[Reader-list] 'World Class City' concept & repercussions for urban planning in Asia-Pacific

[yasir ~يا سر]

I think the main point of the article was the sheer disregard (and
historically so) of people who have stakes in the such urban development
schemes (long term programmes, shorter time-bound projects..), such as
dwellers, affectees, economic entities at various levels, while the
alternatives actually taken are positively harmful.
What we end up with both through planning (foucaldian), and below/after that
the corrupted attenuation/implementation, are far from the best alternatives
available and what city dwellers deserve.

Since arif hasan has been a consultant to these same institutions for 2.5
decades, i hear him saying they these institutions (along with the govt) are
not going for the better alternatives, and will only be coaxed through
popular and community activism.

KK and Prem, i think you'll agree that the point is being made for these
times, but certainly popular revolt through pre and post colonial history
have served as correctives to royal and colonial policies.

best
y



On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>wrote:

> Dear Prem
>
> Thank you for a very interesting and educative perspective.
>
> I am intrigued though by your sentence "Given over two centuries of history
> that one could not consider authentically one's own, the connection between
> past present and
> future suffered a disruption."
>
> Could you please elaborate what these "over two centuries" are that we (in
> India) "could not consider authentically one's own".
>
> Who are you referring to? Just the British and Christian influence?
>
> If that is so, why would the (prior to British), Mughal and Islamic
> influence be any worthier of considering it as "authentically one's own"?
>
> Kshmendra
>
>
> --- On Thu, 9/17/09, Prem Chandavarkar <prem.cnt at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Prem Chandavarkar <prem.cnt at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] 'World Class City' concept & repercussions for
> urban planning in Asia-Pacific
> To: "yasir ~يا سر" <yasir.media at gmail.com>
> Cc: "Sarai Reader-list" <reader-list at sarai.net>, urbanstudygroup at sarai.net
> Date: Thursday, September 17, 2009, 2:23 PM
>
>
> I am not sure about an analysis which sees the whole problem as pushed on
> us
> from above by global financial institutions.  As Foucault has pointed out,
> power is difficult to enforce until it is also constructed as something
> desirable to those on whom power is to be enforced.  So one has to look
> within the Asian region and see why the idea of the "world class city" is
> seen as desirable by Asians.
> In India, I believe it is linked to two factors:
>
> Firstly, as a post-colonial country we suffered a sense of historical
> discontinuity.  Given over two centuries of history that one could not
> consider authentically one's own, the connection between past present and
> future suffered a disruption.  This created a development discourse for the
> first five decades after independence where the nation's sense of history
> was perceived as being in a state of suspension between a memory of a
> glorious yet distant past and an anticipated technological modernity.
>
> Secondly, when it came to any sense of culture, the city suffered from a
> lack of perceived authenticity.  Any discussion of "authentic" Indian
> culture was always rooted in the village.  Unlike the west where the city
> was seen as the site of the avant garde and therefore the cutting edge of
> cultural production, in India culture was perceived as being largely rural,
> and the city was seen more as a technical efficiency to be viewed purely
> through a rational lens.
>
> But after 1991, with the successes of industries such as software in
> particular (and other industries followed based on the global credibility
> for India that the software industry created), suddenly India was perceived
> as being anchored in global production in a very central way.  Modernity no
> longer had to be anticipated - it had arrived.  The software industry is
> essentially an urban (that too largely metropolitan) industry, and
> therefore
> the city was seen as leading India's march into modernity.
>
> This has created a perception that "globalisation equals modernity", and
> has
> created a desire for the global city in India, where the global city is
> seen
> as clean, ordered, efficient and visually iconic.  Some indicators of this
> desire are:
>
> a)       One often hears a public rhetoric that constructs an imagery of
> the
> global city as being clean and efficient: examples like Singapore and
> Shanghai are often raised as paradigms that the Indian city must aspire
> towards.
>
> b)      There is a growing wave of middle class activism driven by
> resident's associations that is pushing towards better master planning and
> the better enforcement of master plans.
>
> c)       Judicial judgments are leaning towards this notion of the
> efficient
> and ordered city.  To take as an example three recent Supreme Court
> judgments on Delhi:
>
> ·         The requirement that all public transport vehicles must shift to
> CNG as a fuel.
>
> ·         The sealing of shops and other business establishments in
> residential areas (even though the master plan provisions of commercial
> space are grossly inadequate for a city of the size of Delhi).
>
> ·         The decision that the three decades old Nangla Machi basti on the
> banks of the Yamuna must be demolished because it is not recognised on the
> master plan, and the master plan authorities have declared the site as the
> location of the games village for the proposed Commonwealth Games.
>
> d)      Cities are now concerned about branding themselves.  City
> authorities evince greater interest in brandable projects such as stadiums
> and convention centres, as opposed to non-brandable projects such as social
> housing.
> The existence of organisations like World Bank and IMF has definitely
> played
> a role in this process, but one has to realise that we have sought them
> out,
> and it is not a one-directional process of something being shoved down our
> throats.  Except it is a very narrow (but powerful) segment that is seeking
> out this model.  Unfortunately it is this segment that dominates the
> attention of the media, and as a result the dislocations to large segments
> of our population go unrecognised.
>
> Am copying this to the urban study group as there have been discussions on
> that list expressing concern over the concept of the 'world class city'.
>
> Regards,
> Prem
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