The challenges of urban open space in the post-pandemic global south

Sandeep Menon

Cities in the global south are great examples of social engineering, they are seemingly cosmopolitan, provide for socioeconomic opportunities and also allow for blurring of the social stigmas that many rural hinterlands maintain. This leads to a steady intranational migration of people to the cities.

Even megacities like Mumbai do not have the adequate housing or the infrastructure to absorb this influx, often leading to the proliferation of informal modes of housing in unclaimed, disputed and often unsafe land parcels within the city – the slums. As per the 2011 population census, about 65.49 million people live in slums in around 2,613 slumreported urban centres in India. Dharavi, the largest slum of Mumbai, has a staggering population density of about 869,565 people per square mile. Such hyper concentrations of humans within the cities also magnify risks. The data on the current global pandemic of COVID-19 shows that the most affected are the urban areas where people live, work and travel in overcrowded conditions.

Historically, pandemics have played decisive roles in reimagining the planning and design of cities. Be it the introduction of efficient sewerage systems after the cholera outbreaks in London, or the abandonment of city cores following the ‘black deaths’ caused by plague in many European cities and in their erstwhile colonies, urban life has always been shaped by these.

Mumbai is emblematic of a 21st century city of rising inequality where risks and opportunities are not equally shared by all the city dwellers. A cursory survey of this highly contested city would reveal that the majority of the slums are concentrated on either former wetlands, or on precarious slopes of the vestiges of the hillocks in the city – thus rendering them as illegal encroachments as well as being highly vulnerable to disasters.

According to the WHO, nine square metres of green space per inhabitant is recommended for urban areas. Mumbai has a paltry 1.24 m2 per inhabitant. This is abysmally low for a city where the population densities are far higher than most global cities. This scarcity of usable public space often leads to temporary acts of ‘occupation’ of the street edges and other incidental open spaces by various stakeholders. Inner streets often double up as an extension to the ‘living room ‘or the ‘kitchen’ in most informal settlements. Multiple activities, like interactions between neighbours, local festivals, vending of groceries on pushcarts, makeshift ‘tea shops’ etc. at different times of the day, results in a choreography of movements which renders a certain sense of belonging and plurality to the neighbourhood.

The City Development Plans propose redevelopment of these slum clusters with the help of private corporations for providing better housing conditions. But, the ‘Slum Redevelopment Schemes’ often end up huddling the people in tightly packed high rise towers which are stacked so close to one another that provisions for effective ventilation, access to sunlight or adequate recreational open spaces are completely ignored. A recent study on the redeveloped slum housing in Mumbai highlights the high correlation between occurrence of tuberculosis amongst those residing in the lower floors of these towers, due to its insensitive planning and design aspects owing to the relaxed norms for such developments. The notions of ‘social distancing’ may seem a stretch of the imagination in such crowded conditions.

2. The dense development of Mumbra, a commuter town north of Mumbai, overlooking the degraded mangroves of the Vasai Creek.

© Sandeep B. Menon

The COVID-19 pandemic indeed exposed the unpreparedness and the systemic capacity gaps in global cities. However it also forces us to look for ways to redefine urban liveability, especially for the subalterns in hyper-dense urban agglomerations. While most allied global discourses have been centred on concerns regarding economic downturns, loss of livelihoods and lack of an effective solution for eradicating the disease, it is imperative to note that the lack of access to urban open space is also a matter of grave concern; one that has been constantly and conveniently over looked. 2020 also marks the beginning of the decade of action for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Viewing the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to re-evaluate the methods and approaches to deal with the social production of human habitats as being in conjunction with the natural processes could prove vital for ensuring healthy and resilient cities.

Informal settlements jostle for space with high rise residential condominium towers in the space starved city of Mumbai.

© Anav Sharma, KRVIA

Sandeep B. Menon is a practising landscape architect and a core faculty member at KRVIA Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies, Mumbai. His academic interests range from ecological urbanism, landscape ecology, sustainable urban water management, ecological corridors and wetland systems. He can be contacted at sandeep. menon@krvia.ac.in