Impact of gated Communities on Bangalore city Development

Gated communities prevent public access around the clock, to their own private land. Fulbright Scholar Renaud LE GOIX Examines Gated Communities in Southern California in a theses submitted by him in July 2003. These gated communities include their own private utilities like gardens, community centers and even star Hotels behind these gates. He however refers to them as a manifestation of “Urban Pathology”. Pathology a medical term means a study of diseases. He also considers them as public space being privatized.
The point I would like to make right away is, “public place being privatized” thought is a myth. On the other hand it is in the public interest that the honest, capable, and well reputed builders of Bangalore should be nurtured and utilized for a planned growth of the city. Urban pathology is also a misnomer. The pathology part is universally applicable to showing off or is it same as making a “statement”!

“Palm Meadows” currently no 1 address in Bangalore, developed by Adarsh Builders contains Tennis courts, a club house, star hotel with swimming pool etc. It has 500 villas built on plots starting with sizes of 2400 sft to 10000 sft. These are exclusive Villas restricted to two floors. Palm Meadows project one of the earliest started in Bangalore, in the last decade of 20th century. Adarsh has something called signature Villas, which is meant to be life time “statement” one would like to make.

When city fathers of Bangalore gave these big chunks of real estate to builders it was a moot point whether or not it should have been given. In fact they went “head over heals” to provide the developers, water of the river cauveri and electricity. Now the BBMP is not in such an envious situation any more. Hope fully the BBMP will be more frugal in the future about the utilization of these scarce resources.

With the above discussions it is easy to comprehend part of gated communities in the development of a city. The most important point that I would like to make at this point is that the BDA should learn an important lesson from these developers and have a relook at their Open communities

Bangalore Traffic Woes, avoid ad hoc solutions please!

Bangalore, keeping in pace with other cities in the world, has grown exponentially over the past half a century. The Key question while planning traffic solutions for such a growing city obviously would be “how to account for possible future growth?” Bangalore has a very good example in the Kempe Gouda Towers. Kempe Gouda had in his wisdom estimated the boundaries of Bangalore and built the Towers known after him.

The lessons, what we in our time should learn are:

1 The boundaries of a growing city are not absolute. They will keep extending.
2 To take care of moving boundaries, the planning should be insensitive to it.
3 Such a methodology, insensitive to the boundaries, should solely cater to the current community traffic, without being affected by its future growth.
4 This requires a through analysis of the basic requirements of a community for (a) its daily needs and (b) its daily activities, at present as well as in the future.
5 The key now is to look forward for these requirements as and when they come up. This new requirements should be catered for without affecting what ever is on the ground.
6 Is such a design possible at all? Is there an example available from which we could draw some principles for such a growth tolerant design?

The examples are plenty in nature. A Tree for example germinates from a seed and grows being stationary at a location in huge proportion to its beginning. The whole blue print is incorporated in its seed for future Proliferation to newer locations. The Human being also grows from a few Kgs to his final mass in due course and so on.

Now coming to the current issue of Bangalore Traffic woes, it is required to address ourselves to Bangalore Traffic as a whole and not piecemeal to be specific. If we solve the problem at one junction the problem is transferred to the next junction and so on. Taking a leaf out of nature’s book there should be no hold up of traffic at all any where. The traffic lights should be made irrelevant. There should be no crossings in major roads at all. All major Roads should be one ways throughout the city. The city means that which is bounded by outer ring road. We should keep in mind this is a temporary assumption.

It is possible to make this model work. The additional incentive is if we make this model work for Bangalore it will be a unique experience in the whole world probably!