LEADER ARTICLE
The Writing on the Mall: Character Assassination Kills Cities
BACHI KARKARIA
[ MONDAY, APRIL 19, 2004 12:00:00 AM ]
Are our cities condemned to death by cookie-cutter? Delhi's Connaught Place
is the latest example of the plight of ageing commercial districts. The
dowager is obliged to put on the glitter-glue to attract custom, but it is a
no-win tarting. If neon overpowers its colonnaded splendour, it loses its
elegant USP; if it doesn't, CP could be consigned to the dustbin of retail
therapy.
At least, this enclave has the protection of New Delhi's master plan which
prevents the wholesale surrender of the city's colonial soul in return for
shopping nirvana. But many sections of Old Delhi have made this Faustian
pact, and been irretrievably damned.
Urban heritage is like the spiritual search. You think about it only after
satisfying your material needs. Mumbai, icon of modernist swagger, woke up
to its colonial past only after most of it had been gobbled by real estate
sharks, or effaced by hawkers and hoardings. Valiant individuals have
resuscitated the mercantile heart of Ballard Estate, restoring its grand
facades. But, sensibly, the interiors have been drastically gouged so that
they can genuflect to globalisation's demands.
Bangalore ruthlessly pressed the Erase button on its Pensioners' Paradise
persona to zip into Silicon Valley. But Kolkata made a USP of obsolescence,
and held out longest against the high-rise tide. It was abetted by the
soft-soil nature of its geology and the litigious nature of its citizenry;
one didn't allow you to build up, the other didn't allow you to pull down.
Now, almost overnight, the city has begun to mean business - sending up
multi-storeyed corporate spires as if there were no yesterday. This has
resulted in an uneasy replica of the old White Town-Black Town divide. The
new commercial south is a vertical Valhalla strutting its hour about the
stage while the crumbling north sighs its way to dusty death.
Such urban schizophrenia can be life-threatening. Decadence is as
undesirable as its ruthless razing. The answer lies in compromise. As with
people, the character of cities should not be assassinated just because they
want a taste of the high life. Of course, newly minted commercial zones can
soar, but why bulldoze over the intricate built-up area of past identity?
Why not value-add to each city's unique character by rejuvenating its
depressed areas?
Vibrant cities are those crafted from complex layers of evolution, not those
which have jumped fully-grown from a town-planner's blueprint. This is why
New York has more buzz than orderly Washington, Istanbul is more evocative
than antiseptic Ankara, and Mumbai is sexier than boulevarded New Delhi. How
boring to live in a one-size-fits-all city with every sophisticated service,
but no individuality aka soul?
The writing on the mall is already there. In Hyderabad, the futuristic
buildings squatting on the desolate Deccan rockscape look like grounded
spaceships. They could be anywhere in the world even as they look like
nothing on earth. They even alienate their denizens. Or see the robotic
IT/call centre islands of Gurgaon or Kolkata's Salt Lake City, out of sync
with surrounding reality.
Unlike Charles Correa and Hafeez Contractor, heritage and the 21st century
are not mutually exclusive. Call centres can function as effectively in a
building that blends into tradition instead of one that sticks out like a
Californian accent in Koramangala.
I would never argue against change, for stagnation is death. Like
corporates, cities also have to keep rewriting their genetic code. History
has to become history, and a reinvented urban persona rise. Docks may no
longer power the economy of the world's great cities, but docklands don't
have to become the squalid haunt of squatters. Instead of deteriorating into
a problem, they can become a lucrative solution.
Our experiments with gentrification haven't been happy. The Correa plan for
Mumbai's mill-lands became a victim of greedy mill-owners and mulish
governments. The present script reads like a real-estate ''Jaws''. But, all
over the world, abandoned docklands, factories, canneries or shunting-yards
have been resurrected. Part of these valuable tracts are given over to
developers for condos and corporate offices, the rest is repaired, restored
and redesignated for the current deity, the knowledge economy. There is an
important caveat. It is mandatory to offer training in these new services to
the original residents so that their lives are upgraded along with the area.
This avoids displacement, with all its sociological baggage.
London's old shipping centre is its new 'Fleet Street'; retail outlets
flourish in the former Oxo warehouse on the South Bank. San Francisco's
Fisherman's Wharf nets a new income. The refurbished redbrick houses in
Toronto's once- depressed Cabbage Town command swanky prices. Said an urban
planner, ''We want to build on our history, not invent a new city every 20
years. Yes, we want to create 10,000 more housing units in downtown instead
of swallowing up farmland.'' We, on the other hand, are hell-bent on turning
swanky areas into slums, and stretching city limits till they nudge the next
town.
Obsolete areas must earn their keep, and not just as museum pieces.
Kolkata's riverfront warehouses can't survive only as the indulgence of
heritage drones. They have to become beehives of viable activity behind
their restored facades. With the old thus rehabilitated, even the new will
be less overwhelming. Perhaps it might learn to be more aesthetic as well.
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