According to UNESCO, “A public space refers to an area or place that is open and accessible to all peoples, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic level. In a broader sense, it is a space in which people can choose to be at, regardless of their ethnicity, age, ideologies and gender.”
Great cities worldwide have historically been defined by the quality of their public spaces more than the architectural beauty of individual buildings. Closer to our lived reality, our bazaars, local trains, parks and streets are public spaces.
Mumbai’s Marine Drive or Lodi Gardens of Delhi are not iconic merely because of their history or beautiful architecture. They also represent the people who have lived around them, walked in the sand, fell in love, ran, played hide and seek and even slept on it for generations.
People add the story to the concrete, stones and sand. And stories never die or get destroyed even while architectural marvels collapse under the weight of time.
The identity of the city is a non-identity. This is because its only identity is diversity, says Joseph Ramonenda, just like our Indian gardens where young couples find anonymity in the crowd. In contrast, the elderly find community in laughter clubs.
Evidently, public spaces are multifunctional and multicultural. Indian streets make for the best cricket pitch, double up as our pani puri wallah’s entrepreneurial outlet and a sleeping bed for lakhs that live watching the sky under streetlights.
It is also here, amidst the crowd, where we encounter “the other”, people vastly different to us, also next to us, amidst us. Public places bring together different worlds into a single space-time dimension. The very idea of the urban public space as a forum for democratic deliberations, discussions and debates rests on the notion of acceptance of the “other”.
Therefore, the decline of meaningful public spaces weakens opportunities for participatory democracy, which David Harvey opines as fundamental to democratic governance.
Hence, it is paramount for us also to understand the intersection of political processes and infrastructure. “Safe” and “Accessible” public spaces for vulnerable groups like the homeless and disabled is a desideratum.
Yet, the discourse fights a new monster dressed in shiny rectangular boxes with screens that keep most eyes glued to them. An important question to ask is, what do public places mean to a generation that barely looks at each other at a dinner table?
But a formidable opponent as Cyberspace can only complement public space, not replace it. As human beings, we can only live indoors in our homes and offices for so long. At some point, we need space to breathe, interact, walk and gather. Social media and the efficiencies of the internet and mobile communication can’t make up for the tactile human experience.
Covid-19 induced confinement have renewed appreciation of open spaces and public parks. Fears of contagion in closed indoor spaces have further increased the demand for more exterior spaces.
Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health (UD/MH) notes cities are associated with higher rates of most mental health problems than rural areas. No wonder we always dream of escaping to pristine locations for a vacation to rejuvenate. The landscape is a vital health component.
In December 2021, Harsh Parekh, a BE Civil Engineering student, joined our Young Professionals for Social Change program to understand and work around these loopholes that plagued our cities with an experienced mentor Shweta Manikshetti, Design Innovation Consultant and Urban Planner.
His project Architecture & Built Environment on Redesigning Innovation projects for slum & low-income individuals focused on the Shakti Nagar Jhopad Patti in Surat.
On his field visits, Harsh vividly noted the absolute lack of bare minimum necessities in life, so the fundamental processes of living became exponentially more difficult. He spoke to the slum dwellers to understand their plight and jotted the main problems:
- Waste Management was inadequate.
- Unavailability of a secure 24-hour water supply.
- Lack of adequate living space and playing area.
What other states can learn from the world’s largest slum land rights project in Odisha https://t.co/NFOqNhDQ2d
story via @idr_online pic.twitter.com/XbV4Z3eENq— Youth Ki Awaaz (@YouthKiAwaaz) December 17, 2018
Harsh, aware of the complexities and myriad factors at play, decided to focus on the third aspect of living space and playing area as his fulcrum for the plan.
India’s Urban and Regional Development Plans Formulation and Implementation (URDPFI) guidelines recommend 10–12 sq m open space per person. However, most Indian cities are unsurprisingly well below this norm. Mumbai has a mere 1.28 sq m per person, while Bengaluru offers 2 sq m.
Harsh then decided to survey the area and identify the common points of the meeting, the existing infrastructure and arrangements. During his walk through the slums, he found some abounded plots in the vicinity which were perfect to create a park for recreational use for both kids and adults.
Like every city in India, Surat is also a motley collection of affluent gated enclaves that stretch endlessly watched by lakhs of those who live outside the comforts of a high-rise. Harsh noticed the landscape of inequality as he saw children from the slum playing on heaps of garbage.
At the same time, just a few steps away, manicured lawns and tennis courts welcomed the uber-rich kids. This is the poverty in your backyard that never really meets you in your school or offices. The public park, Harsh believed, would bring children of different backgrounds to mingle with each other.
When children interact and know about each other, they will appreciate the challenges and situations of the “other”.
Harsh designed a multifunctional park for young kids as well as adults with a pocket green cover, emphasizing shared use. The park would house a jogging/running track, callisthenics bars, play-area with see-saws, slides and swings and space for teaching as well workshops.
The plan revolves around offering a wholesome community space at an affordable cost as materials would be sustainable, durable and easily accessible. The aim is to make replicable models which would be duplicated in an area with a concentrated slum population to ensure minimal space adjustments.
A city cannot be experienced without imbibing its publicness of it. Using a probabilistic world model may give you statistical confidence in your beliefs. Still, it can’t quite map onto the dynamism of human interaction.
By visiting the slums in Shakti Nagar and conversing with their residents, Harsh understood the lived experiences of the dwellers who would use the infrastructure. Moulding the plan according to their needs flipped the traditional urban planning idea of treating open spaces as mere “leftovers” after exploitation of construction potential.
Our cities need plans that reexplore the concept of open spaces to go beyond mere gardens and recreational grounds — to embrace diverse natural assets, including creeks and the seafronts.
Our cities need plans that break free of the barricaded politics to non-exclusive and non-elitist spaces accessible to all citizens by placing people and community life at the centre of planning — not merely real estate and construction potential.
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