Negt Negtotiating gtot
76
2
3
4
7
6
8
9
83 IA&B- AUG 2007
emerging urbanities
A class act…the rUrban Meltdown And the term “rUrban” which in architectural theory was a romantic notion manifests itself as a confused Frankenstein’s “Creature” hosting on the fast urbanising countryside – from slums in cities to pakka structures in neo-villages. As this progresses we as planners are faced with a range of questions…
The spreading city
As citizens of the developing world’s contemporary metropolises, we constantly protest it’s defacing at the hands of the slum’s squalor. As new development plans fail to straddle this consistent dilemma, have we ever questioned their origin? Even if we manage to banish this squalor, how will the city adjust after having become a sheer dependant on these squatter settlements for its servicing needs? The demand of the city’s infrastructure has been poaching the rural outback, first depriving them of their self-sufficient habitat and then driving them to become urban refugees without a vocation for this new location. As we expand the urban boundaries into rural scapes are we really so blind as to not expect a backlash?
As the ratio of urban area vis-à-vis the rural narrows down and the class divide becomes deeper a series of accounts become testimonial to the dichotomy of our developing world, where democracy comes to a privileged few. Author: Ajay Nayak Photographs by the author