Planning a safe Delhi and completing it by 2050 is the vision that many architects share. They tell you that this is possible if residents of this city are kept in the loop and their opinions are taken into consideration. Shalini Saksena tells you more about this proposed ideal city
A woman is walking down a well-lit street. A car pulls alongside her, the door opens and a hand comes out to grab her. She struggles and screams. Hearing her cries, a kiosk owner and a few of his customers run to help her. The car occupants are outnumbered and they flee. The girl is saved. Welcome to Safe City Delhi, 2050.
Many may want to know how a well-lit street and a kiosk can help prevent or curb crime. Anne Feenstra, a Dutch architect with a design team based in Afghanistan and India, known for working with communities to redefine contemporary architecture, admits that planners alone can’t end crime.
“It is the entire system with many ingredients, like the quality of public space and the spaces between buildings that can become sentinels. One needs to work hard with local residents of a city for a sense of ownership (that Delhi is their city) to accrue. Also, a functioning rule of law is must. Delhi of today is too aggressive. Media plays an important role in this,” Feenstra explains.
He insists that building a sustainable Delhi by 2050 is a gettable target. “There are two ways of looking at Delhi’s future. First, people, including the Government, are deeply worried that the business mindset will take away the possibility of the Capital becoming a healthy and livable city. In 2009 and 2010, we toured 12 cities to have discussions about those cities. We discussed their long-term future. In all the 12 cities, people were happy to have got a platform to express their concerns and throw up ideas to improve the living conditions of their particular city. This initiative inspired us to know more about a city that we know best — like Delhi. If there has to be any positive change, the city’s inhabitants have to essentially be involved in the process. It’s not easy, but if you do not include them, there won’t be any sense of belonging and co-ownership. Only an inclusive method can lead to sustainable solutions for the long term future of Delhi,” he said.
The second way is a little more technical. Sustainability and durability can be translated into something that endures. “Technology helps buildings last for hundreds of years. For example, our partner OutoKumpu, following the success of work in Thailand, is now working with Ambuja on a Buddhist temple in Kolkata which has a predicted lifespan of 1,000 years,” he pointed out.
Kushal lachhwani, an architect with Arch-i, agreed. A planned city, he said, is one which not only provides for the present and future requirements of its population by providing adequate water, food, housing, work opportunities and health care, but also ensures their equitable access.
“The experience a city offers to a young girl trying to cross the road or an old man going for a walk in the morning defines the quality of life. The spaces of movement, which also include a lot of public spaces, need to be planned well and made flexible enough to accommodate the changing pace of life and growing numbers. long-term thinking is a crucial aspect which is missing from present planning processes,” he says.
But while architects and planners may have a strategy in place to make our city safe, it is not always possible to work in areas that are already developed. Such areas/places/colonies need a lot of care, attention and hard work. As part of the programme, Delhi 2050’s ambassador Ashok B lall embarked on an initiative called Aap Ki Sadak.
lall explained that technical solutions are based on community priorities as set by residents, detailed street-by-street surveys and traffic analyses. “The solutions synergise with ongoing projects at the city level. There are strategies proposed for difficult actions, like alternative parking for cars and commercial vehicles that, at present, occupy the streets,” lall says.
How are the new initiatives different from what the Delhi Government and planning panels have done till nowIJ “It is not about competing with each other, it is about sharing ideas and information. Our relationships with the lG and NCR Planning Board are positive. We are happy that the Government also talks about 2050 and about ways to make the process more inclusive,” Feenstra explains.
He adds that a planned city also improves healthcare, energy requirements, economic conditions and leads to a better lifestyle for people. “The obvious interpretation is known to us. This is about the need for parks, recreation, a river that is part of the city and it is about reducing pollution-related-diseases like lung, skin, eye and throat ailments. It is about finding a balance and Delhi 2050 will hopefully contribute to that,” he states.
Despite there being a direct link between rising crime and expanding city, it doesn’t mean that all is lost. A recent report published by the University of Pennsylvania, which studied the increasing crime rate in Bengaluru, indicated the factors and frequency of crime scenes in multiple locations in the city.
The report came up with interesting findings. It pointed to a higher crime rate in commercial/mixed use localities as compared to completely residential zones. “The findings suggested that, irrespective of size of the city, safety depends on how a city is planned in terms of land use and design of public spaces,” lachhwani said.
Via Delhi 2050, there is need to study the city in the third even the fourth dimension (variation in usage during the day and night time).
This includes redundant spaces beneath flyovers, metro tracks and the multiple functions which take place in hidden alleys. This is done by looking into a very small neighbourhood.
“Another area to focus on is night usage of public spaces and streets in Delhi. It is true that the percentage of crime during the day is equal to one committed at night, so we are in process of coming up with ideas on making streets dynamic and adapting to safety for the entire 24 hours,” lachhwani explained.
But how does a street layouts prevent crimeIJ “I will refer to a term right of way rather than street layout. Right of way in layman’s terms means the space between one edge of the street and the opposite edge. It is necessary to see how and what happens between these edges and to make it safe, prevent crime and turn it into a vibrant space. This does not necessarily mean that we need to have hawkers or shops on the edge of a street to make it lively. Even how boundary walls of private houses, societies and bungalows are designed can make a lot of difference. There needs to be porosity at the edge of a street. Not physical or visual always, but porosity can be enhanced in terms of light, sound and air. We do not want to compromise on privacy, but new innovations in landscape design have given us a lot of solutions to work towards a good street design,” lacchwani said.
For this, there is need to make changes at the policy level. Stricter enforcements of rules already laid for determining site conditions and building by-laws which to an extent take care of intelligent planning will help address the problem.