The ills of modern cities

For the past four months I have been settling down to life in the foothills of the Himalayas in a village a few kilometres above Dehradun after all the hurlyburly of Mumbai But while there is birdsong fresh air and great views the most compelling impression has been that of real estate development The sound I hear most often is of earth movers and concrete mixers straining up the hills negotiating steep inclines and narrow dirt roadsThree out of four hoardings advertise some new property The names range from Raj nostalgia geographical impossibilities and the craving for the ideal and the improbable Imperial Towers Arcadia Hillocks Pacific Hills and Green View Blossoms Whispering Willows and Park Belles pronounced lsquoBellesrsquo to make it easier for some customers but donrsquot tell them I told youThe enduring shame of Mumbairsquos slums and shanty towns remain for all that the authorities have spent the last 20 trying to extern them for the criminal act of being poorrdquo Representation picBuildings cannot be taller than seven storeys in and around Dehradun but there is hope amongst developers that soon a magical height of 10 will be the norm Meanwhile as there is enough land there are no problems yet with parking and gardens in these apartment blocks If there is a problem it is with the same unbridled growth and apparent ignorance of zones Silence has been provided by nature but is easily destroyed by a marriage ldquogardenrdquo that comes up opposite a school and next to a facility for assisted living for the elderlyThe few malls that Doon has are packed on weekends and contain several high and middleend brands But the pavements outside well to be honest there are no pavements Just rubble organised better or worse The fancy wrought iron street lights put up on the higher reaches of Doonrsquos iconic Rajpur Road have already suffered in the past six months from bad maintenance and terrible drivingTogether with impressive growth and comparatively high prices a 3000 sq ft flat can cost upward of Rs 2 crore and a room at a five star spa is in the range of Rs 35000 night urban distress and squalor are everywhere And images of the degradation of Indiarsquos finest city come flooding back to youThe pavements that Mumbai lost together with the open spaces the shared areas the cleanliness yes indeed I can remember that perhaps there is a shared spirit left but it is depleted The enduring shame of Mumbairsquos slums and shanty towns remain for all that the authorities have spent the last 20 trying to extern them for the criminal act of being poor As Daniel Brook says in his History of Future Cities albeit about Shanghai ldquoModernity is about more than fast trains and tall buildingsrdquo Moral policing has been as dangerous to Mumbairsquos future as all the freebies handed out to developersThe British poet John Betjeman in his charming little pieces for The Telegraph London wrote in 1962 about Londonrsquos housing problems ldquoUgly spreading places could be rebuilt more compactly with traffic segregated from pedestrian areas There is less harm in building upwards if there are pleasure and peace in what is on the groundrdquoA somewhat utopian concept for todayrsquos Mumbai but surely a kernel of an idea that it could conserve and also allow progress The only thing saving Mumbai right now from becoming a total nightmare is the effort of its citizens to save and maintain For every few foolish ideas there has been at least one that has worked and it is the only way to save ourselves from the politicians we have made into our masters Although Maharashtrarsquos voters have given our politicians a little shared misery in this recent electionDehradun however is an oldnew town itching to become a city It has the chance to learn from all the mistakes made before I see citizensrsquo efforts working to preserve and encourage the charm of old areas of Rajpur Road But I also see the same big city desire to turn your back on surrounding urban squalor by opting for a fantastically named but inevitably insular lsquogated communityrsquo the impossible search for lsquolikemindedrsquo people which does not just keep those you donrsquot like out but also fosters seething anger in those left behind and denies you the vibrancy of city lifeThe trucks havenrsquot stopped wheezing uphill past my window eitherRanjona Banerji is a senior journalist You can follow her on twitter ranjona