The forces and demands that press against the Indian city daily are formed out of entirely rudimentary considerations. Therefore, the plans for Narendra Modi’s hundred cities and industrial corridors must look in an altogether different direction.

The smart city is an urban means to enhance the use of municipal utilities and public services. Its reliance on computerised data and digitisation allows for an efficient allocation of resources and a more equitable distribution to city consumers.

Is such a description an adequate foundation for the new Indian city?

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The city and considerations

The forces and demands that press against the Indian city daily are formed out of entirely rudimentary considerations. Shrinking homes, deteriorating air, poor sanitation and overstretched transport have left the city resident with low expectations. In the next decade, 35 towns will grow into mega cities, each with a population above 10 million. Within these monuments to third world urbanism, life will grind to a halt: the current 60 per cent of slums will rise to a whopping 90 per cent, traffic movement will decrease to cycle speed of five kmph, and family occupancy space will shrink from the present 200 square feet to a mere 80 square feet. What this foretells for the provision of basic civic necessities of these places is a painful, unanswered question. Their security, their social and cultural life, their state of well-being, remain an unasked question.

However bleak this scenario, the pessimism need not translate into future planning. If anything, the plans for Mr. Modi’s hundred cities and industrial corridors must look in an altogether different direction.

The new city

Unlike its medieval conception as a place bounded by walls and gates, the new city, once built, will stretch beyond visibility and physical comprehension. It will house people, places, incidents and ideals that may never intersect with each other. But within the vast agglomeration will be the existence of smaller cities, places with personal boundaries with constant engagements for its local residents.

In many ways, these smaller, localised cities must enthral and engage in the traditional way. Such a traditional intent can only be achieved through a radical reversal of property rights, zoning, bylaws and civic design.

Nowhere in the new scheme should the government extend any form of home or commercial ownership to private parties. Even if places are built in partnership with builders or developers, the ideals of leased and rental building would allow for greater mobility of city residents. In the absence of gated communities, people would not just live, work and recreate without unnecessary commutes, but the freedom of mixed-use living would additionally create a more engaging social life. The privatisation of social life in the Indian city — pool, movies, libraries, play areas — has made the city insular and protected. By returning the facilities to the public realm, the city would gain a more vibrant collective life.

One-dimensional surface

Moreover, the Indian city has so far been an entirely one-dimensional surface experience. Homes, offices, cars, pedestrians all inhabit the ground, despite conflicting conditions of ecology or occupancy. The mismatch between pedestrians and vehicles, landscape and road is itself enough reason to consider serious separations for each condition; and to rethink the possibilities of making places away from the ground — up in the air, or underground, as in the sky bridges of Chicago, the underground commerce of Minneapolis. The idea would be to provoke the users into a more comprehensive realisation of the third dimension. In cities short of usable ground space, the earth below and the rarefied sky would offer numerous architectural possibilities.