Here Pedestrians hold back traffic after painting a sidewalk on the street. Photo from Friendlyghost.

Krishnaraj Rao lives in Borivli, a suburb of Mumbai known for its famous Sanjay Gandhi National Park, and, more recently, its residents who have taken to the streets demanding that pedestrians be treated with respect. Along with Mr. Santosh Jangam, a bookseller turned activist, Mr. Rao is the head of a movement called Sahasi Padayatri which is leading a grassroots campaign on behalf of pedestrian rights in Mumbai. Through this movement he has been engaged in a variety of initiatives and non-violent agitations to improve conditions for pedestrians; he has demarcated lanes for pedestrians on streets where pedestrians compete with buses, cars and motorcycles due to the lack of walkable footpaths and he has dumped rubbish blocking pedestrian areas at the steps of local government office buildings to raise awareness of the obstacles facing pedestrians. This weekend I had the chance to correspond with him by email. Below is the interview.

How have cars and motorbikes changed Mumbai’s streets?

Cars and motorbikes – especially the former – represent the prevalence of speed, brute force and money power in our society. They represent a constant threat to those who don’t have these vehicles, and subtly divide people into haves and have-nots. By virtue of being seated in an automobile, one feels one has a divine right to make hundreds of other people scurry out of his way as he approaches. I feel this mentality needs to be curbed for the good of society.

At what point did you realize that pedestrians were being forced off the roads? Has it been a long process, or has it happened rapidly?

Personally, realization of this fact dawned only in the past year, when, because of my concern about climate change, I began increasingly to leave my car parked and go out walking or using public transport.

But I do realize that this erosion of the pedestrians’ right to walk safely has been gradual over the past two decades. I recognize now that the motorist’s ability to honk a blaring horn and to subtly threaten to run down someone who obstructs him has skewed the balance. The pedestrian, by contrast, endlessly adjusts and modifies his path, peacefully yields the centre of the road to moving vehicles and the roadside to parked vehicles etc. The pedestrian rarely protests – and this has been his undoing.

Much of your activities revolve around something called a Satyagraha. Since a lot of our audience doesn’t speak Hindi, could you provide a brief explanation of what Satyagraha means?

At a mundane level, Satyagraha may be defined as a peaceful, non-violent way of agitating against a faulty system, in order to demand a change in the system. Please note, a Satyagraha is never against a person or group of persons; it is only against faulty systems and continuing injustices.

It is necessary for such agitation to be easy for people to directly relate to, and also for the agitation to inflict some hardships on those who agitate. A key part of the non-violent approach is to avoid evoking negative emotions such as fear and anger in those against whom the agitation is aimed.

At a philosophical level, Satyagraha means SATYA + AGRAHA, which roughly translates as “Truth Force” or “Truth Command”. Indians believe in the saying that “Truth shall Prevail” (Satyam Eva Jayate) in a rather literal way. We believe that the Truth, if clearly stated without any personal agendas, has a force on the human psyche that exceeds the force of threat and violence.

Civil disobedience is closely allied with Satyagraha – the two terms mean almost the same thing. Civil disobedience means inciting civilians to act peacefully against an authority that is on the side of wrongdoing. Setting off a civil disobedience movement involves inciting citizens to peacefully but firmly disobey the laws that hold them prisoners to wrongdoing, and strengthening their self-confidence by raising the pitch of their defiance of authority.

Needless to say, Satyagraha and civil disobedience call for great strength of character, self-restraint and inherent fearlessness.

Ok, so now that we know what a Satyagraha is, could you tell us a little about some of the initiatives you are involved in and what types of things you would like to see happen on India’s streets with respect to pedestrians?

The first thing we are doing is called a Pedestrian Satyagraha: This method of agitation consists of a large number of citizens forming a half-kilometre long human chain at the road centre with a wide strip of khadi cloth, while a 6-foot lane is demarcated with white paint along this human chain. This, accompanied with picketing and distribution of pamphlets, forms our “Pedestrian Satyagraha”. (See photo above)

The second thing we are doing is a Debris Satyagraha: The municipal corporation has no mechanism for clearing stony debris and left-over concrete pipe sections from roadsides, and therefore it has not done so for years and even decades! This rubble and stony debris lying around from years of construction work degrades the quality of roads, pavements and our city as a whole. It hinders pedestrians and vehicular traffic, endangers motorcyclists and assists encroachers and anti-social elements. Therefore Sahasi Padyatri has made it a point to lift the stony debris, and peacefully deposit it in front of the gates of city offices with placards urging the city to clear the debris. We believe that by doing so, we are doing half the job of the city, that is, lifting debris from the road. Therefore, the city is required to do only the other half of the work by disposing of it.

Residents pick up an old pipe, which had been blocking pedestrian space. Photo from Friendlyghost

The third thing we are doing is called a Letter Satyagraha: We continue to inundate the authorities with large numbers of letters and signatures by selling letters and collecting signatures on trains and in public places. All these letters – written in four languages, English, Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati - ask for six feet of road space exclusively for pedestrians.

Since the 17th of March, we have held eight Satyagrahas of the first two kinds - one at Bombay Central, four in Bandra and three in Borivli. Our last Satyagraha was the Debris Satyagraha held at Bombay Central on Sunday, April 20th.

Read the rest of the interview here

(Special thanks to Madhav Pai for arranging this interview.)

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A McMansion under construction in Texas. Photo by Dean Terry.

In the last few months major magazines and papers have written provocative pieces about the housing bubble in the United States and what it means for the future of the American City. Below, you can find the most interesting pieces:

• The Next Slum? Christopher Leinberger argues that a profound transformation is taking place: dense urban areas are seeing a renaissance while suburbs and exurbs are showing signs of decay. Why? “Sprawling, large-lot suburbs become less attractive as they become more densely built, but urban areas—especially those well served by public transit—become more appealing as they are filled in and built up.”
• There Goes the Neighborhood Matthew Yglesias looks at neighborhoods effected most by the housing bubble and finds that exurbs and fringe cities - where mass transit is non-existent - are taking the biggest hit.
• Slowdown Hits Towns at Outskirts of Texas Boom Reporting for the New York Times, Leslie Eaton talks about how one bedroom community on the fringe of Dallas is struggling to stay afoot as housing values plummet.

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Here’s a neat picture from Adrien Rovero, that nicely compares the amount of urban space needed for a bike compared with that needed for a car. Photo from INOUT DESIGNERS.

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In Tokyo, green space is scarce. Photo by Yuki Yaginuma.

Over at PingMag, a website that bills itself as “an online design magazine based in Tokyo,” you can find some really neat photos and videos about what Tokyo’s residents are doing to make the dull and drab cityscape a little more green. Some of the things range from the obvious - “guerilla planting” or, if you’re a little less radical, moving potted plants onto the sidewalk - to the bizarre - playing recordings of bird’s chirping in the subway (there’s a funny video of this). There’s also the tacky - building concrete trees and plastic plants.

What’s clear from all this is that Tokyo’s residents are desperate for nature, in whatever manufactured form it can come in.

Thanks to Joe Foti for this one!

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New York Times Magazine writer Randy Cohen, aka The Ethicist, sits down with Mark Gorton from The Open Planning Project and discusses the ethical implications of driving, congestions pricing, biking and the use of public space by private individuals. Mr. Cohen argues passionately for cities that are clean, livable and pedestrian friendly. Moving to a post-car culture is not about asceticism, he argues, but quite the opposite: “what we’re talking about is how people can be happier…that the automobile undermines…our ordinary daily happiness…”

Special thanks to Rob Katz for finding this outstanding video!

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Photo of Brooklyn-Queens Expressway by See-ming Lee on flickr.

Author Will Self walks. He walks where people are not meant to walk. He walks out of airports into cities and from cities into airports. He has walked from the middle of London to Heathrow, from LAX to Watts, from O’Hare into downtown Chicago. In a humorous piece by radio show Studio 360, Will Self walks a particularly unwalkable piece of terrain, from La Guardia into Manhattan. In the process he climbs fences, walks through cemeteries and somehow must deal with the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (a project of Robert Moses, New York City’s “Master Builder”).

In his new book, “Psychogeography”, Self explores how geographical environments shape our psyche. He believes that modern transportation such as highways and airplanes disorients and distances us from the world around us but that walking has the ability to reconnect us to the spaces we inhabit.

In an interview with the Boston Globe, Self claims that,

“I’m interested in orientation. I’ve been traveling around the States on author tours for 15 tours now. A lot of these North American cities I’ve been in and out of numerous times, but I never knew where I was. That’s an abuse of me and an abuse of the city, to reduce it to an assemblage of cab rides, bookstores, encounters with journalists, barrooms, and then back to the airport. These walks allowed me to reclaim these cities.”

In an urban world dominated by cars and freeways, walking around cities “is a form of dissent,” Self tells us, it’s “an insurgency against the contemporary world.”

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According to Leinberger, Washington’s metro has encouraged walkability. Photo by MatthewBradley from Flickr.

According to a study put out by Christopher B. Leinberger of the Brookings Institute, Washington DC has the most “walkable places” - it has 20 - per capita of any city in the United States, when just 20 years ago it had a scant 2. Leinberger attributes Washington’s rise in walkability to two things: (1) the success of the metro system and (2) the use of “overlay zoning districts” that encourage walkability around metro stations.

Other factors that come in to play are the area’s robust economy, the city’s large population of university degree holders (who are more likely to live in walkable areas), and the throngs of 20 to 30 somethings who flock to the city for jobs.

How could New York with its canyons of glass and steel not be ranked first? Here’s the catch: New York has the most “walkable places” of any US city but because it’s population is so high and falls short on the per capita side.

Urban planner Richard Florida also has some thoughts of his own on his blog.

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Although slightly long, this video by the good people at StreetFilms has a lot to offer the urban enthusiast. Long-considered a dangerous country plagued by narcotics and violence, Colombia is actually at the forefront of the worldwide movement to develop innovative solutions for sustainable cities. Bogotá has become an urban gem in recent years, and this video explains how the seemingly simple act of shutting down over 70 miles of city streets every Sunday to motorized traffic in favor of bikes, skates, skateboards, runners, walkers and aerobics enthusiasts has helped create this transformation. As one gratified user says, ¨the Ciclovía (or bike path) is the best thing that Colombia has invented.¨ For new ideas on how to improve quality of life in our cities, watch this video!

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This video from the Wall Street Journal talks about the trials and tribulations of Hummer owners in Tokyo, Japan. Part of the allure of owning a Hummer here is the hassle: “It’s like dating a difficult woman,” one mechanic tells the Journal. Other highlights: Because of lack of urban space in such a compact city, many Hummer owners are digging up and cementing over their gardens for Hummer parking.

Special thanks to Monika Kerdeman for finding this video!

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Cars and freeways are cutting through Cairo. Photo by seyerce from Flickr.

In Cairo, my spouse and I lived for a month in a high-rise in a central-city neighborhood called Garden City. Cairo, a city inhabited by about 18 million people, is notorious for its poor air quality. This report tells us that, “According to the World Health Organization, the average resident of Cairo ingests more than 20 times the acceptable level of air pollution a day.” (See here, too.) Many mornings, I’d look out of our tenth-story window and see little except the heavy brown miasma of pollution that had settled over the city. Those days, too, my throat and eyes would sting the moment I opened the window or walked outside.

By no means does all of Cairo’s air pollution come from cars. But certainly the cars sitting for hours in the city’s traffic jams belching out their exhaust fumes contribute to the problem. Sometimes the traffic does get to move, but with some hazard. In this 2006 account of Cairo’s traffic problem Reem Leila wrote that some 7,000 Cairenes were estimated to be killed in traffic accidents each year, and a further 35,000 injured. Although the number is staggering, it still is believable. If the traffic on the big, 4- or 6-lane streets that surround Garden City was by chance moving, it did so in a crazed, desperate way. (I never saw a single speed limit sign posted anywhere in the city.) Crossing such a street meant playing a heart-stopping game of Extreme Human Frogger.

The streets were equally hostile to pedestrians within Garden City, too. The neighborhood had been developed by the British in the 1920s as a leafy area with streets that wound engagingly between two- and three-story family homes, each surrounded by its own walled garden. One could imagine families from the nearby British High Commission going out in those days for pleasant walks through Garden City with their nursemaids, and little boys with hoops.

But today? No! Most of the area’s original Art Deco “villas” are now long gone, replaced by high-rises, housing banks, embassies, or apartments, with almost no provision for off-street parking. At some point, someone in Cairo’s infamous City Hall, the Mugamma, must have had the idea that, to prevent motorists parking on the city’s sidewalks, the sidewalks should all be raised to a height of 12-18 inches. In Garden City, the combination of sidewalk-raising with ill-kempt, sidewalk-planted trees pushing out thorny, low-hanging branches and the frequent cross-streets and driveways, has been to make the sidewalks unusable by any pedestrians, let alone by anyone with strollers, wheelchairs, or impaired mobility. So the neighborhood’s pedestrians are forced to compete for space in narrow roadways almost completely clogged in daytime with cars that are either double-parked or simply blocked and immobile in traffic.

To give the Egyptian planners their due, they have struggled for decades now with Cairo’s traffic problem. The city has overlapping bus, trolley, tramway, and subway networks; numerous vehicular overpasses; pedestrian overpasses; etc. But these fixes have all been quite unequal to the dual challenge of dealing with (a) Cairo’s rapid and near-constant growth, and (b) the free-market emphasis of the national government and the political elite, which has been wedded to an inordinate affection for the private automobile.

The result is that traveling around any part of Cairo is a stressful, health-threatening experience, for pedestrians and even for those in cars.

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