Reclaiming Bengaluru for walking

IN PERSPECTIVE

For decades, it seems, Pamuk has wandered the backstreets of his city in sweet tristesse, lovingly storing in his mind every last minutia of what he sees and hears and smells, and relating it all to what he imagines.” So starts Jan Morris’ review of Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul. Pamuk and Morris provide us with a tender, partly sentimental way of looking at cities; of cities as living organisms, with loving descriptions of shops, markets, dogs, traffic policemen and trains, noises and smells and fountains and temples. They gave me a love of walking the city to see its people and history through its streets. Walking across Frazer Town, Jayanagar, Brigade road and Richmond Town, each neighbourhood is a different experience, with different histories, stories and narratives.

In this time of viruses, isolation and quarantine, more people are walking. For the privileged few that remained in the city after the March 2020 exodus of migrants, job losses, income losses and rising fuel costs have meant that vehicles stay parked and walking is the primary mode of movement. It has become necessary to step out of the house and access the city through a short walk to the local grocery stores, pharmacy, etc. This walk in Indian cities is usually extremely uncomfortable. The possibility of being run over by vehicles, navigating gobs of paan spit, the lack of designated sidewalks (uneven and filthy when available) and moon craters as roads, careening cars and autorickshaws and the cacophony of noise, are constants.

With the current redevelopment of Bengaluru with highways and flyovers, the annihilation of thousands of trees, and the dramatic reconfiguration of the city, I wonder if the city will ever be walkable again.

In Bengaluru, we appear to be reproducing the history of the Western city, albeit 150 years later. We are building large stretches of roadways, with flyovers and underpasses all designed for the car. Efficiency and speed (of vehicular traffic) became synonymous with modernity and cities in the West found themselves investing in highways and highspeed roads replacing boulevards and sidewalks. Baron Hausmann in Paris and later Robert Moses in New York epitomised this need for efficiency and sanitization of the city.

Napoleon thought that “Paris was overcrowded, dingy, dirty and riddled with disease” and wanted it more like London “with its grand parks and gardens, its tree-lined avenues and modern sewage system.” Through Hausmann and the wealthy, he was prepared “to ride roughshod over the opinions of others and make absolutely no concessions to democracy.”

Since the 1950s, voices like Jane Jacobs have advocated reclaiming the city for the common man. Jacob writes about walkability, street life, diversity, mixed-use as cornerstones of great cities; that a neighbourhood must serve more than one function; blocks must be short, to maximise the experience of variety; the neighbourhood must include old buildings and new, to keep affordability and help keep change gradual; and there must be a sufficient density of people for a social scene.

In the last century, city planners and policymakers have been reversing large-scale infrastructure development across the Western ‘developed’ city. Cities are returning streets as public spaces for people (Highline in New York, revitalizing a defunct railway line into a people-oriented green elevated walking path; revitalization of the Seine River waterfront in Paris).

In Bengaluru, the metro rail alignment has displaced entire communities, the widening of ‘spoke’ roads entering the city has destroyed thousands of trees, devastated wildlife corridors and destroyed village communities along the route. Some may say this was all necessary. However, the lack of foresight and public participation in the development planning process of the city is problematic.

With Covid-19 and the migration of people, it is critical to question the pre-pandemic development of the city. While public infrastructure is important, public participation broader than elitist engagement is critical. The BBMP is facing significant questions that it has previously ignored. It is, per force, deregulating its public health engagement with the city by reconnecting with ward committees (a 74th Amendment requirement, but largely ignored) to handle the spread of the virus in the city. This is a positive step, and hopefully will empower ward committees to engage more in urban issues like infrastructure development, heritage conservation, transportation management and real estate development. The BDA, the planning authority, is being questioned for its lack of engagement with the pandemic. The mayor’s office needs to be strengthened to facilitate more public participation. Perhaps, the Covid-19 crisis will create conditions to facilitate the changes needed in Bengaluru.

Structural changes will not occur overnight. However, the pandemic gives us a chance for more robust participatory processes. Hopefully, people will want to retain the character of neighbourhoods like Frazer Town and Jayanagar, whilst improving living conditions and infrastructure, and force the government to listen to their voices and engage with the city in a more humane manner. Perhaps, in the future, we will be able to rediscover history and find joy in walking across a city that encourages our common humanity and social connection.

(The writer is a Bengaluru-based urban planner)