One can see shiny buildings, extravagant shopping malls and showrooms, lots of expensive cars and perhaps you can find all the big international brands here. Gurgaon, which was pretty much barren land two and a half decades ago, seems to be a vision of an International Indian city – ‘Millennium City’ as they call it. The city is a financial success with a huge number of multi-national companies and outsourcing businesses setting up base here. It accounts for almost half of the revenues of the state of Haryana, and has grown at neck breaking speeds. On the face of it, one might be inclined to conclude that the city has been a smashing success.
In reality, Gurgaon is at the edge of societal and administrative dysfunction. The lack of a masterplan or a city governing body meant that private developers could do pretty much what they wanted. The developers lack the incentive to plan public infrastructure and allocate resources and land uses with an eye on the future. Their concern with simply maximising profits has been a cause of short sightedness. So we have a collection of fancy looking buildings with no proper systems for sewage waste disposal, water supply, and even electricity supply. Additionally the city is heavily compromised in disaster preparedness as even the fire department is under developed to deal with the present and future scenarios. In the short term vision of selling international commercial spaces, we seem to have completely forgotten to plan the basic fabric of citywide infrastructure that ought to keep it up and running. As a result, we have a city with world class spaces functioning like a collection of private islands, each with their own private infrastructure – sewage disposed in pits below buildings, water supply extracted from bores, in some cases electricity being generated day and night by diesel generators, private security guards and high boundary walls. Owing to the lack of public transport, there are cars everywhere, but ironically no one planned city traffic and parking. The absence of a strong city administration for a city of about a million people has brought it to chaos. The citizen who lives in these private bubbles has nowhere to go to resolve his complaints with the city.
What is further appalling is the lack of social infrastructure and public spaces. When Swiss architect Mario Botta visited Gurgaon in 2010, he remarked asking whether he was visiting the set of a doomsday movie! Market forces determined creation of commercial and residential spaces, but developers simply missed out on building schools, hospitals, public parks or even just walkable streets. Some of these needs were subsequently catered to in a limited way by profit making enterprises, driving up the costs of living. Public spaces where citizens converge, interact, enjoy or relax do not exist. High street malls, restaurants and pubs take up this responsibility. Hence the credit card is the key to city; those who cannot afford it are excluded. These are the foundations of a socially un-sustainable city.
This trend of private development is most articulated but not unique to Gurgaon. Other cities too have pockets of such private development. A lot of the ills faced by citizens could be avoided with just proper planning. There is a dire need to strengthen leadership in running our cities, and empower planners and engineers to execute holistic visions for urban agglomerations. A good city is one that is inclusive – where people of all economic strata can find a place for themselves, where there is sharing and collaboration, where the built and unbuilt spaces interact and express relationships amongst them creating a fabric, and where people have a right to the city. At a time when India is looking at the prospect of building new cities for the future, Gurgaon gives us a lesson on how not to build a city.