spent outside India, it always hits you smack in the face (I hope not literally) the moment you touch down. To top that effect, I have one heck of a driver in my dad. He spells rash driving with a capital R and not once has he ever admitted to doing so. He has the unique ability to go from Mumbai airport to Panvel, a distance of approximately 40 miles in almost 20 minutes; the hour being pre-dawn seems to encourage him a little more to step on the gas. Believe it or not, it was my first ride when I landed in India and I was pale with fright by the time we reached home.

But I have always considered him to be an exception when it comes to driving. Other drivers crawl at a snail’s pace, I consoled myself so. But I couldn’t brace myself enough for the shock that was to be a regular feature during my stay in India. I may sound like a unaware foreigner from bucolic environs who has never experience traffic before. But an extended period of disciplined (generally speaking) driving and strict adherence to the law, even if it was in the fear of the car with the flashing lights standing nearby probably has habituated me to the life of pleasant driving. In Mumbai, it is virtually the battle of the impatient souls who never seem to have an idea where exactly they are headed in such a hurry. Traffic rules, much less the white painted lanes are considered mere suggestions not strictly enforced rules of traffic. The recently-installed countdown counters on the Navi Mumbai intersections seem to have an opposite effect. I have never seen the traffic wait until the clock counted all the way down to zero before turning green. The impatient vehicles, revving up with hungry anticipation teeter on the brink of impatience ready to shoot off as soon as one of them decides to jump the signal. The rickshaws are the worst. I had the unfortunate misfortune of sitting in one who would dash out like a Triple Crown equine before the criss-crossing traffic had an opportunity to stop; zigzagging his way through the maze of blaring horns he would have this triumphant grin plastered over his face as I held on to dear life. Somehow I was missing out on the machismo of the incident. They are not wrong when they say that you gotta learn driving in Mumbai if you have to drive in Mumbai; well they say that for Pune too, and Delhi; each with a different flavor of urban wildness.

Anecdotal evidence aside, accounts of any visitor to a bustling Indian metropolis always has countless stories about our traffic and of course, the proverbial cow or the elephant on the street. Actually, I did see couple of elephants in separate incidents within a span of one month. The accounts are so prevalent among the tourists that you feel they would be disappointed if they saw any less. And we are only too eager to please. We have enamored ourselves to the romantic notion of unruly traffic and crowded trains. You haven’t lived in Mumbai if you haven’t honked your way through Linking Road or hanged outside the packed train at peak hour – are common statements among Mumbaikars; especially if you are talking to a drunk one almost eight thousand miles away from Mumbai. Does a bustling metropolis carry the baggage of disobedience and inculcate a sense of lack of discipline under the guise of ‘fast pace of life’, or are people just obeying the law in less dense cities because it hasn’t inconvenienced them yet. Metaphorically speaking, do concrete jungles bring out the animal within you? You are scoffed at or almost made a social outcast if you make the mistake of trying to obey the traffic laws. We bore the brunt of honking cars and screaming strangers as we refused to budge as the clock counted down to zero before budging. I was called an NRI for obeying the rules. I am not sure if that was an insult. You tell me.

cross-posted at Desicritics

I recently read Fast Food Nation for a class on Sustainable Urbanism. Expectedly, the book was loaded with facts against mega corporations aiming for a quick buck while paying little attention to the overall impacts of their business. The author, Eric Schlosser came away as a convinced (and converted, I think) activist against the evils of the fast food companies. Any talk of rabid and profit-hungry corporations with scant regard for societal good cannot exclude Wal-mart. Countless campaigns against its labor exploitative policies and tendencies to big box American countryside and movie (Wal-mart: The High Cost of Low Price) with scathing allegations hasn’t won any friends for Wal-mart in recent times. The capitalistic spirit justifies its business-like methods but accusations of being heartless for its tireless workers and its surroundings is not completely off the mark. Wal-mart at its end is continuously trying to explore new markets and have been eyeing the lucrative and number-rich Indian market for quite some time now.

Recently during a trip to India, I drove by the now-vacant plot of land at the junction of Bandra-Kurla Complex and the Western Express Highway that housed the drive-in theater not long ago. I was informed that this site was earmarked for India’s first Wal-mart in partnership with Reliance Industries as the retail giant look set to enter Indian markets. Of course, the information wasn’t accurate and may have been a tad premature; I couldn’t help but imagine that this would indeed be the perfect site for an in-city Wal-mart. A huge parcel of land with ample space for parking, prime location, proximity to the Western Express highway to facilitate easier access for inbound trucks, location at the cusp of the city and the suburbs; the site had Wal-mart all over it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the information I received would prove to be correct in the near future. Of course, Wal-mart efficiency and its famed supply chain would be seriously hampered in an Indian context due to lack of supporting infrastructure.

India’s cabinet recently approved the entry of foreign retail outlets [source: Times of India] and eliminated the need for India-based franchisee partners. This is yet another step towards a completely globalized market in India. The humungous middle-class consumer market is pegged at $200 billion currently and is expected to grow to almost $500 billion in the next 5 to six years [source: CNN Money]. Although it is small compared to other growing overseas markets, it still offers enough incentive for retailers to move in and are held back only by regulation issues. However, Wal-mart and other big-box retailers are bound to face protests from the local businesses and urban planners. Ample proof of the Wal-mart effect seen all over America –unaesthetic stores, disregard to local urban fabric, conformity leading to monotony, environmental concerns, and lack of attention to regional geographic constraints. Consumer’s economic and rational behavior partly tries to justify shutting out local business but charges of despoiling the urbanscape refuse to go away. In the recent fascination for malls that appeal to the consumer from the inside but do nothing for the urban dweller on the outside (e.g. Centre One, Vashi), Wal-mart’s big blue box will definitely be something new in the first few years but repeat that thousand times over all around India; you will realize the bane of American urbanscape.

But fortunately, not all is lost. Andre Duany of the New Urbanism fame has something wonderful to offer in rebuilding the Wal-marts destroyed during Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi. Seventy percent of Pass Christian, a beautiful bedroom community was destroyed after Hurricane Katrina passed right over its skies [via Veritas et Venustas]. But this destruction has given Wal-mart an opportunity to rebuild keeping in mind the unique urban and cultural context of the southern town. The big-boxing of its retail outlets undoubtedly more efficient but has eroded support in the bucolic environs of Pass Christian mostly due to adverse impact on local businesses. But some businesses have managed to adapt in spite of the presence of Wal-mart and it shows a resurgent attitude amongst local businesses. But they wish Wal-mart mend its ways regards the way it chooses to construct its stores. During a design charette to rebuild Pass Christian, Duany proposed working with Wal-mart to modify its design to suit small town characteristics; instead of a “big-box” store, Wal-mart could build a series of stores that give the appearance of a small town (source: Sun Herald). Plans haven’t been finalized yet but this offers a great opportunity for Wal-mart to win back hearts at least in an urban design context.

Such an approach would also have tremendous implications for its move to India in the near future. Fascination with the big-boxes will wane over time but if Wal-mart choose to assimilate into urban fabric of any Indian city depending on the cultural and social context, it will definitely win brownie points for the mega corporation. Adorning the outsides with commercial logos (see any mall in India) appears cool now but trust me, design ultimately triumphs as people tire of seeing disjointed and non-contextual symbols everywhere they go. The ‘beauty’ of Times Square would be lost if it is replicated everywhere. Sense of a place is an important characteristic in finding your place in an ever-expanding city. Sometimes, making yourself inconspicuous is the solution to standing out from the rest of the crowd. After all, there is more to life than rising profit.

Driving on Palm Beach Marg at a speed of more than eighty kilometers per hour was pretty normal even though the speed limit is prescribed at sixty. It was one of the few stretches of asphalt around Bombay where you could actually exceed the speed limit; of course not counting the recently built expressway. Palm Beach Marg weaves across the outer reaches of Mumbai’s (erstwhile Bombay) satellite city, Navi Mumbai as it touches upon the supposedly upscale but largely empty high-rise apartments popularly known as NRI Seawoods Estate and terminates at the core of the Central Business District at Belapur.

Five years ago, driving along this stretch of road was a pleasure as you could see another Navi Mumbai node, Nerul and the adjacent Parsik hill in the distance on one side and the creek from across the mangroves on the other. The monumental Seawoods Estates loomed large in the distance seemed like the only sign of intrusive human settlement. A large holding pond between proposed developments was attributed to Big Brother wanting us to keep eyes off Apsara, the nuclear reactor at Trombay across the bay.

As I drove on Palm Beach Marg this December, barely minutes after landing at Mumbai’s international airport, I could barely see through the smog. Although it was still early in the day, you could see scores of people out for an early morning walk eager to breathe in the ‘fresh morning air’. A carefree spirit on his motorbike returning either from a night call center job or still drunk from the previous night’s revelries cut right across the road, causing us to swerve sharply (with no reduction in speed nevertheless). Although I hadn’t slept the previous night, I tried to take in the changed urbanscape of Palm Beach Marg. As the morning light filtered through the smog, I saw ghostly shadows of seemingly high rising walls alongside the road. I looked closer with sleepy eyes to realize that the previously distant Nerul had gradually moved toward the otherwise serene Palm Beach Marg. The high walls were in fact high-rise buildings, still in a state of incompleteness but slated for occupancy in a few months, my dad informed me.

The remaining vacant apartments at NRI Seawoods complex were bought over by Reliance en masse supposedly to house their DAKC (Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City) employees few kilometers away. In fact, construction of the second stage of the NRI complex was to begin soon. A monumental-looking almost palatial in appearance announced Delhi Public School in big bold neon signs adjacent to the complex. A cartel of IAS officers, said my dad, had managed to overturn certain environmental laws and build a high rise apartment building on the ‘other’ side of the Marg. Thankfully, the holding pond opposite to Apsara still existed and actually provided a much-needed point of destination for citizens seeking passive recreation.

I took in changed landscape with mixed emotions. On one hand, I was glad to see Navi Mumbai develop by leaps and bounds while on the other hand, flouting of environmental laws (as few as they exist) and disregard for natural mangroves was distressing. As we drove into Belapur, I could still see empty and stark skeletons of buildings built in the previous real estate boom time. In the end, it all turned out to be speculator-driven. Progress or development is often viewed with a sense of optimism but such narrow definitions of development prove to be short term gains.

Palm Beach Marg is just one road that runs along the spread that is Navi Mumbai today but it is adequately reflective of the scale and intensity of development elsewhere in the new city. New zoning laws are drafted at a rapid pace to replace the archaic ones created in the early 70s but vested interests continue to stay one step ahead. But not all is lost; there continues to be hope for a growing city next to a metropolis that has been attributed the tag of bursting at its seams for several years now. However, it still continues to thrive, sustain, and more importantly evolve.

On a side note, the palm trees on the divider on Palm Beach Marg are watered daily by a municipal corporation tanker and have managed to flourish amongst cars that are in too much of a hurry to give them a second glance.

cross-posted on Desicritics

Let The Ecologist Magazine know what is humanity’s worst invention.

The riots in Paris strangely do not have characteristics that plague other conflicts elsewhere at least most of them. The Parisian riots aren’t about religion although the miscreants are largely Muslim; they aren’t about ethnicity although again the miscreants are largely of North African descent. The riots are almost like the opening of floodgates of simmering frustration of oppression and discrimination. The much hyped French society of tolerance and liberty fell apart as the riots spread all over the country and soon the original catalyst of two electrocuted youths from the Muslim ghetto was forgotten. Because it was never about religion or ethnicity but in fact, it was about broken windows.

According to social psychologists and police officers, if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken (Kelling & Coles, 1996). It is a classic case of neglecting a problem and wishing that it never existed. A broken window left unrepaired also smacks of apathy. Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist conducted a simple but insightful experiment. He arranged to have an automobile without license plates parked with its hood up on a street in the Bronx (low-income neighborhood) and a comparable automobile on a street in Palo Alto, CA (high-income neighborhood). The results were predictable – the car on the Bronx street was vandalized within “minutes” and after twenty-four hours, everything of value had been stripped. The car in Palo Alto remained untouched.

Zimbardo then did something that produced astonishing results. He smashed part of the automobile in Palo Alto with a sledge hammer. Soon after, the “respectable whites” joined in the carnage and within hours the car had been turned upside down and utterly destroyed. The quality of the neighborhood thus made no significant difference to the plight of the abandoned automobile; except in the case of the high-income neighborhood, someone was needed to strike the first blow.

Similarly in Paris, thousands of cars were burned mostly in the low-income neighborhood occupied by the minorities but soon similar incidents spread to otherwise quiet towns like Nice in South France. Jane Galt offered a similar reason that is often true of mob violence. She hypothesized that riots were spreading in Paris because “breaking windows and setting cars on fire is fun”. She explains:

“Of course, normally we don’t go around torching automobiles, because the owners of those automobiles would be angry, and we would be arrested, and our friends would look at us funny. But take a group of people who have relatively little to lose from an arrest, since they’re never going to get jobs anyway, and who are, not without reason, permanently angry at the people who own those cars, and thus have very little of the social control that comes from feeling you are in a mutual social contract that protects you as well as the car owners, and add a minor provocation . . . voila! With a peer group giving us permission to bust stuff up, I bet a substantial number of us would go on a rampage too. The riot is only the mirror image of the lynch mob.”

There exists something deeper within the human psyche that derives pleasure from creating havoc and destruction. No wonder action movies where “stuff blows up” are a major attraction. Maybe evolution is not perfect; it still leaves tiny vestiges of our Neanderthal selves within us. Pity the urban planner cannot successfully take into account that part of human character.

Reference:
Kelling, George L. and Coles, Catherine M. Fixing Broken Windows (New York: Martin Kressler, 1996)

Kolkata (Calcutta) squatters vow to carry broomsticks and chili powder as defensive weapons against police violence while protesting against a court order forcing their eviction. Chili powder bombs against tear gas shells; should be an eye-burning experience. [via]