URBAN PLANNING

A new government rule on housing allotment criteria envisages reserving some flats in apartments for low-income families. This means, a well-to-do family could well have a really poor family as their immediate neighbours. According to the new regulation introduced by the State government, 15 per cent of the total space in posh apartments and villas is to be reserved for the urban poor. For example, if a builder has built an apartment with 2,000 flats, 300 flats in them should be meant for the poor. At least this is the spirit of the law. In reality, it may not happen.…

At the Neralu 2014, a discussion on the cultural meaning attached to some of the older, shade-giving trees in the city led to the awareness that people continue to worship the Peepul tree AND informally generate community spaces within their neighbourhoods. This led me to research this idea further and to look at how the peepul tree (Ficus religiosa) shrine with its serpent stones and the raised platform around it, locally called the Ashwath katte, contributes to the making of urban space in the city of Bangalore. The origin of the ashwath katte lies in the rural areas of India. In…

If you wondered why there was no special write up from Citizen Matters for the new year, here’s our excuse. Well, we did have a spectacular plan, however all the folks who needed to be on the same page as us, didn’t really come onboard. So this was our plan - to talk to key people involved in city administration and get them to look back on the past year and share with us their wish list for 2015. This turned out to be much more challenging than we thought. We had identified around ten eminent personalities and began a…

I took this picture from the top of Nandi Hill. Well, OK, technically, it's not Bangalore...yet. But remember the times when Whitefield, Sarjapura and Yelahanka were not Bangalore, either? The point I want to make is that a new layout has been created...and for all those homes, there is just one young tree, and perhaps some very small plants that one can see. What happened to our culture of planting trees on every road, so that we had shady avenues instead of bare streets? Why do we now have those in authority claiming that "Trees belong only in parks"? I…

As urban sprawl in India unfolds at a frantic pace, it’s quite natural to ask: where does a city begin and where does it end? What is the spatial terrain that makes up a city? What should the boundaries of the city government be? These are some fundamental questions that need to be considered while discussing urban governance. These questions become all the more relevant at a time when there are discussions for the division of a city such as Bengaluru into two or three different municipal corporations. While questions on the institutional form of the city government have received…

Pic: Facebook Community - Siddaramaiah: Save the Historic Balabrooie Guest House The Karnataka state government is reported to have decided on demolishing portions of Balabrooie Guest House, which currently houses the Justice Vaidyanathan Committee. It plans to build a clubhouse and quarters for legislators. Architect and heritage enthusiast Naresh Narasimhan points out how many illustrious people have stayed there over the years, from Mark Cubbon to Rabindranath Tagore to Jawaharlal Nehru. Bangalore Mirror reports that a group of artists and intellectuals, including SG Vasudev, B Suresh, Sreenivas Kappanna, and Jagadish and Arundhati Raja, plan to submit a memorandum to the…

In the past few months, I've been looking at how people continue to worship trees in Bangalore and how this can generate community space for a neighbourhood. I have been specifically looking at the Peepul tree and its ability to create places of memory and cultural value. The Peepul tree, also known as the Ashvattha in Sanskrit literature is a type of Fig tree (Ficus Religiosa) and the platform around it is locally called ashwath katte. While my research focus has been on how the practice of tree worship contributes to the territorial production of urban space, I have also been…

Four road safety entrepreneurs have been selected as winners in the innovation challenge “Safer Roads, Safer India: Game Changing Innovations that Save Lives.” Their projects were evaluated by an expert panel of judges and chosen as the top solutions from a pool of more than 80 entries that activate citizenship, improve governance to be more responsive, update infrastructure, and use technology to protect drivers, passengers, and bystanders. The four winning entrepreneurs, who were selected for meeting criteria for innovation, social impact, and sustainability, will each receive INR 300,000 as prize money funding to support their road safety innovations. They are…

Another ‘Cycle Day’ was successfully conducted by Yelahanka United Environment Association (YUVA) in partnership with Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT), Urban Development Department, Government of Karnataka and BCOS - in Yelahanka New Town next to Allalasandra Lake this 14th September 2014, Sunday morning (6:30 to 10:30 a.m.).   The last Cycle Day was held a couple of months ago and can be read about here. Cycle Days are being organized with the objective of popularizing cycling within the locality thereby helping in reducing motorized traffic, reduce pollution, reduce fuel consumption and improve health and fitness.   Around 4500 citizens including Honorable Speaker of…

The most common complaint Bangaloreans have about the city of Bengaluru is about the planning being a disaster. This is especially the case after Bengaluru grew out of its old city limits and ate up rural areas very quickly. All of this, coupled with reckless issue of permissions and corruption, led to disorderly growth in traffic, water usage and even hiving off of lakes for development. The term “well-planned city” is referred to in a utopian way by many. But come September 16, this is all about to change. Bangalore is one step closer to better planning and coordination between…