With the inclusion of Chennai in the Smart City list, the city is bracing itself for rapid growth. The master plan indicates the development of peri-urban areas like Chengalpattu, Oragadam and Kanchipuram. The various road networks and metro-rail plans are gearing up to address this transformation. Major cities in South-East Asia face the challenges of growth and migration.
If these cities fail to harness the challenge, it could lead these cities to a grid-lock, slowing down average travel speeds, increasing pollution levels, resulting in the creation of urban heat islands. The task of re-imagining Chennai and its future could be one of the most engaging and meaningful urban processes. Now, the larger question that needs to be addressed is whether the city will embrace this re-imagination, or travel the trodden path. How can the city evolve a citizen’s participatory process and transparent local governance? What aspects does it need to conserve, and what needs to change? What about its rivers and bio-diversity? What tangible measures can be generated to de-congest, provide affordable housing and maintain celebratory public spaces, and thereby improving quality of living?
The unbridled growth of the city, driven by ad-hoc projects cannot build a liveable, humane city. A local, community-driven and holistic planning process is essential. The marina, the river-front, the tanks, the open spaces and OSR’s need a serious re-examination in terms of its public amenities and equitable access. Each zone requires adequate number of schools, health services, interactive public libraries and public utility spaces.
Each aspect of land-use and mobility requires greater attention to detail. Mobility involves seamless linking of metro-rail to buses, auto, cycle paths and pedestrian pathways. Smaller feeder services covering the residential neighbourhoods can facilitate de-congestion of the traffic and encourage public transport usage. The Indian Institute of Architects is formulating newer strategies to involve a participatory approach.
Confluence Ten, a largely inter-disciplinary think-tank, is evolving as a forum in the discourse of the city. Besides a series of urban interventions, talks and discussions, Confluence Ten has also been involved in university-level student workshops in urban design, river-front development, handmade tiles, carpentry, alternative materials, rain-water harvesting and skill building. Student initiatives are reinforcing the Corporation’s endeavour to ensure hygiene and safety and utilisation of public spaces. The role and responsibility of architects in generating these sustainable housing neighbourhoods require greater civic support. For instance, Chennai cannot afford to continue with the centralised garbage collection and dumping it at Pallikaranai.
Garbage segregation needs to be decentralised and each zone has to take up source segregation. The subsequent reduction in garbage disposal can improve the situation that the Corporation is presently facing. Converting organic vegetable wastes into bio-gas and electricity can ensure self-sustained energy cycle.
As far as buildings are concerned, persisting with plotted development will be a piece-meal approach. Redevelopment of GeorgeTown, Mylapore, Thiruvalikeni as heritage precincts, conserving eco-sensitive zones like Adyar Poonga, Vandalur and its rivers, can enrich the diversity of Chennai. Eventually, Chennai would need to evolve its own future urban process, rather than borrow or transpose models from Shanghai, Singapore and New York. Given its strong educational, industrial and cultural base, reinvesting faith in its humane character would transform Chennai, the way it has been re-imagined and its future, and not just as concrete jungle. A poly-centric democratic growth would be appropriate than an un-manageable anonymous megacity competing to be a smart city.
The writer is an architect and Design Chair at VIT University School of Architecture and Research.
