Public and Private Space in Mumbai
At first the mere delineation of public and private space in Mumbai seems a joke:
Laundry is drying on the divide of the street median, children are using the restroom wherever they choose, and every surface in most every time of day is an appropriate place to nap.
With so many activities that seem to only take place indoors in most western culture taking place outdoors, it is surprising to note that care-taking of public space fluctuates greatly. While some vendors on the street may clean and sweep near their “shop” regularly, others leave everything to the wind and rain, with wrappers piled left and right, mud all across the sidewalk, and concrete rubble piled along side of daily activities.
The city street itself seems a constant churning of physical forms, people, fruit, dogs, dust, rain and even the cobble stones themselves, flip out of order regularly only to be nudged back into place by the bare hands of some sari-dressed day laborer. The order is hard to describe though it does seem there is some logic to it, though the sense and purpose are more nested in immediate pragmatic needs than in the actualization of some method of work and living that will ever make things easier. Even in social settings, planning is unheard of and it seems even rude to ask for a plan. If a plan is set forth it usually changes completely with meetings happening instantly or not at all.
Here and there beautiful things happen though—out walking one evening I passed one of the multi-trunk trees here (the name of which is still unknown to me) and for whatever reason the tree had been fitted with boards between the trunks to create a sort of public bench. Small tin images and decorations were also pressed between trunks giving the tree a very welcoming presence, as though it were a lone wolf-tree park that admitted just two persons at a time.
Certainly, I am still new to the city and perhaps my way of looking for signs of how space is used here are not yet fitted correctly to the culture. At best, my indications so far are that though chaotic, the streets have an accessibility to all classes that western streets do not. This is an interesting place for urban planners, artists, and social scientists of all sorts to begin from as they query the best methods for engaging, serving, and housing Mumbai’s growing population.
Mumbai Stats: transport and dwelling
A recent visit to Pukar sat me down in front of a small but extremely helpful set of publications from the 2007 Urban Age India Conference that yielded the following helpful stats. in getting an over view of Mumbai:
In Mumbai 6.5 million live in slums. With a population of 13,662,885 that means close to half of the population occupies slum dwellings.
The city is home to over 300,000 street vendors- just a few thousand of whom are licensed.
Dharavi, the city’s largest slum has populations that range up to 80,000 per km squared. 50% of the city lives in unauthorized housing that likely has unreliable sources of electricity and water. Much of the occupied land is owned by the government, though surprisingly the slum of Dharavi has organized itself to the point of having representatives in government.
When it comes to travel and transport within the city:
3-13% of households have cars (an interesting fact when you come to learn how much money is being spent to make auto travel most convenient).
40-50% of travel takes place on two-wheelers
40-50% takes place on bikes.
The city relies mostly on walking, cycling, and IPT ( Intermediate Public Transport) to get around. The buses seem only half safe- not so much stopping at various streets but slowing down so that passengers hop off when they need to.
For those living in slums 50-75% of travel is walking or cycling.
Mumbai and Vision 2020
About a month ago I found out I received the Fulbright grant I applied for. I will be moving to work in Mumbai, India a little less than two months from now. The last few months have been loaded with work, but I am re-committing to my blog activities as my reading is once again on the up and up.
On that note, I’ve been reading today about Mumbai’s efforts to reshape its city center under a plan called Vision 2020. The debate as to whether this effort is going to help or hurt Mumbai is raging and there is no doubt that the heart of the city will be changed forever. The link below details the dramatic affects the planning will have on India’s street hawkers; members of the city’s alternative economy who are experiencing misrepresentation and issues with rights to the city as street codes are changed.
Mumbai 2020: Dream or nightmare?
by Sumit Bhattacharya in Mumbai
Gigapan train in iPhoto Quicktime
I shot this series of photos with a Gigapan camera last summer. Though I never managed to sit through the painfully slow stitching process I did put it together in Quicktime form. It gives a viewer the feeling of nodding “yes” as cars and trains go by. Yes southern town of York, Yes.
A Dearth of Dreamy
Here I am in the wilds of Alabama feeling more inspired than I’ve felt in a long time. Maybe it’s because the town I’m in is so small. For example, I feel like I could make a bad t-shirt and it would be okay. I also feel like I could do any drawing project and it would be well received. That’s a sounds a little like I’m disregarding the taste of the locals but in this case, it feels like the locals would just like a bit of stimulation or something out of the ordinary.
I come here and feel like I can think about life, but this place does not look like or work like my life and after I leave it will be funny to try to fit the logic of this town and time into my life back in Pittsburgh, PA. Maybe that’s why I can think about life here: this is certainly not my life…but it could be! And so suddenly my life feels a little fragile and mutable and that’s exciting.
Pittsburgh is routine for me. I feel like I know who I am there and that makes it hard to think about who I’d like to be. I am a tool box that knows its contents.
The brain of a tool box that only takes inventory of it’s own contents at times.
“Hum, let’s see, I contain a hammer, a wrench, a measuring tape….”
So your brain starts thinking it can only make things with the stuff it contains.
or
in my case, (zoom out from the analogy) I start thinking only in terms of affecting the world around me in the city I live in (which I’ve officially decided is small) and I start thinking of things to do, projects or work, that only involves the institutions right in front of me or the organizations right in front of me. I think this is only natural in some ways, your body and brain adapting to your location, but I also think it can be so stifling sometimes that you just need a change of scenery so you can have a new idea.
Why do I feel entitled to this journal-esque blog entry? Well because I do. In the place I’m in right now everything closes down at 7pm and if you don’t have
daydreaming and rambling then you don’t have very much at all.
Well goodness
John Meada wows me again with with an excellent TED talk on simplicity.
John Maeda
I haven’t felt compelled to post very much in a while.
Is it possible to reach a point where you are too analytical to appreciate? To be surprised? To even enjoy the world around you?
I can’t buy a watch because I can’t find a watch I like. It’s not that there aren’t “good watches” out there it’s that literally, the watch I want doesn’t exist as far as I can tell. (oh how I have looked.)
The nice thing is, that if the thing you need doesn’t exist, you are not trapped as a consumer- well some are- but I am a maker of things. Maeda was a nice reminder of what that means.
It was nice to find John Maeda toying with the world. Thanks John Maeda. For being downright playful with that stodgy, clumsy, learning curved thing called technology that defines so much of what we need and how we come to it.
Maeda: “… I actually don’t like technology very much… but it’s not about how to make the world more technological…it’s about how to make it more humane…” Right. Technology can help that happen.
Now I’m back on track.
Where is 100 Days in the News?
Dear readers: 100 Days in the News has taken a step forward by getting a nifty little site of it’s own apart from the In Lieu blog! What does this mean? Several things:
1. Yes Oh Yes the project is still kicking. >>>kick!!!<<<
2. If you subscribed to In Lieu like a faithful reader, and you would still like to receive 100 Days in The News updates you will need to subscribe to the new site. Visit the site and look at the column on the right. There you will see a place to jump on the RSS feed that you can attach to Google Reader. Easy right?
3. In Lieu is going to sway back towards my general writing. I hope all of this isn’t too much to follow but 100 Days needed some space of it’s own. It’s independently hosted now and that gives some added flexibility that was much needed.
100 Days in the News: update update update
Yes, fine friends some of you may have noticed a slowness in my posting and it’s time to fess up and make amends. I have had a touch of the flu over the past few weeks and while I completed a number of projects, at the end of the day I was too pooped to post.
The whole experience made me question whether or not I should press on with the “consecutive” part of the 100 days project. I’ve decided to stick with it though- realizing that I am a creature who needs structure:)
It has been very meaningful to read the news to know I need to respond to the material at hand. I am more alive in my reading now. Hopefully I will acquire this disposition permanently.
Here we go with a barrage of posts! Each will be posted to the day it’s inspirational articles are drawn from.
100 Days in the News: day thirteen project: Bling Natural
Welcome to day 13 of the 100 Days in the news project. For 87 more days I will be pulling news stories from my Google reader and making artwork about it!
Today’s news inspirations are:
from Tree Hugger:
One Small Step Away from Extinction: Polar Bears to be Granted ‘Critical Habitat’ by Department of the Interior
by Matthew McDermott, Brooklyn, NY on 10. 7.08
from boingboing:
One in four mammals facing extinction
In the face of hardship nature must adapt. With two articles in one day warning about the not so bright future our four-legged friends face it’s time to talk strategy. Fluff and whiskers just isn’t cutting it anymore. This year’s cute and furry is Bling Natural. Keep an eye out for squirrels burying designer acorns: platinum and emerald with sapphire-topped white oak acorns;perfect squirrels with modern, elite tastes- or bronze and sliver acorns topped with diamonds for winter snacks that last “forever”.
