Smart City, Global City and Intelligent City and many more such catchy phrases have been coined these days
to promote the concepts of urban development. Having remained in the exclusive domains of the few like the
administrative and the political class, who are using these phrases to score brownie points in attracting
industrialists and prospective investors. The common citizens still has no clue what these actually mean in
real terms.
If the objective is to make Hyderabad a global city, firstly defining clearly what it means to be a global city, will open up avenues to explore the best possibilities suitable to our circumstances. Half of the solutions can be achieved by approaching the problem in a sensitive and appropriate way instead of importing alien sounding or even looking solutions. And there is no dearth of good sensible architects and consultants in India, who understand it better and have the capacity to deliver, if only we approached them with a little more honesty and considerations towards the real issues.
The city needs good footpath, better green cover on the streets, respect and accommodate the informal economic sectors, more community level green open spaces and recreational facilities, integrated and comprehensive transportation system for the city, improved electricity and drinking water supply system, paved streets even for the poorest localities, homogeneous spread of city infrastructure like sports facilities, cultural centres, and libraries, better signages and communication system, sensitive approach towards re-‐ adaptive use of heritage buildings are just some of the key issues need to addressed simultaneously.
If the objective is to make Hyderabad a global city, firstly defining clearly what it means to be a global city, will open up avenues to explore the best possibilities suitable to our circumstances. Half of the solutions can be achieved by approaching the problem in a sensitive and appropriate way instead of importing alien sounding or even looking solutions. And there is no dearth of good sensible architects and consultants in India, who understand it better and have the capacity to deliver, if only we approached them with a little more honesty and considerations towards the real issues.
The city needs good footpath, better green cover on the streets, respect and accommodate the informal economic sectors, more community level green open spaces and recreational facilities, integrated and comprehensive transportation system for the city, improved electricity and drinking water supply system, paved streets even for the poorest localities, homogeneous spread of city infrastructure like sports facilities, cultural centres, and libraries, better signages and communication system, sensitive approach towards re-‐ adaptive use of heritage buildings are just some of the key issues need to addressed simultaneously.
The development of a city is not just about few popular central locations like the Lake side or the core
business districts. Hyderabad will be a real global city, when the streetscape in Jagatgirigutta is as green,
clean and beautiful as it is Banjara Hills, when Hayat Nagar in the outskirts has schools which have continuos
electricity supply and have toilets for the girl students, when the poor of Rahmath Nagar in Jubille Hills get
the ‘Pucca Houses’ and minimum medical facilities, as promised by successive governments.
What we need today for our city is a excellent script in the form a good, futuristic and inclusive urban design, Indian architects who have designed master pieces of highest degree of excellence in creativity and aesthetics, as the real actors, and inviting for an design and urban innovation competition as the real process to create a super hit city-‐ a city its citizens would be proud of. Creating a global or world class city does not only mean creating few architectural marvels of real estate, but it also means providing suitably and sufficiently for the poorest of the poor of the city and also creating some of the most basic infrastructure which we generally take for granted. “A city can be judged by the way its poor live,” says the famous architect Kamu Iyer from Mumbai.
If only we can develop a master plan with more focus on physical planning of each zones, it will help the city have a balanced built form and distinct skyline. If only we can focus on our lakes and rock formations, integrate them in our development plans rather than subject them to encroachments and vandalism and isolate them as pockets not be touched, we will have a Hyderabad, as a role model for many others cities across the nation. We need a cohesive, comprehensive and creatively holistic vision for the city.
It is time now for the creative and intellectuals, the administrative and the political class, the business and the industrialists to come together and create an Indian paradigm of development, which is sensitively responsive to unique Indian context and serves the purpose of creating a built environment, cities of future, and life of dignity for every Indian.
What we need today for our city is a excellent script in the form a good, futuristic and inclusive urban design, Indian architects who have designed master pieces of highest degree of excellence in creativity and aesthetics, as the real actors, and inviting for an design and urban innovation competition as the real process to create a super hit city-‐ a city its citizens would be proud of. Creating a global or world class city does not only mean creating few architectural marvels of real estate, but it also means providing suitably and sufficiently for the poorest of the poor of the city and also creating some of the most basic infrastructure which we generally take for granted. “A city can be judged by the way its poor live,” says the famous architect Kamu Iyer from Mumbai.
If only we can develop a master plan with more focus on physical planning of each zones, it will help the city have a balanced built form and distinct skyline. If only we can focus on our lakes and rock formations, integrate them in our development plans rather than subject them to encroachments and vandalism and isolate them as pockets not be touched, we will have a Hyderabad, as a role model for many others cities across the nation. We need a cohesive, comprehensive and creatively holistic vision for the city.
It is time now for the creative and intellectuals, the administrative and the political class, the business and the industrialists to come together and create an Indian paradigm of development, which is sensitively responsive to unique Indian context and serves the purpose of creating a built environment, cities of future, and life of dignity for every Indian.
No comments:
Post a Comment