An itinerary in urban planning tourism
Some buildings prefer to be left alone. Malls, gated communities, and corporate compounds are self-isolating spatial creatures facilitating selective memory loss and escape. As they choreograph their physical and psychological exit strategies from the urban fabric, they invite some of us to retreat into their enclosed environs to forget and to indulge. I accepted their invitations. I went to India to study the emerging landscapes of shopping malls, corporate enclaves and luxury gated residences and their promises for better living. Pune’s gated villas enticed me to purchase a home where I could “say ciao” and “live life the Italian way.” A private bus transported me to the Special Economic Zone of Electronic City on the outskirts of Bangalore, where a Silicon Valley-style campus of palm trees, food courts, and other mall-like amenities encapsulate employees. And while riding the escalators of Mumbai’s Inorbit Mall, posters instructed me to experience such care-free consumer bliss as to forget my family: “Lose Yourself. Perhaps even your kids.”
Like their global counterparts, these Indian lifestyle islands frame shoppers as tourists, residences as resorts, work as play and in general, the everyday as a perpetual vacation. As a researcher/visitor of these lifestyles, I capitalized on their amenities, lexicon and captive audiences to devise a form of urban planning tourism as intervention. I worked with the Urban Design Research Institute and Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research to design communication platforms for the public to critique and speculate on the future of Mumbai in time to influence the 2011 master plan.
To do this, I studied the billboards, advertisements and programming of themed leisure and residential enclaves and appropriated their lexicon as a tool to activate discussion. I worked with student researchers to develop a series of postcards and card games that invite the public to share their aspirations for the built environment. I invited teenagers hanging out at The Phoenix Mills Shopping Mall to test the card games and observed their discussions about malls and their role in the City. I launched a postcard and web-based advertising campaign for the re-conceptualization of one of the City’s nature parks as an eco mall, in order to lure mall patrons to visit the much under-visited parks. The goal of each intervention was to increase public participation in critiquing the influence of privatized-public spaces, and proposing how the new master plan could incorporate the infrastructural, social, economic and cultural needs of its residents beyond the call for a select few to retreat to commercial environs.
Below are snapshots of research interventions in the format of a tourist’s travelogue – an itinerary that can hopefully be applied to touring/researching other global cities. More documentation, downloadable games, and recommended real estate interventions are available at betterthanliving.com.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Went to India.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Drank chai and bought a copy of the Hindustan Times.
Read the article “No time for nature, Mumbai is at the Mall,” comparing the paltry number of park visitors to the thousands of Mumbaikers spending their weekends at the mall. Made note of the laments of P.N. Munde, forest conservator and park director, “The media is not doing enough to promote these places.” Decided to make an uncommissioned ad campaign for the Maharashtra Nature Park.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Compared real trees with lifestyle trees.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Visited an authentic English home.
Rode the corporate charter bus to Electronic City.
Visited the headquarters of an IT company.
Walked past the Newton conference room and yoga studio.
Drank two lattes in the food court and tried on jeans at the company store. Was instructed by security not to take photos. Had lunch at Sprinville - an “authentic English village.” Took a tour of a model home on Cornwallis Street. Took site photos. Was chauffeured back to Bangalore by the realtor’s driver. Listened to the driver describe the extinct farmlands that have been replaced by suburbs. Passed billboards telling me to “stop dreaming of a home when a kingdom awaits me.”
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Discovered more.
Found the border of lifestyle. Explored the corridors of City Centre Mall.
Located the staff dining area. Observed construction from a caramel leather lounger. Had a seat with the ladies. Visited the sales office of Orchid Enclave. Imagined life in Tower 2. Was shown the dry balcony: “You can put a washer-dryer here, or a servant’s room.”
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Went shopping in the forest.
Was one of two adult visitors at the Maharashtra State Nature Park on a sunny Sunday. Recalled the newspaper article about low visitor turnout at the the City’s nature parks. Created an ad campaign lifting from the lexicon of the mall. Made postcards promoting the park that Amrut and I placed in Cafe Coffee Days and Barristas across the City. Made a commercial and a Facebook group.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Visited the “Citi of Joy.”
Entered model apartments for “Bliss,” “Happiness,” “Hurrah,” and “Cheer.” Learned that “podium gardens” are the playground of choice for the new middle class. Gazed through barred windows at the “labor camp” adjacent to the foundation pit for “Cheer.” Wondered which one is more of a prison (the luxury towers or the worker tents?). Smiled because people were living there.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Dreamt the Destination.
Climbed the malls of Navi Mumbai. Visited an Indian Village-themed Indian restaurant. Did not touch the animals. Ate “crazy corn.” Felt forever. Hopped over the torn-up sidewalks (demolished by developers installing infrastructure for new IT offices, residences, and more malls). Imagined gliding along the smooth streets presented in renderings parallel to the real-time, pock-marked foot path.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Speculated.
Made postcards that asked the public to envision the City in 2011.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Played to Plan.
Designed a card game called “Trade you a Tower.” Made half the deck renderings of new high-rise apartments and the other half photos of street life. Shuffled. Dealt eight cards per person. Challenged players to compose a balanced hand of private development and public amenities. Traded a tower for a bicycle.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Went to Phoenix Mills Mall.
Used Barrista and McDonalds as my research lab. Invited teenagers to play card games about the future of the City. Collected their drawings of what would replace the mall in 2011. Watched them trade cards with renderings of high rise apartments for those with park benches and baskets of mangos. Received a free pocket knife with my McVeggie meal.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Went home.
I would like to thank The India China Institute, Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research, the Urban Design Research Institute, Amrut Abhyankar, Rohan, Sirpotdar, Vyjayanthi Rao, and Danielle Willems for their support and collaboration.
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