Last week, before I left for Mumbai, I visited a new ‘master-planned community’ on Brisbane’s north side. The houses haven’t been built yet, but the wide residential roads, narrow concrete footpaths on broad grass verges and seven-foot high fences are already in place. I asked the sales manager where I would see people in my ‘community’, if I were to – which I wouldn’t – move there. He told me that I could be at the Westfield shopping centre in less than 14 minutes, by car.
“What are you thinking?” asked Jeremy as we stood outside a supermarket sipping orange juice on Wednesday morning
“That this is probably active streets utopia. The type of street that Australian architects, urban designers and city planners dream of” I replied
We were in the main street of Dharavi, one of India’s largest slums, on the renowned Reality Tours ‘Slum Tour’.
Slum tourism is controversial, contentious and criticized but what we observed, as residents of Sydney and Brisbane, where people retreat to the privacy of their backyards, where people shop in out-of-town air conditioned inward facing shopping malls and where the streets are deserted after 9pm, was that here the streets are alive, moreover the design principles in the Heart Foundations active, or people orientated, streets publications/guidelines are very much realized.
The main street of Dharavi is lined with shops and small businesses; vegetable traders, hardware stores, convenience kiosks, a bank, supermarket and sari sellers. The streets are a throng of people; young, old, women, children, people shopping, people running errands and people going about their daily business.
In this real, not manufactured, street and community people interact; they talk, they laugh, they shake hands, they share, they drink Chai with friends, they buy, they sell, they trade. Children walk to school hand in hand, bicycles carrying cargo weave around the groups of chatting people, motorbikes slowly swerve around vegetable stalls and of course, the background noise is car drivers honking their horns.
Dharavi, a mixed-use self-contained residential and commercial ‘development’ with a guesstimated population in excess of 1 million, has a real, and very genuine, sense of community. It has a sense of purpose, its full of people with spirit and determination but most of all it has that ‘sense of place’ that adorns Australian property development and real estate marketing materials.
The big difference between Dharavi and most cities, including Brisbane where I live, is that it has evolved and developed over the last 150 years. Dharavi, was created by the people for the people, and not planned and engineered on a drawing board or in a Computer Aided Design file. Perhaps ‘everyday’ citizens will design urban streets in the future? Perhaps these are conversations for the BMW Guggenheim Lab in one of the next 6 cities?
I’ve had a number of thoughts about this.
Firstly, it can be difficult to create community, but as planners we can do a number of things to assist its growth. Equally, we can easily do many thing to destroy or stifle any chance of it growing.
It also occurred to me that many Indian citizens would quickly take the opportunity to live in a gated community if given the chance. I guess this shows we don’t always realise what we’re going to lose when we “trade up.”
I suppose the question is how do we retain the community when we (seemingly inevitably) change the living arrangements. Specifically in our western societies?
I think the point you make about “specifically in our western societies” is a particularly important one. Crosscultural research has shown
that Asian society is more strongly community oriented than “western” society. I think you are right though Rachel in suggesting active citizen participation in the planning of urban streets. Whilst some may prefer to remain passive others would welcome the opportunity for ownership of their environment. In the UK people might not readily come forward with new ideas themselves but perhaps greater information and more active personal polling of public opinion would help people in less established communities feel that their opinions are important and encourage involvement.
I am pleased to know that you learned from and enjoyed Mumbai as much as I did. The regrettable thing is that with the growth of India’s middle class, there is a preference of the air conditioned ‘clean’ and well organised shopping centre / super market that is killing not only the vibrant Indian street but much of the community itself. It is preventable but business and big money talks.