Undergraduate Dissertation

IN THE MANY COLOURED WORLD A Critique On The Contemporary Urban Spaces In India

A DISSERTATION Submitted by

SAROJA. A

In partial fulfilment of the requirements For the award of the degree

Of

BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTURE

Under FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING

In

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING

ANNA UNIVERSITY CHENNAI 600 025 APRIL 2015

DECLARATION I declare that this dissertation entitled “IN THE MANY COLOURED WORLD- A CRITIQUE ON THE CONTEMPORARY URBAN SPACES IN INDIA” is the result of my work and prepared by me under the guidance of AR. TAHAER ZOYAB and that it has not formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma, associate ship or fellowship of any other University or Institute previously. Due acknowledgement have been made wherever anything has been borrowed from other sources.

Date: 06.04.2015

Signature of Candidate (SAROJA. A 2011701046)

ABSTRACT “City areas with flourishing diversity sprout strange and unpredictable uses and peculiar scenes. But this is not a drawback of diversity, this is the point of it.”

-Jane Jacobs1

Thus, this dissertation is about a search for the design of a public space in its true senseone that is accessible to all- the villagers arrived into the city, the pavement dweller, the ordinary and to the rich. Acknowledging the vibrant cultural mix of small and medium scale entrepreneurs, different religions and a strong local economy that make up the society, it tries to unearth the possibility for a public space to be a node in an ever complex economy of desire which is global in its orientation yet local in manifestation.

My argument though it applies to many countries across the world, will be focused largely on the country I know best, India.

The need for understanding the nature of urban public spaces in the country stems from the changing role of the urban space within economic relations, creating tension between the public and the private realm. In some cities walking and public life is disappearing, emphasizing that life conditions are becoming more and more privatized: private homes, cars, work places, IT-communication and privatized and highly controlled shopping environments. In a world being steadily privatized, the public spaces are gaining in importance, but also being more demanding to design because life in the public domain is optional and not - as it used to be - a necessity.

1

Jane Jacobs (b. 1916), U.S. urban analyst. The Death and Life of Great American Cities, ch. 10 (1961)

i

In this regard, this paper aims to dissect the changing trends in public spaces- from the traditional streets to the malls, gated communities, etc. It takes a look at the physical level- how spaces are increasingly devoid of the traditional understanding of civility and community life and hence a homogenized vision of the public space; at an economic level- how the pleasures of the city has largely reduced to consumerism; at the social level- how the society is fragmented shifting focus to a specific clientele.

The paper builds towards an idea that today’s urban public spaces are not “authentic” and on the other hand denies the existence of a crisis, on the grounds that the definition of “public” has always been problematic; questioning along every step of the way, the possibility to design an authentic public space, in a way such that, it serves as a great equalizer between the two ends of the society; where the difference between one end and the other is so high.

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT …To every experience in the land of serpentines and fakirs…

iii

Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................ i Acknowledgement ......................................................................................................... iii List of Illustrations ........................................................................................................ vii

The Public Realm: An Introduction .............................................................................1 Defining the realm.........................................................................................................1 Of Space and Place making...........................................................................................2 The ever increasing trends ............................................................................................3 If so, is it possible to design the ideal public space?.....................................................4 From transience to permanence ....................................................................................5 The importance of Community .....................................................................................5 There is no outer space without inner space ................................................................7 Rhythmic pattern of activities over time .......................................................................7 As temporal as memories ..............................................................................................9 An expatriate’s retreat- Ahoy British!...........................................................................9 Rise of the Bourgeois ....................................................................................................10 Theoretical Precedents .................................................................................................12 Fall of Public Man, Richard Sennett ...........................................................................12 The appearance of a new class ...................................................................................13 Spaces of Global Culture- An oxymoron ....................................................................14 Like a boat resting at anchor and moving randomly during slack tide .......................15 Hyper real environments- the illusion .........................................................................16 Malls “Fake” Public Space ..........................................................................................17 Re (construction) of a fantasy world within itself.......................................................17 We the people to Us the people ..................................................................................18 The disclaimer statement.............................................................................................19

iv

Differentiated Vs Homogenized Spaces ......................................................................20 Making of the milieu ...................................................................................................20 We are progressing! ...................................................................................................22 The Battle of Extremes .................................................................................................24 From Over-managed to Under-managed spaces .........................................................24 A Fordism Phenomenon .............................................................................................25 Streamlining cities and its spaces................................................................................26 An Overview of Constructed Public Spaces ...............................................................27 Private islands within city limits .................................................................................27 All that glitters is not gold ..........................................................................................29 The social cocoons ......................................................................................................30 Ripples of a Revolution ................................................................................................32 The growing gulf between the rich and the poor ........................................................32 The line of division ....................................................................................................34 Places of exclusion since times ...................................................................................34 Guided by the principles of global parameter .............................................................35 India shining ................................................................................................................36 All roads lead to Consumerism ...................................................................................38 Public Spaces as Consumption microcomoses ...........................................................39 Invented Streets: A Public life of hanging-out and “Third Places” ...........................40 Claims of Ownership ....................................................................................................42 Who is and who is not? The debate of ownership claims ...........................................42 The Indian minds vs. the state policies ......................................................................42 State’s monopoly.........................................................................................................44 Cornering public spaces for inadequate public purposes ............................................45 The Rise of the Cyber Space ........................................................................................47 Where are we heading next? ........................................................................................49 Economy as a parameter for development ..................................................................50 Not every change is a progress ...................................................................................52 The multicultural question ..........................................................................................52 v

The city needs it ............................................................................................................53 Learn and re-imagine ..................................................................................................54 Blessed by nature .......................................................................................................56 Conclusion .....................................................................................................................58 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................60

vi

List of illustrations Figure i. What makes a Public Space?............................................................................ 2 Figure ii. Indian Urbanization Prospects 2030 (Source: UN Economic and Social Affairs) ............................................................................................................................. 4 Figure iii. The sense of "Community" in Public ............................................................. 6 Figure iv. Cattle grazing activity during early morning hours; High shopping, pedestrian movement and vehicular traffic in the afternoon hours; After the businesses close down at sun down, eateries occupy the public space. Photo credits: EMBARQ India 2013 ........................................................................................................................ 8 Figure v. Mall Road is the main street in Shimla. Constructed during British colonial rule, the Mall road is located a level below the ridge. Such scenic hill stations were built by the British during their stay as their stay in India............................................... 9 Figure vi. India post liberalization was quite a shift ..................................................... 11 Figure vii. The fear of strangers- leading to dead public spaces .................................. 14 Figure viii. The Oxymoron of global culture ................................................................ 15 Figure ix. Inwardly focused fortresses surrounded by moats of car park. Sahara Mall Plan (Shaker, 2012) ....................................................................................................... 16 Figure x. A pseudo environment created within(The Express Avenue Mall) .............. 18 Figure xi. The right of entry for its visitors................................................................... 19 Figure xii. Installation of video surveillance ................................................................ 19 Figure xiii. Typical Section through the street (Source: Mohanty) .............................. 21 Figure xiv. Dhalgarwad Street Plan and Section (Source: Mohanty) ........................... 21 Figure xv. Gulmohar Park Mall (Source: Mohanty)..................................................... 22 Figure xvi. Under managed public spaces .................................................................... 24 Figure xvii. McDonaldization. (Left) in Nyc (Right) in Bangalore.............................. 26 Figure xviii. Homogenized Spaces ............................................................................... 26 Figure xix. A Real Estate advertisement selling Gated Communities .......................... 28 Figure xx. The social cocoons. Creating spaces for themselves within their comfort zones .............................................................................................................................. 31 Figure xxi. The Madras Club c. 1900 by Willie Burke and the Express Avenue Mall today .............................................................................................................................. 32 Figure xxii. The Economic development seen at present is a mere uselessness .......... 33 Figure xxiii. The hierarchy inherent within the society ................................................ 35 Figure xxiv. The Justification in the name of "Progress" ............................................. 37 Figure xxv. One space Two worlds .............................................................................. 37 Figure xxvi. The phase of consumerism ....................................................................... 39 Figure xxvii. The activity of people watching .............................................................. 41 vii

Figure xxviii. An undefined ownership increases the risk of the space being a privilege for private actvities ........................................................................................................ 43 Figure xxix. Grabbing private lands to cater specific public. Mumbai double-decker flyover ............................................................................................................................ 43 Figure xxx. Ticketed jogger's track............................................................................... 46 Figure xxxi. The Bazaars in the Victorian arcades of Bombay .................................... 46 Figure xxxii. Connect a click away .............................................................................. 47 Figure xxxiii. The next phase of Public ........................................................................ 49 Figure xxxiv. Economy as a parameter for development ............................................. 51 Figure xxxv. Livable cities of Bogota .......................................................................... 55 Figure xxxvi. Central Park, New York ......................................................................... 56 Figure xxxvii. The scenes of Marina ............................................................................ 57 Figure xxxviii. The Equalizer ....................................................................................... 59

viii

The Public Realm: An Introduction “To those fixed on white, White is white, To those fixed on black, It is the same, And red is red, Yellow, yellowSurely there are such sights In the many colored world, Or in the mind.

The strange thing is that These people never see themselves Or you, or me.”

-Jean Toomer (1894-1967), in his poem ‘People’ 2

India, with many big cities and a history of international trade and migration from different cultures, is marked by differences in wealth, social status, cultural values and access to political power. Conflicts are inevitable in this situation, especially when globalization is further jacking up the inequalities, and the capacity of city governments as well as of civil society to understand how the space of the city is involved in these conflicts will decide how well society as a whole responds to them. This is among the greatest challenges that the life of public spaces in the city poses to the city at large.

Defining the realm The word “public”, in an economic sense, represents the characteristics of non-rivalry and non-excludability. A public good or service is one that is neither rival nor excludable in its use. With this understanding, let us examine the concept of a public space. It may be defined in many ways, but for the purposes of this paper a rather broad definition, based partly on this economic understanding but also borrowing from a more sociological perspective, will suffice. It is a non-excludable space that is open to 2

Jean Toomer wrote a fabulous poem called “People”. In it he expresses his loathing and hatred of discrimination based on skin colour. But he expresses his words in a calm way that was meant to make people think, to open their eyes, and to realize what has been going for so long. The poem stands also as an outcry of the state of Public Spaces in the country.

-1-

peoples for such uses as do not take away from others’ capacity to employ the space for a similar set of uses

What does this imply, when placed in the socio-cultural context of the urban tissue?

What role does public space play in defining the society and culture of a city? This paper is based on the understanding that this role is both vital and humanizing, and is a critical factor in ensuring the inclusive and equitable nature of a city. The argument that a sense of belonging among urban residents comes from the design and use of public spaces within a city, is informed by this understanding.

Figure i. What makes a Public Space?

Of Space and Place making Urbanism defines a public space (by the organization of buildings) and architecture portrays it (by the construction of buildings). However in reality, it is not able to create it. Why not? Because public space is a common space. It is created the moment the user takes part in it, which the architects cannot control themselves. Consequently, voluntary obligations between individuals, shared interests fulfilling their mutual relationships, are a pre-supposition of the public space. The varied user group’s personal motivation on the basis of which they appear in public are important as direct participants and -2-

creators of the public space. The quality of public space understood in this way is connected with nature of the motivation to engage in it. So, it no longer concerns only in the movement of the people in the cities/urban fabric but it also concerns their position in relation to the intents of the fellow users and the ability to convince them of their own interests. A joint approach in their realization is a mark of the public space.

The public realm is more over a place. Traditionally, this place could be defined in terms of physical ground, which is why discussions of the public realm have been, again traditionally, linked to cities. Public spaces have been developed by different societies since ancient times. The Ghats (river bank) of Benaras, the chowks (square) of Jaipur, have been important public spaces for centuries. Every community needs a symbol of its existence, a centre on which to focus life. Public spaces can be such a symbol and are the ‘pulse’ of a city. They form nodes or focal points, symbolizing shared identity and culture. A city is made up of many urban spaces. Public spaces are among the most important of these. These are tangible spaces with some intangible qualities where friends and strangers alike can come together, communicate, recreate, transact business, work, stroll, promenade, relax, sit, or just enjoy the sights and sounds of each other.

Today, communication technologies have radically altered the sense of place; the public realm can be found in cyber-space as much as physically on the ground.

The ever increasing trends By 2080 it is predicted that 80% of the human population will move to the cities and urban areas with highest concentrations in Asia and Africa. More people habitat now in urban spaces than in rural spaces ever before.

-3-

Figure ii. Indian Urbanization Prospects 2030 (Source: UN Economic and Social Affairs)

This shows that the level of growth never has been this great and it is still growing. The comparative recent rise and progress of metropolises internationally has caused an increase of the significance of city planning. Urban developments are vibrant and diverse all over the globe. This necessitates an in-depth exploration and approaches to expansions in the correct direction.

If so, is it possible to design the ideal public space?

While globalization is changing the urbanscape, streamlining the cities and its spaces, the emphasis on local actors and identity is only increasing considering man’s eternal quest for ‘community’. The question thus arises: What is the modern counterpart of the once familiar traditional public spaces? The possibility of a public space to be successful ‘by design’ and not ‘by chance’? Is it possible for the public space to be a node in an ever more complex economy of desire which is global in its orientation and effects, yet have urban space with local manifestations that are heterogeneous?

-4-

From transience to permanence Any discussion of the future of public spaces must necessarily begin with a retrospective view of the evolution of values and symbolism associated with urban open spaces in the past century. To understand the nature of the contemporary urban spaces in the Indian context, it becomes important to understand to first understand the concept of space in Indian cities. Since the early days people have lived in groups and survived through good and bad days.

The communities formed by humans have led to the development and enrichment of this world both technologically and habitually. It is the very human need for human interaction; this was the one most basic principal in development of architecture but the new age because of privacy needs and technology (internet) has grown people apart from each other rather than bring them together. The growing capitalist economy demands more of living space than of social space. This has led to poor quality of life standards and increase in crime and decrease in healthy life style.

The importance of Community The earliest form of human settlement was the village, where a cluster of huts was grouped around a central open space. Every community had a place of assembly where people gathered to discuss their common affairs, resolve disputes and celebrate festivals. A sacred tree or stone, a sacrificial altar or shrine, marked the space. This idea of community space passed into the cities that grew out of these settlements, assuming varied forms and more complex functions.

-5-

Figure iii. The sense of "Community" in Public

The agora of Athens is the most celebrated example, a democratic ideal for western historians and sociologists. The agora was at once a market place and a ground for political and intellectual debate. Agora fulfilled so many important urban functions that it became the most significant element of the city's physical and social structure.

Like the church in medieval Europe, temples and mosques formed the focus of the communal life in Indian cities. The courtyard of the main mosque was one of the largest open congregational spaces in the urban fabric. The 'bazaar' street formed the main commercial spine. The 'Ghats' (river banks) of Benaras, the 'chowks' (square) of Jaipur have been the important public spaces for centuries. Many Islamic cities had grounds or maidans that were originally at the edge of the town, or even outside the city walls. They served as a parade ground and open air gathering spaces on feast days.

Sometimes they were integrated into the main city and served as a foreground to a palace and a mosque. While the mosque, the maidan and the bazaars were primarily open public places of the city, they were not the sort of civic nucleus that characterized -6-

the cities of the west. Urban space was largely decentralized, there was no notion of a single core or, cart; instead there was a hierarchy of open spaces.

There is no outer space without inner space The space is constructed with participation of the self. It is particularly this quality which results in its transient nature and multiplicity of interactions in the same place.

These are not concepts of space that are limited to special sites and building in the city but are embodied in the ordinary domestic spaces, street corners, open spaces, etc. in the city. (Shankar, 2012) The plinths, the otlas, the footpaths all become spaces that are used by the passersby, the housewives and even the vendors to carry out their daily routines. The Indian cities with their bustling chaotic urban spaces seem to be a collage of seemingly disparate objects, people and their activities to the western mind.

However one should bear in mind that the intricate or refined order that supports establishments and processes to take place need not necessarily get reflected or expressed absolutely explicitly in the built form. These spaces have not only occupied space in old cities of India but also sprout in newer areas owing to the man’s need to constantly personalize his environment and his society.

Rhythmic pattern of activities over time These traditional spaces, mostly conceived in the pre-colonial period can very well be compared to the 18th century spaces that Sennett talks about when the public spaces became the binding element of the community. There was a clear hierarchy of private, semi-private and public and the functions and meaning attached to them also grew in an accretive manner over a period of time with people’s participation.

Manek Chowk in the old city of Ahmedabad comes to my mind. The place not only developed its unique set of functions over a period of time, but also achieved a rhythmic pattern of activities because of a particular mix of land use, movement,

-7-

hierarchy etc; a kinetic space so to speak, one which is always active and where the people can truly immerse themselves in the public spirit.

Figure iv. (From top to bottom) Cattle grazing activity during early morning hours; High shopping, pedestrian movement and vehicular traffic in the afternoon hours; After the businesses close down at sun down, eateries occupy the public space. Photo credits: EMBARQ India 2013

-8-

As temporal as memories It is thus very apparent that the idea of space is not directly visual or only Cartesian.

The space itself is as ephemeral or temporal as time or memories. It is created and destroyed by the collective will of the people who use and traverse it. (Shankar, 2012)

An expatriate’s retreat- Ahoy British!

The British brought to India the idea of urban spaces as places for recreation and leisure. The towns they built in the cool and beautiful hills were modeled on the idyllic English towns. The Shimla Mall was a pedestrian street, which had the town hall, the church, the cinema theatre, shops, hotels and restaurants. The mall and the ridge were very sociable places for meeting, strolling and talking. Even Delhi, a city designed as a statement of imperial power and grandeur with more ceremonial spaces than public ones.

Figure v. Mall Road is the main street in Shimla. Constructed during British colonial rule, the Mall road is located a level below the ridge. Such scenic hill stations were built by the British during their stay as their stay in India.

-9-

Rise of the Bourgeois “Culture and possessions, there is the bourgeoisie for you.”- Thomas Mann

India has gone through massive changes in the last two decades. India pre-liberalization is quite a shift from the post-liberalization India.

The opening up of the Indian economy not only resulted in the structural changes in the industrial sector but more importantly it became a part of the larger global network.

The Indian market was flooded with western goods, women began to leave their sartorial cocoons (Gilani) and the rise of the bourgeois 3 was in order. India was and is still witnessing a great cultural shift, a cultural consumerism so to speak.

Saadio Toor in her paper on the Indo-Chic (in reference to New Orientalism), talks about the identity formation of the new young urban class in India. This class of young professionals is very different from the generic Indian middle class because it is a product of liberalization. They are both demographically young and urban in location, as well as self-consciously cosmopolitan in orientation. She argues that the networking of societies has lead to this new urban class wanting the best of both worlds- the globalised society of the west and vestiges of our past refashioned to suit the penchant for the pastiche and a larger cultural fusion.

Sennett would argue that it is the same class of people who would rather find refuge in their houses than mingle with strangers in the public sphere. Is it then this new urban class and their obsession with self rather than belief in the collective that is leading to the erosion of our traditional public spaces?

3

belonging to or characteristic of the middle class, typically with reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes.

- 10 -

Figure vi. India post liberalization was quite a shift

- 11 -

Theoretical Precedents Keeping the above debate in hindsight, this paper will stem from understanding certain specific critiques on the contemporary public space. Richard Sennett’s theory “Fall of Public Man” and theories by Matthew Carmona, T.Bannerjee etc on spaces of global cultures are taken as starting points, and put in perspective to build an argument on their interrelatedness and direct impact on the phenomenon of homogenization of public space. It will examine the two seemingly divergent theories as plausibly two sides of the coin, i.e. both give the same end product - departicularised urbanism or a form of homogenized urban space.

Fall of Public Man, Richard Sennett: Sennett begins his argument by stating that public life once meant that the vital part of one’s life was spent outside the circle of family and close friends by connecting with strangers in an emotionally satisfying way and yet remaining aloof from them privately.

This was seen as the most natural way the human animal transformed into a social civilized being. Thus, before the industrial revolution, the city was a confined settlement where the position of each member of society was known and fixed. In such a society, people knew how to behave according to the customs and in relation to the clear social hierarchy.

The change of societal order from the collective to the rise of the individual has led to change from an outer directed society to an inner directed society.

“The consequence is a retreat to domestic space while the venues of public life, the streets and the squares, have increasingly been replaced by the suburban living room.

They are the results of a change that began with the fall off the ancient regime and the formation of a new capitalist, secular, urban culture.” (Sennet, 1992)

- 12 -

The appearance of a new class “It's the Industrial Revolution and the growth of urban concentrations that led to a sense of anonymity.”

-Vint Cerf

By the fall of the ancient regime and introduction of industrial capitalism, there was massive migration of people to cities. The commodities were produced in a homogenous form in an unprecedented amount. Secularism implied that there need not be any primacy to explain the existing reality; the immanent thus replaced the transcendental. A rise of the bourgeoisie was in order.

The appearance of a new class thus created a milieu of strangers in which many people were increasingly like each other but didn’t know it. There was a sense that the old distinctions, the old lines between one group and the other didn’t apply anymore. He states that the expansion of the bourgeoisie mercantile and commercial classes in the 18th century capital was accompanied by both the appearance of many unclassifiable people, materially alike but not cognizant of their similarities, and the loosening of traditional rankings.

This affected how people interpret the strange and the unknown. Because of this traumatic situation (as Sennett calls it) of the society and alienation of man from his work, people tried to find peace and order in the intimate zones of their family. The boundary between the public and the private was no longer resolute. Public sphere saw a gradual decline.

- 13 -

Figure vii. The fear of strangers- leading to dead public spaces

Sennett uses the above argument to pronounce that the public space is now dead; it is an area to move through, not to be in. It is based on the idea of space parallel to motion produced by an automobile. Dead public space is one reason why people seek out intimate terrain, to access what is denied to them on more alien grounds.

Spaces of Global Culture – An oxymoron Global culture suggests, in the very juxtaposition of the two words themselves, a historically new way of representing, and understanding of resisting both the world and the cultures of the people in it. It is represented largely by the unbridled spread of capitalism, erasing local difference into a larger “Americanization” of the world threatening the sacred space of other beliefs and other world views leading to a homogenization of public space. (King, 2004)

The large-scale global flows of capital, culture, products, and labour and the intensification of global-local linkages have transformed the identity of place and the way our society is organized. Cities and their urban spaces are the focal points and - 14 -

engines of this transition, with deep influences on the surrounding built environment and its planning.

Figure viii. The Oxymoron of global culture

Like a boat resting at anchor and moving randomly during slack tide We are being pulled in two opposite directions. One of unification and uniformity, needed by capitalism to survive and by the world to function in terms of economy, communication, transportation, travel and all matters practical, and one of diversification behind the sheltering screens of individual cultural identities, which are needed by humans to feel unique, independent, real and belonging. This dichotomy relates directly with the increasing privatization of public spaces which eliminates unwanted and feared political, social and cultural intrusions.

While there is a drastic shift in the nature and quality of our public spaces, it would be naïve to say that personal secured space can never compensate for communal public space. A careful observation of our daily lives reveals that a majority of our network interactions are meant to facilitate our actual physical activities, meetings, necessities.

- 15 -

If anything, Virtual interactions only augment the importance of the physical.

(Carmona M., 2010)

Hyper real environments- the illusion It is this argument that validates the increasing appropriation of public space by private parties. It can be seen in the move of facilities and amenities from public city centers to privatized suburban locations, and their reincarnation as inwardly focused fortresses surrounded by moats of car parks. Loukaitou-Sideris and Banerjee agree, by stating in the place of the real city, a hyper real environment is created, composed by the safe and appealing elements of the real thing reproduced in miniature or exaggerated versions.

(Carmona M., 2012) Although critiques believe that it is this privatization that leads to decline of the public space, privatization of spaces could also be looked at as a consequence of the decline of the public realm.

Figure ix. Inwardly focused fortresses surrounded by moats of car park. Sahara Mall Plan (Shaker, 2012)

- 16 -

Malls “Fake” Public Spaces “Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order.” -John V. Lindsay

(Re) construction of a fantasy world within itself What one refers to as the Mall is usually the centre atrium or the open space, which now has the stamp of an archetypical place in our psyche. This is a rarefied space - a space for consumption, a space of pure desire without any dire consequences. For this effect to be complete, the Mall space shuts out the outer world, and then (re)constructs a fantasy world within itself (Crawford, 1995).

This is a world where even the shop goers are props. We dress up for the Mall as one dresses for a role - the Gucci glasses, the Louis Vitton bag, the DKNY shawl, the Dolce&Gabbana dress, the Johnny Choo shoes - forms an ensemble for the role. Even children participate in this fantasy world, and the next stop is Disneyland. Every festival is celebrated in these exalted spaces and you need to have no religion affiliation. In fact, this Hallmark of spaces even assists in inventing new festivals Mother‘s Day, Father‘s Day, Veteran‘s Day, Teacher‘s Day, Secretary‘s Day - each relation and work role is celebrated, glamorized and installed with the correct decorum: in the end all emotions lead to consumerism.

The mall developers aspire for this totality of the world of desire, as they note, you don‘t need to go to Sarojni market for clothes, Connaught place to eat or any other place; we have it all here in one place. The collection of shops in the shopping mall is managed together and is taken as a single unit.

- 17 -

Figure x. A pseudo environment created within (The Express Avenue Mall)

We the people to Us the people This pseudo-public space resembles a public space with its diversity of people. But malls are privatized spaces that are sanitized of certain elements. For example, the mall banishes outside threats of disruption and distraction: no cars allowed, no traffic, noise or fumes. The natural world cannot even intrude; there is no rain or snow, heat or cold, no seasonal changes, promising parents a safe place for their children and guarantee a crime free space. The space is seemingly protected so that people are not distracted or feel threatened. This advantage acts as a crowd puller. Moreover, the consumer can shop without the tensions of any traffic congestion or parking problems, security issues or crime districts.

Mall security guards routinely eliminate homeless people as well as anyone wearing, what they deem to be, gang colours. As a private space, malls can control speech and looks. They can sanitize their environment and they can prohibit activities that do not comply with their raison d’être consumption of commodities. Mall parse the us people, and remove out the unwanted part of we the people of the republic.

But to this excluded lot, this is precisely what happened before independence: ―Indians and Dogs not allowed. This causes class stratification and corroborates the view already held by people i.e. poor are unwanted part of the society or akin to crap.

The prime importance is given to the working middle class because the working class - 18 -

controls and shapes the technologies. This is done through design features or making set of rules such as mall receded away from the road, the road itself acts as a barrier for the mall or having a dress code in restaurants and the sky reaching prices for the poor.

Figure xi. The right of entry for its visitors

Figure xii. Installation of video surveillance

The disclaimer statement Installation of video surveillance in form of the public installation of closed circuit television also contributes to exclusion of unwanted category of people from mall. The monitoring and recording of people in public and pseudo-public spaces is likely to have a chilling effect on free speech and expression of controversial views.

For example, someone who would publicly castigate a government agency might fear retaliation if his/her statement were recorded. And awareness that one is being recorded is likely to affect other types of diversity as well, for instance, many people who anticipate being recorded will dress or groom themselves in a more conventional way than if they know they are not being recorded. These elements ensure protection of malls from people who may violate their space.4

4

Malls reserve the right to entry

- 19 -

Differentiated Vs Homogenized Spaces Differentiation is taken as a quality representative of the traditional urban space, wherein the spaces can be explored in different ways, at one’s own pace and with the possibility of encounters of the unknown. The most important attribute of this space was participation. In recent times, the spaces have become more planned, visually transparent and generally more homogenized. The change in conceptualization and making of spaces is obvious. The study looks into an example of each type of space with a traditional Indian market, as a type of differentiated traditional space and one of the many malls, as an example of a homogenized contemporary urban space. The sampling of case studies was done keeping in mind their functional similarities.

Making of the milieu In the market itself, the space is synonymous with both movement and pause. On the one hand, one becomes a part of the jostling crowd and on the other one meets an equally obstinate dam of people, centered around a shop. It gives the impression of a large voluminous space filled with people. Thus the market, more than anything else centers around the people who come here not only to purchase the needful but also to get away from their private lives and indulge in the publicness of it all.

In turn, the space by a virtue of its nature of activities and inherent space making qualities makes sure that the people are not just observers but active participants in the making of the milieu itself. The high plinth not acts as an offset from the street itself but allows the vendor a comfortable, visible space to set his shop in. The canopies giving shade, the linear streets, multiple uses of the plinth, all are elements added to the space over time, building up an inherent character of the place an thus giving a unique identity-a differentiated public realm.

- 20 -

Figure xiii. Typical Section through the street (Source: Mohanty)

Figure xiv. Dhalgarwad Street Plan and Section (Source: Mohanty)

- 21 -

At the same time, it becomes imperative on our part to understand the shortfalls of the space. In the age of the automobile, the narrow streets of 3-4 meters are ineffective. The new urban class that one discussed above would find themselves alienated from the surroundings and would take away an image of utter chaos and congestion with them.

For instance, how would Sennett’s self obsessed man with a fear of the stranger feel in this space? It is these arguments that validate the ghettoisation of the traditional public spaces that we see in our cities today.

We are progressing!

Standing tall and isolated amidst the surrounding fabric, the mall cuts a sharp outline in the horizon. (Mohanty) It is a fundamental departure from the earlier bazaar and block types in the sense that they are introverted singular structures with glass facades and signage directing the users inside. The interiors are lined with elaborate shops which appeal to the consumerist urban class of today. The elements have been put precisely in their own designated places making the space all too predictable and countering interaction of the kind one sees in the traditional spaces.

Figure xv. Gulmohar Park Mall (Source: Mohanty)

- 22 -

At the same time, the mall space does offer something else that compensates for the loss of differentiated urban experience — the connection with the 'progressive' world.

Signage, architecture, material, sound and goods are all indicating towards how this space is connected to other cultures and countries (especially the west). This is an important aspect of the psyche of the urban population on easier side of the digital divide. It reinforces the idea that information related business processes have led to creation of a large class of people in India that use the same tools to connect either actively or passively to global cultural practices.

- 23 -

The Battle of Extremes “It was like looking out at some terrifying homogenized, digitized vision of the future” -Anonymous 5

From Over-managed to Under-managed spaces A poorly designed and inadequately managed public realm leads directly or indirectly to the desire of key commercial and community interests to desert publicly managed space in favour of their own more highly managed and inevitably exclusionary space.

(Carmona M., 2010) Thus contrary to what the critiques point out when they say that privatization causes degradation of the public realm, there might be as much truth in the fact that it is the under management of public space that has resulted in a flight from truly public space to private and semi-private domains. It is the same reason that many of us would rather go to a mall than visit the congested old city markets.

Figure xvi. Under managed public spaces

5

A popular tweet succeeding the National tree day in the USA. The common people began to lament the loss of the traditional trees that used to be decorated otherwise. The trees were later in the years, replaced by artificial digital trees sponsored by Google.

- 24 -

Alternatively, one could also state that increasing privatization is leading to a shifting focus of development on spaces like Malls, café’s etc which serve a certain class of urban elite. These spaces become necessary to cater to the highly networked societies of today where demand for western goods etc is on a constant rise.

Although it seems but obvious that the effects of globalization should first transform our traditional spaces for the better but the same has not happened due to reasons that Sennett talks about in his theory. The same environment of the traditional urban space that was looked upon in the past is now shunned to avoid uncomfortable public experiences. Also, the traditional urban spaces, generally speaking, do not cater to the automobile which has become a prime factor for the working of the contemporary spaces. Thus these traditional spaces were ghettoized over a period of time, a phenomenon Sennett makes note of in his theory.

A Fordism Phenomenon Both the viewpoints makes it clear that both Sennett’s theory and theories on spaces of global cultures are the cause and consequence of each other and must be viewed in totality to make a clearer judgement of contemporary urban spaces. Having established a link between the two critiques, it becomes clear that contemporary urban space can be characterized by two aspects.

First, as Sennett puts it is the fear of the stranger. This manifests itself in traditional public spaces being viewed as ghettos, where life is increasingly contested and fragmented and the second being privatization of public space as has been explained above. The culmination of these two factors can be seen to produce spaces that are increasingly devoid of the traditional understanding of civility and community life and hence a homogenized vision of the public space.

The notion of homogenized spaces refers to a design formulae being repeated from place to place with little thought to context. Hence traditional spaces make way for - 25 -

global and private actors like McDonalds and Subways and the public realm starts transforming to become more like the ones in global cities like New York, London etc.

Figure xvii. McDonaldization. (Left) in NYC (Right) in Bangalore

Streamlining Cities and its Spaces The generally held opinion about contemporary spaces though is still centered around the fact that encouraged by a continuing decline in the civilities and amenities of the public or shared environment, people invest more hopes in their private acreage and thus the pleasures of the city have been largely reduced to consumerism. At the same time, certain basic requirements of an informal pubic life do not change, nor does a healthy society advance beyond them. While globalization is changing the urbanscape, streamlining our cities and its spaces, the emphasis on local actors and identity is only increasing considering man’s eternal “quest for community”. (Oldenberg, 1999) The question thus arises: What is the modern counterpart of the once familiar traditional public spaces?

Figure xviii. Homogenized Spaces

- 26 -

An Overview of Constructed Public Spaces As an outcome of being a developing country and/or an ‘emerging market’, India is going through a new phase of rapid urbanization. Even though this has been the case for decades, the dynamics of the process significantly changed over the last decade or so. Given the growth of the construction sector and wider availability of loans, as part of the government policies reinforcing housing sector and its public-private partnerships; Indian cities started to grow in a huge rate. The housing market has become extremely competitive in the process, which also made advertising and marketing of vital importance for the construction companies.

Private islands within city limits In Indian metropolitan cities, the most significant housing projects of the past decade have been increasingly in the form of ‘big projects’ in terms of their size and cost.

These projects are substantial in number and they offer not only housing/office units but also several facilities, as well as ‘security’ to the potential residents.

Consequently, the marketing strategy of these projects involves the promotion of a certain urban lifestyle, which claims to include both private and public realms. This offered lifestyle is defined as clean, safe, far from the city center enough to avoid the chaotic urban life, close enough to reach to the hearth of the city in minutes, in case you have to, since these projects include shopping malls, gyms and several leisure facilities.

Thus the residents do not need to step outside the main gate to enjoy the life outside.

The brochures, flyers and other promotional material of these projects include a ‘social life’ and ‘common places’ element, which aims to create a sense of community.

Thereby, these projects emphasize the cultural symbols of urban consumption that are desirable for the urban middle and upper-middle classes by creating such spaces, including the buildings themselves (Zukin, 1998). In other words, these projects resort to the ‘public’ spaces they create in order to promise a sense of community. In most - 27 -

cases these created public spaces are in the forms of shopping malls of various sizes, recreational areas and sporting facilities such as gyms.

Figure xix. A Real Estate advertisement selling Gated Communities

In terms of the sense of community and public spaces promised, these projects have some major common features. First of all, they claim to provide a safe and clean environment in which the residents can enjoy being a part of the community. The security of these places is ensured with security cameras and guards. They are also managed and maintained by private firms, so that the ‘public’ areas are guaranteed to keep their exclusive and desirable status.

Given the various definitions and essential features of the authentic public spaces, these features can be argued to be contradicting with the qualities of public space. The big housing projects claim to create such public spaces within their borders, so that the residents enjoy the feeling of a neighborhood life and being among the public without - 28 -

the unpredicted encounters and unwanted consequences such as mugging and panhandling. Many of them do not necessarily require car ownership (even though the public transportation system is not always adequate) or long commutes to the business centers.

So it can be argued that they are creating ‘private islands’ within the city limits. The residents can enjoy the controlled environment without going very far.

The perceptions of urban residents about the ‘publicness’ of the urban space also have an important part in the formation of these projects. The ways in which the urban middle classes think about different parts of the city elevates the demand for the lifestyle offered by such projects and thereby encourage the investment to the construction of privatized public spaces.

All that glitters is not gold Another aspect of these constructed spaces is the way in which the open spaces are used within these projects. Increasingly, the shopping malls and other facilities are constructed with functional open spaces around the buildings. Some of these are in the form of landscaped parks with exotic plants and benches; some are designed as small plazas with marble pavements.

In the beginning, these open spaces were just a part of the architecture of the projects.

However in time, they turned into extensions of shopping malls and recreational facilities. Increasingly, the previously mentioned claim of providing a desirable public space to the residents and customers of the projects has evolved into a new form through the ‘public events’ organized by the managements of these newly constructed projects.

The open spaces of these projects that are framed as public spaces are now being used as activity venues for concerts, shows, activities for children, movie screenings and even for celebrations of national holidays.

- 29 -

Even though all these activate, some of which are free of charge, obviously aim to attract more customers to these consumption cosmoses; they thereby enhance the pseudo- publicness of these private spaces.

However, it can be argued that the use of these constructed ‘all-in-one’ places for housing, leisure and public events actually corresponds to withdrawal from the actual urban public in the sense of mingling with others.

The social cocoons The question is how the cartography of the contemporary city is being re-configured under the impact of globalization and migration. In significant ways, the old, hierarchical ordering of urban space seems to have disappeared for good.

As Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson put it, in their essay ‘City Economies’:“Global cities are a result of transactions that fragment space, such that we can no longer talk about global cities as whole cities – instead, what we have [are] bits of cities that are highly globalized – and bits juxtaposed that are completely cut out [from the globalizing process].”

In a memorable phrase, Henri Lefebvre, the French philosopher, suggests that each society "secretes" its own space. In Mumbai, I could modify that phrase to suggest that the conflicts at the heart of Mumbai's public space, whether expressed as such or not, are very directly secreted by the city as a social system into its very physical fabric.

Understanding the ways in which this osmosis between societal and physical spaces is enacted in public space is, I feel, very important for our understanding of the city at large.

Thus today we find these social cocoons scattered within the urban fabric. A study shows that the elite do not prefer the crowded parts of the city and prefer to move towards the more planned and private outer fringes of the city in one of the many gated - 30 -

communities. While the poor agglomerate in the crowded busy slums and the more older crowded areas of the city. The population seems to be increasing more and more disproportionately to the available space. Hence such concentration of classes of people at strategic locations leads to a creation of a covering of that group of society which indirectly shuns any intervention by the other.

Figure xx. The social cocoons. Creating spaces for themselves within their comfort zones

- 31 -

Ripples of a Revolution “Do not waste your time on social questions. What is the matter with the poor is poverty. What is the matter with the rich is uselessness”

-George Bernard Shaw

The growing gulf between the rich and the poor Taking the example of the Express Avenue mall in Chennai, the development only rips apart the social fabric of the city, turning public spaces into luxury development. The Indian Express Estate6 was once a place of lush greens with a club house of a Robert Chisholm design and got its pillared and pedimented Pantheonic handsomeness. Today, all you can smell are cleaning detergents and what you hear is ambient music.’

In short, the greed of the country’s politicians and real estate developers is slowly but surely decomposing the city’s social fabric. The gap between the haves and the havenots is now wider than ever.

Figure xxi. The Madras Club c. 1900 by Willie Burke and the Express Avenue Mall today

To understand the nature of real estate development in the city, one needs simply visit the number of malls springing in every corner. The new malls boast expensively built infrastructure, multiplexes, food courts and numerous multi-national players which, apart from some shops and offices, remain eerily empty. “A movie set”, to quote a

6

An elite club in Madras which later shifted its base.

- 32 -

Canadian film professor. Hardly a trace of the native could be seen can be seen – even emergency signs are in English. It could well be a Heathrow airport.

The most unsettling thing about the malls, though, is its “exclusive” aspect 7. Although its shops are not necessarily aimed at wealthy visitors (as is often claimed), it is a good example of what some have called “hostile architecture”. Run like a private property, its streets are lined with surveillance cameras and security guards, some with watchdogs.

While trendy districts and luxury projects are beneficial to the economy, could they not be designed to be more inclusive? As the rich and powerful barricade themselves in squatted land and gated communities, the poorer population is being confined to the margins and inside refugee camps. As for the public space in between, it is either slowly disappearing or turned into shopping malls and parking lots. A paradox to be pondered, in a time when new technologies are meant to bring people together.

Figure xxii. The Economic development seen at present is a mere uselessness 7

The big names in the shopping mall are not the ones here in the city to make business but rather a drive for publicity.

- 33 -

The line of division These issues have to be addressed now in terms of what cities are becoming. Cities have always been divided. They are divided by class and wealth, by rights to and over property, by occupation and use, by life style and culture, by race and nationality, ethnicity and religion, and by gender and sexuality.

The template of these social divisions can be read into the differentiated zones of the city’s cartography. The boundaries between these spaces, however, have never been absolute. Enclaves merge and overlap at their invisible borders, shift and change across time. The various zones, however distinctive to those who know how to ‘read’ them, are never uniform in look or homogeneous in social composition. Differences edge, slide, and blur into one another. The city is ‘porous’.

Intangible as these boundaries often are and maintained as they are by complex cultural and social codes, they tend nevertheless to divide the city into distinct clusters. On the other hand, cities also bring elements together and establish relations of interchange and exchange. They function as spatial magnets for different, converging streams of human activity. This is the basis of their often unplanned ‘cosmopolitanism 8’. The points of convergence, as well as the routes and passages through and across them, are as significant as the spatially defined and socially maintained differences. Cities both divide and connect.

Places of exclusion since times Aside from the definitions of the public space from a theoretical point of view, today most urban scholars think about the distinction of public and private spaces, as a crucial binary opposition that can help distinguish between different urban spaces. However these two seems intertwined in contemporary metropolitan areas. Today, the sites of civic and political formation are plural and distributed. The sites of political formation 8

Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human beings belong to a single community, based on a shared morality. A person who adheres to the idea of cosmopolitanism in any of its forms is called a cosmopolitan or cosmopolite.

- 34 -

now include the micro politics of work, school, community and neighborhoods, in which urban public space has arguable secondary importance. The dynamics of gathering in and passing through streets, parks, squares etc. are more likely to be interpreted in terms of their impact on consumer culture among other things (Amin, 2008).

As Hannigan simply puts, issues of public and private space in terms of who uses it, who feels welcome to use and who does not even try to use it are relevant for urban spaces, including the entertainment sites (Hannigan, 1998). Similarly, Zukin discerns ‘Authentically’ public spaces, which broke down the traditional barriers that excluded women the poor and children (Zukin, 2009), as opposed to the ‘public spaces’ of today, which seems more likely to create new barriers. For Mitchell, on the other hand, this discussion may be irrelevant, since the public spaces have always somewhat been places of exclusion from his perspective (Mitchell, 1995). This line of discussion makes the privatization of urban space an embedded issue in the examination of public spaces today.

Figure xxiii. The hierarchy inherent within the society

Guided by the principles of global parameter It is clear that as we try, however roughly and impressionistically, to ‘map’ the connections between the changing social and spatial configurations of the city that - 35 -

divisions have become more intense and entrenched. The reality is and for a long time has been that multi-culturalism and discrimination proceed hand in hand. The ‘global’ city is one of an intricate network of differences, any of which can at any time be activated as a potentially explosive line of division.

What promise, then, do these new urban patterns and formations hold out for a just and progressive resolution to the questions of social justice, equality, and diversity? The prospects are not optimistic. A kind of ‘cosmopolitanism’ does exist in the new elite spaces and formations of the city, because these spaces are now extensively connected with and orientated towards the wider world and its networks and agencies. However, this kind of cosmopolitan outlook has strict limits. Its principal effect is to reproduce within the city the divisions which globalization in its contemporary forms assumes in the wider world.

However, the more globalization is harnessed to global systems of economic, military, and geo-political power, the more it has become, in its dominant form, an integrated, expansionist, and missionary system. It obliges everyone to come into line with it and thus aims, by assimilation or forced conformity, to ‘universalize’ itself; it makes its claims to universality come ‘true’ by ensuring that it is universal (or ‘global’) in its operations and effects. The multi-cultural country, is being spatially and socially reconfigured by these processes and forces and, at the same time, becoming one of the critical sites where these contradictory tendencies, conflicts, and trajectories are being worked through.

India shining The interests of big business and politicos converge to define a development paradigm that confutes and marries the concepts of advancement and highly resource-intensive infrastructure. These are marketed as advancement, and mutual convenience of the elite and powerful determines a city’s development trajectory in this guise.

- 36 -

To the common man, who stands to gain least from the big infrastructure projects that such a regime generates, this is justified using tactics similar to the slogan of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) –‘India Shining’

Figure xxiv. The Justification in the name of "Progress"

Figure xxv. One Space Two worlds

- 37 -

All roads lead to Consumerism “Are these things really better than the things I already have? Or am I just trained to be dissatisfied with what I have now?” - Chuck Palahniuk

As discussed by many scholars of urban life such as Banerjee, the growing trend of ‘privatization’ of public spaces enhances the sense that the public realm is in decline. In today’s metropolitan areas, the urban spaces of all sorts have become an asset for the investors and local governments, given the conditions of consumer culture. According to Michael Gunder and many other scholars, this is mainly due to the hegemonic position of neoliberalism in urban policy, which indicates that the urban space is significantly influenced by the logic of global neoliberalism. In that context, the neoliberal city is conceptualized as an entrepreneurial one, which competes with others for investments, innovations and economic development through privatization and costbenefit analysis (Leitner et. al. 2007).

Brenner and Theodore suggest that the cities around the world are the spaces where a variety of neoliberal initiatives have been articulated (2002). This conceptualization on the other hand, brings about the new critical role of consumption in the urban context, in terms of ‘consumption9 of space’ and ‘spaces of consumption’.

In such a setting, nowadays, the urban lifestyle is so closely related to the consumption patterns of the urban residents that the cities are in competition to become nodes of consumer goods (Zukin, 1998). Therefore, the appearances and/or the forms of urban public space are considered as strategic elements of attracting consumers to the city.

This tendency to make cities look more pleasing to the eyes of the urban residents is reflected in the urban design in several ways. One form of creating attractive urban spaces is reshaping the existing places.

9

Consumption here refers to the economic value of the space directly or indirectly. The word could also be extended to services.

- 38 -

Public Spaces as Consumption Microcosmoses According to Zukin, the ‘image crisis’ of a derelict city leads to middle-class outrage about the quality of life and business people’s anxiety about the investment climate.

This outrage and anxiety are the cultural sources of the current era of privatization (Zukin, 2009). Making the city center an attractive place for middle classes is considered significantly related to the privatization of public space, which means control and management of the ‘authentically’ public places. The two factors in this process are increasing sense of fear and commodification of urban spaces as consumption zones (Graham and Aurigi, 1997). The shopping malls and theme parks serve as desirable substitutes for the consumption and entertainment demands of the urban residents who believe that the sense of community is destructed by suburbanization and fear of urban crime (Gottdiener, 2001).

Figure xxvi. The phase of consumerism

From the investor’s point of view on the other hand, the property values in and around the public spaces rely on the safety and cleanness of the area, which is considered equivalent to no homeless people, no muggers, no graffiti (Zukin, 2009). As suggested

by Featherstone, this process can be considered as post modernization in terms of - 39 -

restructuring the sociospatial relations through redevelopment of inner cities as sites of consumption. When public spaces are redeveloped, some people are planned for as the target users, while others are planned against (Loukaitou-Sideris and Ehrenfeucht, 2009).

Invented Streets: A Public life of hanging-out and "Third Places" The sense of loss associated with the perceived decline of public space assumes that effective public life is linked to a viable public realm. This is because the concept of public life is inseparable from the idea of a "public sphere" (Habermas, 1989) and the notion of civil society, where the affairs of the public are discussed and debated in public places. The domain of the public sphere is seen to exist between the privacy of the individual and domestic life and the state (or the government).

But there is another concept of public life that is derived from our desire for relaxation, social contact, entertainment, leisure, and simply having a good time. Individual orbits of this public life are shaped by a consumer culture and the opportunities offered by the new "experience economy" (Pine & Gilmore, 1999). The settings for such public life are not necessarily public spaces.

According to Ray Oldenburg (1989), such settings can be called "third places," as opposed to the first place of home or the second place of work or school. These are places such as bars or taverns, beauty salons, pool halls, sidewalk cafes, and the like.

Looking, gazing, and watching are all part of our normal stimulus-seeking behavior, as any textbook incognitive theory would confirm. The cultural and social context of this behavior, however, has received much attention in the critical literature on the urbanism of modernity. Many of the writings focus on the relationship between the observer and the environment, and how the built form was created and shaped to facilitate the display of merchandise for mass consumption.

- 40 -

Figure xxvii. The activity of people watching

The arcades of Paris are considered the epitome of settings for such activities, and their forms and functions have become a subject of writings on comparative urbanism (Geist, 1983).These arcades were the earliest forms of privatized public places and the precursor of modern department stores, shopping malls, and the invented streets- streets created as stage sets-of the Western world.

Today, it is the appropriate mix of flanerie and third places that dictates the script for a successful public life. The new shopping malls are now designed to encourage flanerie and "hanging out." 10

10

A term used commonly nowadays to describe socializing with friends and to have fun.

- 41 -

Claims of Ownership

Who is and who is not? The debate of ownership claims Public space has always been first and foremost, the object of conflict over claims to its control and over the rights of occupation. These conflicts usually are about:

a) What uses and activities are acceptable in public space; b) Who (that is which sector of the "public") has the greater right of occupation over different public spaces; c) Who should control, or make decisions about (and on what basis) the fate of public spaces and access to them.

The country is a palimpsest of different cultures of producing city space, including ones which are pre-modern in origin. These cultures of producing space also harbour different protocols of imagining ownership of it, of occupying it and putting it to various uses, including economically productive ones. We thus have different visions of who public space belongs to and on what terms, that are often locked in conflict. As we shall see, the way different groups answer these questions decides how they answer the question "who is and is not a citizen?"

The Indian minds vs. the state policies Thus the first kind of low grade conflict - which like low grade wars of attrition actually define the social climate of a space - has always been between the continuing culture of contingently regulated appropriation of public space for private and personal purposes which is as evident in the streets of Mumbai as of any other small town in India. This tradition encourages shopkeepers, householders and all other kind of space occupying interests to attempt to push the envelope of private space, just enough so that the bulge into the public space of the pavement does not bring the latter's functioning to a complete halt.

- 42 -

Figure xxviii. An undefined ownership increases the risk of the space being a privilege for private actvities

Figure xxix. Grabbing private lands to cater specific public. Mumbai double-decker flyover

The state's stated culture of spatial production, proceeds on a more modern and strict understanding of boundaries between private and public space. However, given the - 43 -

deeply entrenched nature of traditional attitudes towards occupying space, the breach of this vision of control is greater than compliance with it.

This long standing stalemate at the scale of the street may encourage us to think of the city as having no single dominant power, a situation in which what Lefebvre has called the "domination"11 of space by the state is defused to some extent by the "appropriations"12 (Lefebvre's term again) of street side actors. However, recent actions of the state reveal this stalemate to have been more a waiting game.

State’s monopoly Five years ago the state of Maharashtra (of which Mumbai is the capital), decided to build fifty flyovers (road over bridges flying over congested junctions) at different points in the city. This was ten times as many built in the previous fifty years and they were meant to be completed in five years. This project costing the equivalent of 300 million dollars, conceived as a major contribution to the transportation needs of a fast growing city, was wrongheaded for many reasons, especially in a cash strapped state.

The main problem, of course, was that it encouraged private automobile ownership in a city where the majority commuted using a robust but unduly stretched public transport system. However, of greater interest here is what the flyovers did to the configuration of the city's system of public space, as well as to the unacknowledged impact it had on many private spaces that happened to line the arterial roads. With efficiency that was simply shocking for an Indian city, major open spaces and gardens along the arterial roads had huge and ugly bridges going over them in no time. All of a sudden the remaining coherence of the urban form of the city was in the process of destruction.

Moreover, across the city upper floor living spaces were, suddenly, exposed to the voyeurism of the fast lane passing sometimes only twenty feet away in the air.

11

Lefebvre describes dominated space, characterizing it as a "space transformed and mediated by technology, by practice"; a type of space which is, as it were, becoming completely dominated.

12 Appropriated space is a natural space modified in order to serve the needs and possibilities of a group.

- 44 -

This event revealed very clearly that in the matter of control over public space, in fact of ownership of it, when the state is determined, any conflict of interest with the public (or significant parts of it) is really a mismatch. The public almost doesn't have a chance in deciding the fate of what nominally is its space.

Cornering public spaces for inadequate public purposes But then, the "public" is itself not a unitary reality. The conflict over the right to public space is restaged within its own body among interest groups. In recent times, new citizens' groups from the middle and upper classes of society have emerged in the city, effectively laying claim to public space as their space, and insisting on the removal of all those who would occupy it for functions which urban traditions in India have sanctioned but the law has not. This has usually meant the removal of the marginalized who, lacking access to expensive private spaces, need to use public space for private activities of dwelling, production and economic exchange.

Thus, the argument against the street vendors, or hawkers, is that they encroach on public space for conducting private business. In essence, they are criticized for blocking access to public space, while pursuing private ends. Strangely, however, when public open spaces in the city are cordoned off to develop joggers' parks or ticketed gardens, the quiet exclusion of large numbers of the underprivileged from these spaces is not seen to be a cornering of public spaces for inadequately public purposes. This "privatization" of entire public gardens - where they become the preserve of those who can afford visiting them - is seen as a reasonable step by the state and the elite, even when it does not serve a life-and-death purpose.

On the other hand the ephemeral occupation of small bits of pavements by hawkers, who have only that space for earning their livelihood even as they provide a genuine service to the city at large, is considered deeply objectionable. Evidently, it is believed that some members of the public have a greater right to occupy public space for private ends than others. This has obvious implications for the imagination of citizenship. Thus - 45 -

the circle is completed with the conflict over physical space, resulting in a political conflict over the definition of citizenship as well as of the rights of the private individual vis-à-vis public goods.

Figure xxx. Ticketed jogger's track

Figure xxxi. The Bazaars in the Victorian arcades of Bombay

- 46 -

The Rise of the Cyber Space “Cyberspace cannot compensate for real space. We benefit from chatting to people face to face” -Jonathan Sacks

The recent revolution in communication and information technology has made it possible for us to isolate ourselves from the public life and spaces even further. We are now all citizens of cyberspace and cyber communities ("cyborgs," according to itchell, 1995) where conventional concepts of public space and place are increasingly becoming outmoded. What concerns many is whether this cyber city and its cyberplaces may totally obviate the social life of real places and communities. For it is now possible to conduct many of our daily activities work, shopping, business transactions, socializing through the Internet, minimizing the need for face-to-face communication or travel. Thus, the transaction costs of living in cities can be minimized by belonging to a network society, which further reduces the need for public encounters in public spaces.

Figure xxxii. Connect a click away

- 47 -

Indeed, we now wonder how communication technology might revolutionize our ways of living, and what effect it might have on conventional urban form. We can now shop with the click of a mouse. But will that obviate construction of new shopping malls?

Will e-commerce lead to the closing of older, languishing shopping centers and malls?

What will be the alternative uses of such spaces? If more and more workers stay home and telecommute, will that lead to a stronger sense of localities and local public spaces?

Will it lead to the revival of the community main streets and third places?

The communication technology revolution may also presage other developments that could further negate public life and the public realm. The cyborgian life might lead to greater isolation, withdrawal, and anomie. It may lead to what former Labor Secretary Robert Reich (1991) had referred to as the secession of the successful, now to an analogous city in cyberspace. Seemingly, the duality of a public city of the poor and dependent population and a private city of the successful will continue on the two sides of the digital divide.

- 48 -

Where are we heading next?

“Growth is inevitable and desirable, but destruction of community character is not. The question is not whether your part of the world is going to change. The question is how” - Edward T. McMahon

Figure xxxiii. The next phase of Public

Vast changes have occurred in cities around the world over the last two decades.

Whereas children used to walk to school and play in the streets, such activities are now rare. Motorcycles and cars have made transportation more convenient in some ways, - 49 -

but have brought in a host of new problems including traffic danger, air pollution, and reduced independent movement for children and the elderly.

The changes in cities are part of a model of progress that believes that economic growth is vital to improvements in livelihood, and that the environment - natural and urban must be sacrificed to make way for the industry that will allow the economy to grow.

Among the victims of such beliefs are the public spaces otherwise so vital to cities.

Economy as a parameter for development The “modern” city of luxury apartments, shopping malls, highways, and gated communities encourages consumption; the “old-fashioned” city of plazas, parks, markets, pedestrian-only walkways, and busy sidewalks encourages interaction. In the modernization view, plazas and parks represent a waste of space that could be utilized for economic purposes, and shopping malls replace open markets in the drive towards ever-increasing consumption; in the socialization or quality of life view, such open and public spaces are seen as vital for people’s interactions, health and well-being.

For those living in them, one fact has become clear: the thoroughly “modern city” fails to address many of people’s basic psychological needs: to watch, be around, and interact with others at different levels of intimacy, in order to feel part of a community and to reaffirm human connections.

This is not surprising; research has shown that happiness continues to rise with income only to a certain level, and then is associated more with community and social connections than with money; further, the more people are exposed to advertising, the less happy they are (Easton, 2006).

- 50 -

Figure xxxiv. Economy as a parameter for development

Why is the model of happiness - whether we give precedence to consumption or to interaction - important? Because it affects nearly every aspect of our lives and our choices and decisions about the design of our cities. Do we focus on making every corner of the city accessible by automobile, on providing high-end products and stores for those with the means to purchase them, and expensive restaurants, luxury shops and hotels for those wealthy enough to patronize them? Or do we work to sustain and strengthen existing neighbourhoods and communities, to ensure that vendors and small shopkeepers have a place to do business and that people of all ages and incomes have attractive places to gather, outdoors, in the public realm, so as to sustain livelihoods and promote the socializing that is the fabric of our society and the greatest hope for our happiness? Not that it need be all one or the other; a mix of the fast track and slow, the high rise and the low dwelling, the shopping mall and the traditional market, the exclusive restaurant and the corner noodle shop, all may contribute to a lively and liveable city and accommodate those with a taste for the modern, the luxurious, the

- 51 -

new. But if the “modern” and upper class is allowed to crowd out all else, the city loses.

And that is precisely what is happening in countless cities today

Not every change is a progress When reflecting on the changes in cities over the past generation- changes often caused largely by and justified in terms of the market economy- it is important to note that not all change is an improvement, and that much that is unpleasant and unethical occurs under the name of progress. Certainly one can accept and welcome positive change and progress while still cherishing and respecting beautiful and valuable traditions, but before accepting all that is labelled progress as such, it helps to evaluate whether the changes thus named are in fact likely to lead to improvements, without destroying things too valuable to lose. In considering this, it can be important to remember that sometimes money, or specifically market forces, impedes rather than generates happiness.

The multicultural question What are the chances that we can construct in our cities shared, diverse, just, and egalitarian forms of common life, guaranteeing the full rights of democratic citizenship and participation to all on the basis of equality, whilst respecting the differences which inevitably come about when peoples of different religions, cultures, histories, languages, and traditions are obliged to live together in the same shared space?

- 52 -

The city needs it “But a state exists for the sake of a good life, and not for the sake of life only.”

–Aristotle

With regular intervals the viewpoint is put forward that public space and public life is redundant in our modern time and age. The electronic global village, e-mail, Internet and contemporary means of communication bring modern day people in contact with each other. There is no need for the city as meeting place any more it is suggested.

These theories correspond very poorly with the actual findings from all over the World.

Wherever good public spaces have been provided public life has been found to increase markedly underlining that the meeting in the public space also today is very attractive and needed in the modern, electronic society. One may even suggest that the growth in the indirect communication and the simultaneous increases in the activity levels in the (good quality) public spaces could be linked to each other.

Broadly speaking two opposite directions in city planning can presently be identified.

In some cities walking and public life is disappearing, emphasizing that life conditions are becoming more and more privatized: private homes, -cars, -work places, -ITcommunication and privatized and highly controlled shopping environments.

In other cities public life is being carefully supported - by introduction of good pedestrian environments - in order to supplement the private life spheres with a well functioning public domain offering a wide range of attractive public activities.

The fact that people - in all parts of the world - respond enthusiastically to these new opportunities for partaking in public life in public spaces, underlines that public spaces where people can meet is an important asset in the present day society.

And possibly more so than 20, 30 or 50 years ago.

- 53 -

In a world being steadily privatized the public spaces are gaining in importance, but also being more demanding to design because life in the public domain is optional and not - as it used to be - a necessity.

Learn and Re-imagine There are many cities across the globe that are fighting this phenomenon. The Colombian city of Bogotá is one where the divide between rich and poor had long been ingrained in the city’s fabric, with many parts of the city suffering from economic and geographic isolation. Over the last 20 years, the city’s leaders, notably former mayor Enrique Peñalosa, have embarked on a citywide campaign to use public space and transportation systems to bridge the social divide and create opportunity for all of Bogotá’s citizens.

Central to the campaign has been the development of the TransMilenio bus rapid transit system, which provides fast, efficient, and reasonably priced public transportation to large areas of the city. Some 1.4 million people ride the system daily, and when it is completed there will be 388 kilometers of route, achieved at a fraction of the cost that an underground metro system would have cost. Another key aspect of the holistic approach that Bogotá has taken to its transformation is the Ciclovía. Each Sunday and on holidays, for several hours, most streets of the city are closed to cars so that people can enjoy biking, walking, and various recreational activities in the streets. These events have helped to raise awareness of the negative impact that car traffic has on people’s lives, and have been a key part of the city’s ongoing effort to regain street space for pedestrians and bicycles. City leaders also cracked down on sidewalk parking; pedestrianized Jimenez Avenue, the main street downtown; and introduced a system that restricted car use during rush hour. Peñalosa also led an effort to increase green space and playing fields in neighborhoods around Bogotá. The result has been a decrease in crime and gang activity.

- 54 -

Many citizens who were formerly without recreational options can now enjoy safe, healthy outdoor activities that are inclusive of women and children. Now everyone walking on the streets, the President of the Corporation or the cleaning agent all walk on equal grounds.

Figure xxxv. Livable cities of Bogota

Another example can also be New York City which is the biggest, liveliest, most energetic and creative city in the US, a wealthy city albeit with much poverty. Central Park in New York City is a welcome oasis of green, nature, and peace in the city. It attracts cyclists, dog walkers, skaters, locals and tourists. But one big park is not enough. The mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has been working to transform some city streets by reducing space for the automobile and giving it back to people in the form of lawn chairs on the streets in and near Times Square, street bazaars, sidewalk dining, large grassy medians, and bike lanes. If New York City, one - 55 -

of the most sophisticated, urbane, modern cities in the most powerful nation on the planet is doing this, what does it suggest to the world?

Figure xxxvi. Central Park, New York

Blessed by nature Let us have a look at the Marina beach in Chennai. A public place in its authentic sense today. A place for all. It serves as a perfect setting for an individual irrespective of his social and economic status, to feel the vibe of a public space and to completely immerse himself into the atmosphere. The marina welcomes everyone- from a ‘sundal’ seller, horoscope teller, vendors, college goers, school kids, the couples in love, elderly, the new visitor to Chennai and the daily passerby. It is not uncommon to find expansively priced SUVs parked alongside and their owners taking a stroll along its massive stretch enjoying a fresh shot of tender coconut water. Alongside you may find noisy kids enjoying their morning dose of cricket.

- 56 -

The city surely needs such spaces for a healthy society to “advance”. It becomes very clear that despite the overtake of cyber spaces, man’s eternal quest for public spaces never decreases. It is that space which creates a sense of belongingness and which brings together the multitudes of culture, fostering the nation’s pride. As far as my knowledge and memory can seek, I am out of option in naming a successful truly public space which is designed for the purpose.

Figure xxxvii. The scenes of Marina

- 57 -

Conclusion The discussions about the public spaces of today generate two main arguments. The first one suggests that today’s ‘urban public spaces’ are not ‘authentic’ in terms of the characteristics of being ‘public’. The other argument on the other hand, denies the existence of a crisis, on the grounds that the definition of ‘public’ has always been problematic. The tension between the inclusivity and exclusivity of public spaces lies beneath this standpoint. Such a construction of private public spaces contributes to and deepens the already prevailing urban segregation throughout the city.

Could we possibly conclude that it is not possible to create/redesign an ‘authentic’ public space? Can public spaces bear the burden of being the greatest equalizer, when the difference between one end and the other is so high?

Through the course of the study, I have come to understand that one model which suffices all the necessary qualities of a good public space won’t be appropriate in a country like India where cultures are not the same. And so are the people.

It thus becomes highly essential to have a complete understanding of the place and context. So to say, it is the architect’s role to provide a framework- not too abstract and not too realistic- in a manner such that, the people who shall be the ultimate player could colour it. Every citizen should be able to picturize himself in that framework.

Most often projects of urban scale are decided within closed boundaries of architects, planners and the policy makers. Public spaces work best when they do not lay out a script of intended uses, but rather allow different people to make use of them in the way that suits them. Communicating the project’s vision and explaining its benefits should form a key aspect of the project. The people are not interested in what we as architects are going to do there. It is quite difficult for architects and urban designers to understand this- focused as they are on the design of buildings and infrastructure.

- 58 -

Designers want to portray what they have designed but people want to see themselves in the picture.

Having said that, a great deal of the success of a public space in the country also depends on the Indian psyche. The expectation that if we design the space, activities will happen proved wrong time and again. What if their instinct is not to stroll or use it as a space for action; but use it as a space patch of free empty space to put up shelter or try and eek out a living hawking their goods? It becomes important to understand that the public spaces are a right for every citizen and NOT THEIR PRIVELEGE.

Hence creating an adaptable framework to fit both the worlds and a steady change of the Indian minds would form the two sides of creating the coin of a true public space.

For a healthy society to advance and progress, the public space needs to be the equalizer between both the ends. In a country like India, the distance between one end and the other is very high.

Figure xxxviii. The Equalizer

- 59 -

Bibliography Amin, A. (2008). Collective Culture and Urban Public Space. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action.

Appadurai, A. (2001). Globalization. London: Duke University Press.

Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at Large. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Banerjee,T. (2001). The Future of Public Space. Beyond invented streets and reinvented places: APA Journal. Vol.67, No.1.

Carmona, M. (2012). Capital Spaces: The multiple complex public spaces of a global city. Routledge.

Carmona, M. (2010). Contemporary Public Space: Critique and Classification, Part One: Critique. London: Routledge.

Crewe, L. & Beaverstock, J. (1998). Fashioning the City: Cultures of Consumption in Contemporary Urban Spaces.Geoforum.

Featherstone, M. (2007).Consumers Culture and Postmodernism (2nd ed.).London: Sage Publications.

Fraser, N. (1993). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. InB. Robbins (Kd.), The phantom public sphere (pp. 132).

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Geist, J. F. (1983). Arcades: The history of a building type. Cam-bridge, MA: MIT Press.

Gilani, N. (n.d.). Understanding India: Post Liberalization.

Gunder, M. (2010). Planning as the Ideology of (neoliberal) Space. Planning Theory.

Habermas, J. (1991). The Structural transformation of the public sphere. The MIT Press.

Illich, I. (1973). Tools for conviviality. New York: Harper & Row. Ilmavirta, T. (2007). Local Identity and Globalization. Publications in the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies.

Jacobs, Jane. (1989). The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage Books.

- 60 -

King, A. D. (2004). Space of Global Culture: Architecture, Urbanism, Identity.

London: Routledge.

Larco, N. (2010). Both/And: Merging Global and Local Identity through Design. A Case Study of Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires. Journal of Urban Design.

Mitchell, D. (1995).The End of Public Space? People’s Park, Definitions of the Public and Democracy.Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Mohanty, A. Change in Experiential Qualities of Public Spaces in Ahmedabad.

Ahmedabad: Unpublished Thesis, CEPT, Ahmedabad.

Oldenberg, R. (1999). The Great Good Place. New York: Marlowe and Company.

Peñalosa, E. Speech at International Mayors’ Forum, 10-11 November 2004.

Sennet, R. (1992). The Fall of Public Man. Cambridge University Press.

Shankar, P. (2012). Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities. CIS. Toor, S. Indo-Chic:The cultural politics of consumption in post-liberalisation India.

Cornell University.

Zukin, S. (1998). Urban Lifestyles: Diversity and Standardization in Spaces of Consumption. Urban Studies.

Zukin, S. (2009).Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places.New York: Oxford University Press.

- 61 -