Vishal Sharma
“By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities.” Socrates
A city is livable when its roads are straight, level and not bumpy; and most importantly, do not deform either under load or when exposed to rains; when its drains-small and big-crisscrossing within its neighborhoods and between them are clean, covered and soak up every water drop that falls from the sky and take it to where it is to be taken for proverbial final rites; and when it is properly landscaped with trees, herbs, shrubs and flowers, which are light on pollen nuisance, easy on its water resource and aesthetically gel with its ecology.
Jammu city needs a bit of civic reimagining. It’s a prepossessing piece of geography, but its civic infra leaves a lot to be desired. Hardly a stretch of 20 or 30 metres passes on any road before a pothole or two pop up to greet you. If by any chance you happen to miss the potholes, poorly constructed speed bumps and pesky unevenness don’t forget to keep your company. People travelling in their rides- some in fancy sedans- mutter an expletive or two and then move on. That’s as far as their protests go. Bumpy rides have been embraced, rather normalized by the travelers in the city.
Most lanes within the neighbourhoods are patchworks of unpaved and metalled or paver block roads. There is the one I see enroute to my work daily, which is low lying and after rains doesn’t host small puddles as is normal even on big roads, but one big pool of water. One I am sure the people living on the other side must be having difficult time negotiating. But the worst part is that they haven’t even bothered to get it fixed.
The state of drains reflects the premium the city dwellers put on the cleanliness. Given the state of city drains, it appears not very much. Most drains don’t seem to have been cleaned for a long time, leading them to lose depth due to accumulation of plastic and other non-degradable waste. No wonder water logging on city roads is a common sight during rains. There can’t be a bigger paradox than having a luxurious mansion sitting next to a stinking drain or a hideously ill-smelling pile of refuse. But the city is full of such paradoxes. These paradoxes in many ways are the manifestation of our conscious cultural choices. And it should not amaze anybody that these choices in turn have begun to bestialize us.
Big drains into which the capillary web of small drains across the city empty their contents are stinking hell holes. There is one big drain within the city which is choked like hell with plastic waste, discarded tyres, electronic waste and what have you. It is such a sorry spectacle. One can only take pity on the people who live in its vicinity. Again, it is not understood why they have not got off their backsides to get it cleaned, covered and moving. The odium attached to unwanted litter and squalor is deeply entrenched in our daily discourse. What’s changed is our threshold for response.
Green spaces in the city are already few and far between and, sadly, whatever little we have continue to shrink. As the needs of the city for housing tick up and more apartment blocks and houses are built, there will be no space left within the city in future for more parks, playfields and green belts. At best, we will have small house lawns or constricted green patches within the apartment blocks. What would it do to the city’s needs for green ecosystem and its residents’ basic need for playgrounds and parks as the places of sports and recreation? What about the fine balance that all cities need to strike between the competing demands of environment and development?
Jammu city is not even modestly landscaped. In fact, if anything, the city resembles a concrete jungle, and this appreciation of the city has grown never more so than during summers when the city sizzles and tree cover is nowhere to be seen. A city can’t become green with a disjointed, single pronged focus on public places only. All private residential, commercial and industrial spaces have to spearhead this go green campaign. This green campaign has to capture everybody’s imagination. Everyone has to be read in and roped in. There is enough open source literature available on civic/urban infra development in the world. Time has come to look past the approaches that have informed our urban development all these years.
New Delhi was designed by one man – Sir Edward Lutyen. So was Chandigarh by one person- Le Carbousier. The city can’t perhaps now be designed, but it can very well be reimagined and restructured within the existing constraints. The reimagining will require someone of the stature of Lutyen or Carbousier. One man- fully empowered and fully resourced- looking at a white chart with the city’s map drawn on it and then deciding on how to re-develop or restructure it organicallyis perhaps the only way to go about it. Let’s assign the task of civic reimagination of the city to one person. Let him/her be from anywhere- the UT, country or even overseas. Towards this end, if necessary regulatory tweaking is to be done, so be it. Sticking plaster solution is no solution. Status quo is not an option anymore. Hope isn’t a strategy. Let Socratic wisdom on beautification of cities and communities guide us in our endeavour to beautify our beloved city.
The post Bumpy rides, cuss words and the city moves on appeared first on Daily Excelsior.