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must
read
The future of cities
As city dwellers deal with loadshedding, food crises and gas
prices, one may wonder what the future holds for our burgeoning
metropolises. However all is not lost - books such as The Endless
City and On Guerilla Gardening may have the answer to the future
and how we can learn from people around the world (including those
imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay) about adapting to our environment.
By Aysha
Raja
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word 'utopia' finds its origin in between the Greek words for 'good
place' and 'non-existent place'. I was reminded of this as I watched
the gawd awful Hell Boy II repackage a theoretical dichotomy for popular
consumption. Nevertheless it struck me (no thanks to the movie) that
the human pursuit for this ideal through technological advancements
has catapulted us in the opposite direction. Our life and the cities
we live in are far from the utopias we imagined they would be. |
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I live in the city of Lahore and my daily routine
hinges on the use of a car whilst my comfort is controlled by the
settings 'cool' and 'high cool'. This year, however, my belief in
the automobile and the air-conditioner was exposed for a fallacy
as fuel prices placed my chosen mode of transport out of reach,
and an intermittent supply of electricity democratised my level
of comfort. Fuel prices and loadshedding have been the great equaliser
and I thank God for the reality check.
The truth is a large majority of Pakistanis face even greater discomforts
on a daily basis. Half of all urban residents live in slums or katchi
abadis. The public transport available to get them to and from work
is dangerous, and the roads themselves are unsafe. There aren't
enough schools. There are no libraries or cinemas, and for those
who can't afford anything else, even a park is hard to come by.
The social and economic disparity between the inhabitants of Pakistani
cities is extreme.
But cities don't have to be this way. This week, let me present
you with works that combat our oppressive urban environments, and
illustrate how cities and people around the world are responding
to their natural and built environments.
The
Endless City
The story of mankind is the history of development of the city.
The city has always been central to commerce and religion. They
have been the sites of invention and discovery, and have given us
the arts, music and science. The history of the city is the history
of human civilization.
"50% lived in cities in 1900, 50% is living in cities in 2007,
75% will be living in cities in 2050." These figures are written
large on the cover of The Endless City to remind the reader of the
importance of the city. For the first time, human society is and
will remain an urban society.
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The Endless City is an Urban Age Project by the
London School of Economics and Deutsche Bank's Alfred Herrhausen
Society. Once described as "urban nomads" by one of the
participants, Saskia Sassen, the Project consists of a diverse group
of urban leaders, academics, designers and professionals who have
pooled their considerable talent and experience to examine the nature
of the city and how it affects its residents, through six worldwide
conferences. The initiative focused on the challenges faced by six
megacities: Johannesburg, Shanghai, London, New Mexico, Berlin and
New York allowing experts to examine an array of living conditions,
and recognise shared concerns. For instance the problems involving
the slums in Johannesburg were found to be remarkably similar to
those in Sau Paulo or Dharavi in Mumbai. The knowledge and wisdom
gleaned from the outpouring at the worldwide conferences, has been
compiled and presented, in 510 brilliantly illustrated and indexed
pages, in the form of The Endless City. According to co-author Ricky
Burdett The Endless City is an exploration of the "more profound
connections . . . between urban form and urban society."
Let Saskia Sassen tell you about the vision of the new Global City,
a place where the service sector dominates and where the nation
state is only a peripheral player. Richard Sennett presents an argument
for an open city to rival the congested industrial template currently
in vogue. Enrique Penalosa, the charismatic former Mayor of Bogota
has contributed an essay on power, politics and urbanism in which
he argues eloquently on how money spent on transport infrastructure
can be put to better use building public pedestrian spaces. The
results of his three year tenure as Mayor of Columbia's capital
city are startling, as are his critiques of the modern concept of
development. (Lahori's keep alert: Mr. Penalosa will be speaking
at LUMS on the morning of the 19th)
The Endless City is an essential text for anyone eager to learn
about how civilizations changed cities and how cities now influence
us. It contains the collective wisdom of the world's planning and
development elite; presenting far-reaching proposals to transform
slums into vibrant communities, strategies to mobilize a workforce
and plans towards sustainable development. In its pages are the
personal accounts of urban reformers successfully implementing radical
ideas and interventions. Given the dismal state of Pakistan's cities,
a book like this should be prescribed reading for anyone in a position
of power and authority.
On
Guerrilla Gardening
On Guerrilla Gardening is another exquisitely produced book devoted
to the urban landscape, but author Richard Reynolds' agenda is more
specific: Cultivate land that does not belong to you. Yes, you read
me right. Richard Reynolds is part of a renegade band of gardeners
that hit the inner city streets of London at night to do a bit of
gardening on traffic islands and disused plots of land. These "guerrilla"
gardeners employ ingenious devices such as 'seed bombs' to plant
explosions of foliage while avoiding detection. Reynolds reveals
a movement stretching from Berlin to Bombay that is hell- bent on
beautifying and utilizing land that has succumb to urban blight.
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Guerrilla Gardening is not so much an account of Reynolds' experiences
as a guerrilla gardener as it is a treatise and a manual designed
to recruit and equip converts. The first part of the book is aptly
titled 'The Movement' and explores the simple truths of human sustenance
and happiness found in the land around us. In a time of food scarcity
and inflation, Ugandan guerrilla gardener Lyla's act of illegally
planting maize in a spot marked for road expansion makes imminent
sense. One can't deny the uplifting effect of cultivating land when
you consider how Sadiq, a Guantanamo bay detainee, surreptitious scraped
thesun-baked
ground of his prison, using a plastic spoon, until he had enough earth
to plant pepper, |
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and cantaloupe seeds saved from his meals. These, and numerous other
accounts of guerrilla gardening from around the world, come to signify
a global struggle to reclaim land from disuse. |
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We've all been told that land is scarce, especially if property prices
are to be believed, but Reynolds reasons that for the 6.6 billion
people on this earth there is up to 5 acres of land per person. Of
course this is a crude examination of land mass, but it's food for
thought when you consider that in reality only 15% of the world's
population owns land and the rest rely on permission to remain on
land, sometimes occupying as little as 0.01 acres.
So whilst residing in the realm of reality, Reynolds proposes that
we cultivate/garden disused land for which he provides us with a 'manual'
which forms the second part of the book. Every contingency is provided
for: the types of terrain, tolerance level of certain plants, threats
from vandals, authorities and pests. Even advice on propaganda tools
is provided to help your endeavours mature into a movement.
Admittedly, much of guerrilla gardening emerges from failure on part
of a city government to provide a suitable environment to its inhabitants.
Reynolds tells us that one of the earliest incidents of guerrilla
gardening comes from the crime ridden New York of the 70's, where
inner-city neighbourhoods such as Harlem, Lower East Side and part
of Bronx and Brooklyn had reached apocalyptic proportions of decay
and destitution with children playing in urban wasteland, against
a backdrop of burnt out tenements.
Despite the insurmountable challenge presented by the landscape a
band of young hopefuls began to scatter seeds about vacant lots in
the hope that some would germinate. The efforts of these 'Green Guerrillas'
resulted in scores of community gardens, many of which were later
adopted by the city despite their illegal origins.
Although planting on another's overgrown property may appear illegal
on paper, what of the moral bankruptcy that allows a plot to turn
into a rubbish tip when children in the same locality are reduced
to playing on the road?
Reynolds reminds us of the importance of parks and public spaces for
social cohesion. During loadshedding I have seen people seek respite
from the oppressive heat by emerging from their homes onto nearby
green belts and spaces to enjoying the shade and the company of their
neighbours. You might have a generator or a UPS for the duration of
the outage but the vast majority does not.
With The Endless Cities there is finally a resource available to guide
the bold and brave in making our cities the utopias they should be.
And where possible, just to help them along, I will plant a tree in
the cover of night so someone can bear another summer without electricity
under its shade.
-Aysha Raja is a bookseller and avid consumer of her own wares. She
is the proprietor of a new book service The Last Word (www.thelast
word.com.pk) |
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