Sustainable Building Design: The larger Issues

10. The repercussions of the World Class City concept

• The major repercussion of this agenda is a massive increase in evictions all over South Asia in the last five years. Over 500,000 persons have been evicted in Delhi for the preparation of the 2010 Asian Olympics alone.

• All studies show the evicted and/or relocated population became poorer than before and often in debt whereas before they were debt free.

• Children’s education too has always been disrupted as a result; jobs lost and travel time to and from work increased to over five to six hours in many cases, thus effecting family and social life, health, recreation and entertainment activities.

• People cannot work in high-rise apartment buildings.

• Politicians and government planners justify the high-rise redevelopment approach by insisting that a modern city has to be high-rise with open areas in-between. They also insist that high densities, needed for a well-functioning city, cannot be achieved by upgrading and densifying existing neighbourhoods.

• The image of a city is governed by the perception of what it should be. One can discuss and disagree on it.

• However, numerous studies have shown that the same densities as prescribed by the byelaws of South Asian cities for high-rise construction can be achieved by building row houses of ground plus two stories (along with required social infrastructure) without damaging the environment or adversely effecting social life.

• Another factor: the free market economy led in the last decade to considerable liquidity in banks and leasing companies.

• This has been utilised for providing loans for the purchase of cars.

• Evidence suggests that these loans were provided as a result of an understanding between the automobile industry and global banking and financial sectors.

• In Karachi alone banks and leasing companies gave the rupee equivalent of US$ 1.53 billion for the purchase of an average of 506 vehicles per day in the financial year 2006-2007. (Delhi 1,200 cars per day in the same period.)

• As a result of this automobile industry-banking sector nexus, traffic in the larger cities of the South Asia region has become a nightmare.

• To solve this problem, city planners have initiated a massive programme for the construction of signal-free roads, flyovers, underpasses and expressways which have aggravated the situation and in addition made life difficult for pedestrians and commuters.

• As a result of the above and related processes, the once poor-friendly cities of South Asia have become poor-unfriendly.

11.  The Struggle against the Negative Aspects of the World Class City

• I do not know of any city or country in the South Asia region where the neo-liberal urban development paradigm has been challenged as a paradigm or an alternative vision for the city has been promoted.

• However, projects promoted by the paradigm have been successfully challenged in those countries who have a populist political culture and strong civil society organisations and networks and are supported by academia.

• However, South Asian academia and professional organisation do not normally take part in such movements.

12. Is an alternative to the World Class City concept needed?

• I think yes if planning has to be based on principles of justice and equity without which sustainable cities cannot be created. But by what process do you develop such a vision? And then there are a number of sub issues. After developing a vision how do you promote it? Or will it be born out the processes that challenge (successfully and unsuccessfully) the projects promoted by the neo-liberal urban development paradigm? Maybe we need to discuss this but in the meantime what should one do?
• In the case of Karachi, I see projects replacing planning for the foreseeable future. I have tried to promote some principles on the basis of which projects should be judged and/or modified. These are:
  • One, projects should not damage the ecology of the region in which the city is located.
  • Two, projects should as a priority seek to serve the interests of the majority who in the case of our cities are lower and lower middle income groups.
  • Three, projects should decide landuse on the basis of social and environmental considerations and not on the basis of land values alone.
  • And four, projects should protect the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the communities that live in them.

• This would in my opinion produce better projects. But you cannot effectively follow these principles if you do not have affection and respect for the natural environment and for the people who form the majority in your cities. An appropriate curriculum and teaching methodology can in my opinion create this love and affection.
• In the past century, academic institutions have played an important role in promoting more just and equitable concepts of development and planning. The Hippocratic oath that doctors take is said to have had a humanising effect on the medical profession. I often think that it might help if graduating architects, planners and engineers should take an oath similar to those of doctors and if they do not follow the terms of the oath, their names should be removed from the list of practising professionals.
• In 1983, after evaluating the environmental damage that some of my work had done, I promised in an article ¹. “I will not do projects that will irrepairably damage the ecology and environment of the area in which they are located; I will not do projects that increase poverty, dislocate people and destroy the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of communities that live in the city; I will not do projects that destroy multi-class public space and violate building byelaws and zoning regulations; and I will always object to insensitive projects that do all this, provided I can offer viable alternatives.” I have tried to keep that promise and I think I have succeeded.