Better Neighbourhoods Better Homes
What kind of a house do you desire?
.
.
.
I grew up in the city of Lucknow. It’s been over three decades, but I cannot feel less proud every time I say that.
While growing up I lived two versions of the city. Early childhood in old part of Lucknow- dense, packed, unorganized, organic, chaotic, smiling faces and strong sense of community. Later years of school days we lived in a comparatively newly settled neighbourhood, partially planned pockets, a two bed-room apartment on the fourth floor of a seven-storey residential building with a balcony facing the same old low rise high density, organic and chaotic settlement. Forty-two flats and all of us were happy within the limits of gated boundary. It was the first time that any of us were experiencing a lifestyle where we had windows not overlooking into someone else’s window. Not a playground but we had a large common terrace where we all used to play, spend evening and celebrate the different moods of the weather.
I didn't know it then, but I was learning something about cities and human psyche.
Later, I grew up to become an architect and an urban planner. Before books, studio lectures or sleepless design nights taught me anything about buildings, houses, quality of life or cities- I learned by experiencing it first. Just like all of us. Education did give an analysis and a rationale to all my learnings.
Recently, a friend asked what kind of a house I desire, all I could respond with was – “I want a house that is sufficient for my needs. Not a big mansion or any statement structure but I do desire for a walkable neighbourhood placed in the serenity of the city’s beautiful landscape that I can witness every day and feel gratitude for.”
Then I realized something that unsettled me deeply. I had set a very low bar for what I ‘desired’. Especially from the neighbourhood I would call home.
Is walkability truly the only thing I should ask for? In fact, is it not something that I or every other human being part of any civic settlement rightfully deserves? And what about other parameters like safety, open areas, green areas, accessibility, inclusivity, daily conveniences, green cover, social fabric and resilience? Are they out of question even in our desires?
Perhaps it is not about me or how I perceive the situation as person or as a professional. Underlying issue is much deep rooted in human behaviour.
People of countries such as ours have accepted the fact that their control over what happens is restricted within the boundary of their small land pockets. That is their territory. Now they will not only demand but dictate this territory.
Anything and everything outside that boundary is something they only go through in order to reach some other enclosed territory. There is no life outside the four walls and in fact they should not keep any such unrealistic desires or demands.
Result: we started spending more and more money making our homes bigger because we could not make our neighbourhoods better.
We are so intensely conditioned to disregard the life beyond the four walls that people spending a leisurely evening outside nearly became synonymous to ‘wasting time’.
People became so comfortable in living an uncomfortable life that it started to reflect in the houses they continue to build. Even after knowing the fact that every square foot of built up will cost them a big deal of their life savings, they do not hesitate in creating boxes of house that cannot breathe or see any trace of sunlight but are ornamented with a collage of all possible materials. Their tiny territory should be as large as possible. The world should know that they have arrived.
Space matters. Privacy matters. Storage matters. A comfortable bedroom matters. I am not saying that small houses will make neighbourhoods better. A tiny apartment cannot serve the needs of a family of five. We must learn to understand that after which point addition to private spaces tends to give us diminishing returns whereas any amount of shared environment is never too much and it can dramatically elevate our everyday life no matter in which age we are.
A beautiful house on a terrible street is an incomplete picture of a good life.
It often breaks my heart when clients come with this most honest question seeking professional help: not how to comply with building by laws but how to navigate around it so that they do not have to spare that 1m to 3m of setback on their land. They are not bad or evil people. They are just conditioned over decades to unknowingly disrespect themselves and have accepted the fact that this is the kind of life they deserve. By complying to the bylaws, they are just giving in to a system who has kept them deprived of so many experiences that every human not only deserves but it is their right too. People make rational decisions within an irrational system.
People can't even imagine let alone demand for it, the version of life where they are walking on a shaded street, cars are parked in parking bays with disciple, kids are safely crossing the road without any elder's presence, an elderly person is enjoying the evening while strolling on his wheel chair without any assistance, people are cycling & running, few steps ahead the smell freshly brewed coffee and freshly baked cake compels them to take a break on a walkway side bench and appreciate the blooming trees and the clear blue sky, a spontaneous conversation is struck with the random person sitting next to them on the bench, later continue the walk to the nearest park to enjoy a community evening with the neighbours. They do not even dream of living this life because it
does not happen in the real world. It is something that only happens in holly wood movies.
I look around my city Dehradun and I see- lush green forests, I see rivers and canals and waterfalls, I see hill tops and gigantic mountains- I see potential - all surrounded by hostile narrow puddled pieces of road, haphazard unregulated construction (aka development), riverbanks infected with unmanaged solid waste for as far as we can see, I see over speeding vehicles on local roads and collector roads, I see kids who have nowhere to play, I see elders who are afraid to take a walk on road. I see people rushing back home - I see contentment in crisis.
What kind of life do we desire?
.
.
.
A better one!?
By being better.
As professionals of related fields, shaping the built environment, we need to give fair & unbiased consultation and solutions. We need to explain the consequences along with benefits and explain again and again if needed. Make sure that the small stretch that we are contributing to the street scape will never become a hindrance towards reaching our goal of better neighbourhood better life. The street edge, the setback, the tree, the parking arrangement, the entrance, the wall, the drainage, the way a building meets the pavement, none of these decisions should exist in isolation. None of these decisions should ever be a compromise.
Our most important role is to help people imagine better cities and then make those cities possible.
As homeowners, we can begin with the decisions that are within our control. We can ask ourselves what is truly necessary and what is excessive. Does every square foot need to be built? Can I preserve the existing tree on our land and plant a few more, allow some ground to remain permeable. Can I build in a way that it contributes rather than turns its back on the street?
Everything is possible within the boundary but is everything necessary?
As builders and developers, we have an even greater responsibility. We are creating spaces where people will possibly spend their entire lives, where kids will grow up and where families will grow old together. We must choose not to be defined by the lowest common denominator.
“What kind of life we want to create and what kind of examples we want to set?” can be our prime differentiator.
As a public representative we need to see beyond individual projects and ask what our cumulative impact is doing to the city.
Every unregulated development, large or small, is a failure. A missing footpath, a lost tree, a neighbourhood without a children's play area, a street without safe pedestrian movement, unmanaged waste is our collective failure. These are not peripheral issues as these have power to realize the dreams that we are too scared to see.
Being a public representative should mean having the empathy to acknowledge that our people deserve a lot more than what they settle for.
As citizens we have to educate, inform and assist each other equally- even the ones less privileged than us. An IAS, a doctor, a teacher, an elderly person, a pedestrian, a cyclist, a domestic worker, a street vendor- the city belongs to all of us and the city is built by all of us.
Collectively, we need to become better at asking the right questions of the people who govern our cities.
Where will our children play? Where will we walk? How a person on wheelchair will move? How far do I have to go for my daily errands? Where will the trees grow? How will we socialize? Where will the rainwater go? How will this neighbourhood remain liveable in ten, twenty or fifty years? How will we mitigate a disaster? What about last mile connectivity? What about public transport? How waste is treated and disposed? What about accessible health and education infrastructure?
And perhaps most important:
Why are we being conditioned to accepted so little when so much better is possible?
A better neighbourhood is not a luxury. It is not an amenity reserved for those who can afford it. It is our basic right to live and move with dignity.
We may each own a small piece of land. But we collectively inhabit the city.
We only ask for what we truly believe is possible.
Comments