Gentrification : Upgadation or Degradation

Gentrification is a shift in an urban community toward wealthier residents and/or businesses and increasing property values. Gentrification is typically the result of investment in a community by local government, community activists, or business groups, and can often spur economic development, attract business, lower crime rates, and have other benefits to a community. The process of Gentrification could be of up most significance if studied wisely and in a regional inter-dependent context. There are a number of urban villages in the national capital of India which by community interests and participation could be made economically viable spaces on one hand and could also raise the quality of life standards of the inhabitants of urban villages.

Hauz Khas is a tiny suburb of New Delhi often compared to New York City’s Soho or Greenwich Village. The gentrification of this 12th-century village began in 1980 when a famous Indian clothing designer opened her showroom here. Later all followed, and today the area covers chic restaurants and sophisticated boutiques.

Today, Hauz Khas Village is almost a wishing room of urban fantasies, a place where the chic bohemian can live out a Soho-esque adventure with ease. Quaint, meandering gullies lead to tiny art galleries, restaurants where the owner might step out from the kitchen to have a beer with you, designers' studios, enchanting little shops; there is undeniably a particular energy here, a vortex of creativity you can't help but be drawn into. It is this interplay between history, culture, creativity and modernity that Hauz Khas seems to thrive on. Ayesha Sood, a filmmaker quoted this 'initially, the concept of Hauz Khas Village seemed like a fairy tale, because it was firmly against the gated-colony syndrome'. While the community has tried to retain its cultural character, the generational bullfight cannot be overlooked. The cultural disparities in these villages are much more manifest today. While the older generation is bound to its own ways, the youngsters are hopelessly pampered and the generation sandwiched between the two has emerged as a new business middle class.

Urban Villages has experienced a horrendous growth in terms of planned development of the city with being the location of prime interest of the migrants for their living due to low rentals and affordable market. Migration can’t be stopped but it can be directed and so as in this case by showing it a guiding lamp of certain initiatives and policies. Mixed use on certain village streets has been provisioned in MPD-21 in order to create local marketplaces and boost up the economic status of the communities. These kind of steps and policies reverse back when they aren’t looked at regular intervals.

The concept of Gentrification should be raised at diverse platforms and its awareness among the communities should be spread to not let these so called urban villages lag way behind from the overall human development of the city. However, in this process of Gentrification - the plan should be formulated according to the various factors in integration and predictions have to be made far more visionary. The process has some merits and demerits as well. There can’t be any prototype design for it – it has rather to be studied and carefully looked in depending on factors like its history, the culture it has nourished, the emerging needs, the social structure, economic viability, etc,.. Any misguided step in the process may lead to haphazard development of the area and hence the complexity of the gentrification process and the structural behavior of the urban ecosystem should be well understood before any such attempts of gentrifying an area/region/village/space are made. The process of Gentrification might upgrade or degrade the affected lives. Therefore it's very crucial to be visionary and studying the aspects of human settlement could play a big role in the entire process.

Image from tushky.com

Delhi: Cars, cars everywhere, just no place to park.

Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink: Samuel Taylor Coleridge had famously written in his poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Were he to write on Delhi’s parking problems, he would have probably started: Cars, cars everywhere, just no place to park. True, the growing number of cars and finding a place to park them is one of Delhi’s biggest urban nightmares. It has also led to a host of other problems — traffic congestion, encroachments, no walking place, quarrels, road rages and even murders.

Sample this: Parking has consumed nearly 10% of the city’s urban land and green and open spaces. In stark contrast, the share of the capital’s forest cover is just 11%.

And it’s just not about a chaotic present. Worse is in store in the future. The constant addition of cars — 1.6 lakh are registered in a year — means Delhi needs an area as big as 310 football fields to accommodate them every year, studies at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) have shown.

From 39.40 lakh vehicles in 2002-03, the number has risen to 74.38 lakh in 2011-12, an 88% increase. All this for cars that remain parked for 90% of the time, meeting only 14% of Delhi’s travel needs.

About 1% of Delhi’s population of 17 million lives in Lutyens’ Delhi. This has pushed growth to the periphery and increased dependency on cars.

Innovations such as multi-level parking have failed to provide any relief because of the long cruising time and lower charges in surface lots.

Lack of adequate parking space also leads to all kinds of crimes. Last year, parking caused 27 cases of violence. 15 murders over parking have been reported in the last five years.

In residential areas, service lanes of colonies are packed with vehicles and this leads to frequent fights. Residents suffer as emergency vehicles such as those of police and fire services often get stuck.

Parking in residential areas does not cost a rupee. The absence of a parking policy due to lack of political will only add to the woes.

The urban sprawl of Delhi has forced more and more people to use cars. This has led to the creation of a massive car-centric infrastructure. “Flyovers, signal-free corridors and overbridges obstruct and destroy movement patterns needed to promote walking, cycling and public transport. Even more people are forced to use cars...the vicious cycle continues,” said CSE’s expert Anumita Roychowdhury.

The version of this article was first published in Hindustan Times. Images from HT Media.