Professor- Alokeparna Sengupta Name- Aditi Agrawal

Course- Audits and Assessments Date- 13th May 2020

Student ID- 18080016

Does our existence mean anything?

The city centres filled with parks, squares and gardens. Children roaming around and playing.

The tourist from all around the world resting and getting their pictures clicked. The newly

blossomed tree which has become a spot of shade and rest for the people. Senior citizens

sometimes sitting on chairs, sipping tea and gossiping and other times walking to get fresh air

or performing their daily chores. Parents of children gathering around talking to each other

while having an eye on their children. Street hawkers selling balloons, toys and chat. The

children and young doing cycling as the practice does not have any obstacles and hurdles.

People enjoying “a low stroll to enjoy city life or a sunset……walkers turn or stop to see

everything or greet or talk with other.” (Gehl, Pg. 120) On the sidewalks, “a lively city”

where people are walking, eating, talking and resting. An abundance of Thelawala’s along the

side of the road selling fruits and vegetables. The streets surrounded with low rising clothing

stores, supermarkets and Kiryana’s shops which has become a resting place for people and

likewise allowing an ample amount of “street watchers” (Gehl, Pg. 97) and “eyes on the

street” (Jacob, Pg. 35)

Daily life in a “lively, safe, sustainable and healthy city” (Gehl, Pg. 6) comes to the city

where there are a lot of places of pauses, where people greet their strangers, where people

allow strangers to be seen and looked at, where adults look out for the children of others,

where the presence of cyclists and pedestrians have been given more importance, where the

entire day of the people’s lives is filled with the interaction with others.
The layout, the interaction and the essence of the traditional city where human contact was

the essence, “Human Dimension” (Gehl, Pg. 3) was the meaning, fear to step out was omitted

and the only thing that remained was the love of the streets has now been jeopardised with

the modern spatial planning. “The traditional function of city space as a meeting place and

social forum for city dwellers has been reduced, threatened or phased out” (Gehl, Pg. 3) The

emergence of large shopping malls high risers with no human contact, conversion of open

spaces into tall office buildings, development of exclusive luxury apartments and

demarcation between the public and the private has not only led to the disconnected spaces

but also have led to social segregation. Where earlier the spaces were enjoyed by each and

every type of community, it now has been restricted to a certain group of society. The

transformation of spatial fabric has altered the meaning of public spaces by creating unusable

urban spaces, thereby questioning the sense of belongingness and accessibility. This article

while focusing on the design of everyday urban public spaces like streets, gardens, squares,

spaces within residential areas, privatized public spaces like shopping malls, illustrates how

the design of public spaces have led to an unequal access thereby, contributing to the

marginalization, in terms of giving importance to certain specific “mode of transport”,

keeping the strangers out to provide “safety” and making “gendered segregated spaces” hence

restricting the accessibility. It is argued that the public spaces instead of marginalising should

progress beyond its aesthetic corners and should create spaces that keeps “human dimension”

as their centrality to promote urban quality. With the aforementioned idea, I argue the

importance of the creating lively and comfortable spaces, largely “Spaces for all, and Spaces

accessible to all.”

There exists an intersection between the urban mobility and public spaces, where the

incorporation of the former brings a life in the latter. The relationship between the efficient

usage of the public space develops an idea of sustainable mobility and vice-versa. “Good
public space and good public transport system are simply two sides of the same coin.” (Gehl,

Pg. 7) A whole plethora of activities are integrated in the concept of public spaces, ranging

from spaces to perform certain activities to places of mobility, where people moves from one

place to another and where people come to, thereby increasing the social interaction as well

as enhancing the sustainability of the public spaces. Unpredictable or sometimes unplanned

interactions between the actions of walking, sitting, moving, resting and conversing are very

much a part of the city public space, which decides the movement of the people, there coming

in or going out and thus influences the urban sustainability. (Gehl, 2010) “We are on our

way, watching people and events, inspired to stop to look more closely or even to stay or join

in.” (Gehl, Pg. 20) The traditional idea of the planning gave importance to the idea of the

streets and public spaces an integrated approach where the social and cultural life of the cities

were dynamic, vibrant, natural and multi-functional, which had access for each and every one

making them an integral part of the planning system. However, the modernist ideas of wide

roads and fast mobility have diminished the emphasis of the functional places with more

importance to the traffic movements which have reduced the importance of streets as a public

space. The consequence of the application of this modernist theory is not only “reduced

opportunities for pedestrianism and cyclists as a form of transport but have also placed the

social and cultural functions of a city space under siege.” (Gehl, Pg. 3) Streets have started to

become more like that link road networks that only allows people on car, with higher velocity

and fast mobility to travel long to very long distances. The whole theory of modernist

planning has been linked with the idea of division in the cities functional areas, where the

experience of experiencing the life within the city have been restricted with the movement

through cars. The arrival of cars have completely destroyed the function of public spaces and

hence, have marginalised the whole notion of mobility by cycling and walking, therefore

completely destroying the meaning of the spaces as connected, short and lively.
Public spaces of modern cities works in a complex manner, with two different lenses yet

integrated with each other. One lens provides the opportunities to individuals to interact, an

arena for social representation and have unlimited contact with strangers whereas the other

through the design and the social community results in the perception of space that excludes

and unwelcomes an entire group of social community which includes poor, the homeless and

the immigrants, because of the notion of them being at a state of distrust. This privatization of

public spaces produces personalization (reducing accessibility) thereby, giving power to

control and dominate the environment around. In addition to that, it also reduces the social

integration of the space and jeopardises the valuable essence of the traditional public spaces.

These spaces through the span of time either become lost for a certain group of society or

becomes “barbarous”, alienated and foreign. (Jacob, 1961) As a result, these spaces leads to

the state of a complete extinction. “Barbed wire and iron bars fortifying houses, security

patrols cruising residential areas, security guards standing in front of shops and banks, signs

threatening “armed response” outside houses in exclusive quarters, gated communities”

(Gehl, 97)- the several responses are not some of the results to make the spaces safer, look

cleaner, less in crimes and filled with established individuals but are the results of the fear

and insecurities arising from the perceptions of the people doing this. (Gehl, 2010) This

spatial segregation and perception of making a secured environment, promotes modifications

in the behavioural patterns which either ends up in a positive direction or a negative direction.

As Jane Jacobs say -“A well-used city street is apt to be a safe street. A deserted street is apt

to be unsafe” (Jacob, Pg. 34) The privatized- urban poor encounters are seen as a sense of

illegality, therefore disappearing their participation and making them marginalised. The

whole cycle from making the streets safe and secure to their unequal access makes the spaces

more deserted, which leads to the negative effects instead of the positive ones, where the

former being increase in the criminal hazards and diminished social interaction.
Public spaces are not gender neutral. Women everyday feels discrimination while accessing

them and while enjoying their social and cultural rights through public spaces. Every time

they wish to go out their mind gets loaded with questions ranging from Whose space is it?

Are we allowed to access it? What will happen if we access this space? Is the space safe? The

discrimination ranges from being set up by the law to being direct where women due to the

consideration of being less powerful than men experiences reduced access. The gendered

distinction between the public and the private is the first distinction that restricts their equal

access to the public space where the public space is considered as belonging to men and the

private as that of women. Women can only access the public space when they can legitimize

the purpose for being there and behave in an appropriate fashion. (Jagori, 2009) Such

behaviour implies informal control over women, where there is subordination in terms of

access and excluding them of having access to loiter. “It also undermines their ‘right to public

space’ and, consequently, their ‘right to the city’, understood as a state where every citizen

has an equal right and access to the city and its public spaces.”(Mahadevia, Pg. 155) Their

“right to city” and “right to public spaces” comes with an attached sense of fear and safety

issues which acts as a common barrier to use the public space. The intensity of the fear

overcomes, depletes and degrades the experience of experiencing the vibrant public space as

they need to remain vigilant at all times. The fear women experience is largely due to the

design of the public spaces which acts as a catalyst in increasing street harassment, rape,

gender related killings etc. Women sometimes overcome this fear by choosing specific

clothing, wearing certain symbols, walking in groups, or by simply spending time at places

where they feel safe. (Jagori, 2009) Women’s ability, right to access the public place and

sense of safety is dependent on the kinds of boundaries imposed upon them due to the design

of the spaces. The indirect design of the spaces leads to the direct imposition in their mind
which vanishes the easy and free access to the spaces, leading them to act in a certain manner

and isolate and seclude themselves from the activity of loitering.

Urban public spaces are coherent spaces which develops interrelations between the citizens.

The design of these spaces makes the presence of people an integral part of it, which

promotes and establishes interactions, community development and relationships of the

people with others and with the surroundings. These active urban spaces, if designed

properly, provides greater participation of, pedestrians, cyclists, strangers, undesirable people

and women and equally shapes and molds their behavioural patterns. However, in order to

understand the ideologies behind the issues of safety, accessibility, equality, security and soft

mobility it is important to question their regularisation and to emphasise more on the

problem. What is targeting more priority to fast mobility? Why do women feel unsafe in

public spaces? Is it because of the design or because of the community? Why are the crime

rates increasing? Is the creation of private areas really helping to solve the issue? How do

people feel when they walk around or do they even walk around? …… These issues can only

be tackled by performing audits, conducting interviews and even observing the spaces. As

Jan Gehl says, “Sometimes, the most valuable information you gather in a public life survey

is something you observe, or a conversation you have, that simply comes out of spending

hours at a time in a space.” (Gehl, Survey Toolkit)

 References

1. Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Random House, 1961.

2. Gehl, Jan. Cities for People. Island Press, 2010.

3. Phadke, Shilpa, et al. “Why Loiter? Radical Possibilities for Gendered

Dissent.” Routledge, 2009.

4. Mahadevia, Darshini, and Saumya Lathia. “Women’s Safety and Public Spaces:

Lessons from the Sabarmati Riverfront, India.” Urban Planning, vol. 4, no. 2, 2019,

p. 154., doi:10.17645/up.v4i2.2049.

5. “Using Public Life Tools: The Complete Guide.” Gehl Institute.