Fascinating Talk on Charter Cities

Romer on Charter Cities is a fascinating conversation with Paul Romer of Stanford University. You can listen to the podcast.

I was very intrigued by the note below on Jane Jacob, is her Hayekian or not. Most interesting point for me was what this would do for the poorest of poor of the world. Usually critics jump on these ideas and label them elitist – “Rich are trying to secede”.

Also check out the TED presentation. Arable land versus urban space ( Romer illustrates using light points on night map of the earth) is really cool.

Related posts:

1. Wheelchair test (3.023)
2. Not just Delhi, Madam Sheilaji! (2.957)
3. Let a hundred Hong Kong bloom (2.472)
4. Hope is the antidote to Naxalism (2.251)

Footpath in the media

Now that we are having a Footpath Bachao Andolan in Chennai, with more and more individuals and groups trying to address this issue, let me add to the mix. Some write ups and media coverage and shameless self promotion by moi. Well anything to be able to walk endlessly and aimlessly, without getting run over or falling into a ditch, in my city.

Corp to accept complaints on footpath woes in The Times of India

300 Kilometers of sidewalk in Chennai Today

Pedestrian-friendly road model taking shape in The Hindu

Lattice Bridge Road in a blog by the same name

Cool Shastri Nagar Junction

Shastri Nagar Junction Reco Full Diagram

Originally uploaded by Chennai City Connect

The diagram on the right is part of the presentation we did for the Commissioner of Chennai Corporation and his team of engineers and officials. Click to enlarge and see other diagrams on our flickr site.

This is our version of what Shastri Nagar Junction in Adyar can look like if redesigned with care. The Commissioner and team were very engaging and encouraging.

For rest of the stretch, from this junction to MG Road Junction, we have detailed notes and suggestions on CAD survey. If interested contact us.

Our team: Dr Murthy Bondada (Fullbright scholar at IITM), Mrs Kavitha Selvaraj (CRN Associates), Ms Sangeeta and Ms Swetha (Architects and ex-Anna Univ grads) and City Connect staff.

We surveyed, photographed, took detailed notes and so on and converted it into nice Powerpoint presentations.

We used some simple principles:

• Try your best to find space for pedestrians, hawkers and others. Come up with a compromise/consensus solution. It does not have to be either/or.
• A footpath can have pedestrians and hawkers, side by side, OR pedestrians and bus stand. Not all three in one place since pedestrians always loose, they get pushed onto the road.
• Give islands to people to wait while waiting to cross the road. (We have proposed an island under the tree you see on the left at the junction.
• The footpath can wind around trees, behind bus stops, etc. It does not have to be a straight line. As far as it is walkable, sloped appropriately for entry and exit, etc.

We also have a set of international standards and do it yourself kit. The idea is that any citizen group should be able to redesign their neighbourhood footpath and related pedestrian facilities using paper, pencil and measuring take.

Our conclusion, at least as far as this stretch is concerned: There is enough space in about 80% or 90% of the stretch to accommodate pedestrians and hawkers. In fact, someone can even build proper structures for hawkers and give enough space for pedestrians to walk and shop.

My hypothesis waiting to be proven:

Hawkers occupy places that are not in use. That is, they don’t sit where people can or are walking. So you don’t clear “encroachment” to make the footpath walkable. You make the footpath walkable to clear the encroachment automatically or prevent it from happening in the first place.

Poetically put, footpath is like the river, pedestrian like a water, hawker like sand. If you place a stone in the river, you obstruct the flow of water, change its dynamics and hence sand accumulates behind the stone.

Similarly, if you make the footpath unwalkable, usually it is build unwalkable from the start by building it a foot high with no sloping at entry and exit, you signal that the space is ready for occupation and “encroachment”. In fact, the encroachers are doing us a favour by utilising precious land in the most efficient manner possible. It would be foolish and wasteful to expect them to leave it unused.

The Corporation is in the process of implementing these suggestions.

Wheelchair test

After few years of managing software development teams, I realised that it is not easy to figure out when a particular project is done.  Especially if you are working with multiple teams, multiple departments, sometimes in different cities, complicated requirements, demanding clients and so on.  This is worse when your team members are lying, cheating crooks, who are delusional and paranoid that someone is going to discover what they have actually done.  (Just kidding.)  So a hapless manager can only do one thing.  Ask an independent testing team to create tests that the software must pass.  Clear and simple.  Pass or fail.  This works especially well if the testers are paranoid about missing a bug (a error in a software) and latch on to the developer like a crazy street dog until you fix the problem.

I assume all this is true when it comes to city administration.  Competing claims, lobbies, unwieldy unions, lying cheating crooks, whiny public, and so on.  How do we even know when the authorities are done building safe, clean footpaths?  What does clean and safe mean anyway ?  In fact, what does footpath mean ? 

Well, why not create a simple test and get a bunch of people, who will latch on to the city administrators until the footpath passes the test.  So here is my test for footpaths.

Assume you have an old person in your family.  Grandpa, grandma, annoying old uncle. He or she is really old and is wheelchair bound.  Now the test for the quality of your city’s footpath is that you should be able to push this old person’s wheelchair, with the old person in it of course, from any point in the city to any other point in the city.  Without the old person having to get out of the wheelchair.  Without you having to carry the wheelchair with the old person in it.  Without bystanders and you having to carry …   Ahhhh… My lawyers are working on this to get the words right and loopholes free !

There is a reason for the wheelchair being part of the test.  A person who can walk can also jump over holes and pot holes.  He can get off the footpath and get on with relative ease.  A wheelchair cannot. 

If you have seen the footpaths in Chennai you will realise that even a Olympic Decathlon champ would have difficulty staying on it.  The footpaths are build at heights that only superman can climb.  Even if you climb on a footpath, it lasts only for a few feet.  Because the footpath dips downs again, a sharp fall that is, in front of every house and shop’s entrance.  All this if you are lucky and the footpath is not obstructed by parked cars, autos, shops, gates, illegal constructions of all sorts.  Crap, crap and more crap, usually literally.

Hence the wheelchair.  If the wheelchair can roll smoothly, then you can walk, run or skip on the footpath, from point A to point B.

Now as for testers….  Why not ask old people groups ?  (Yes I realise old people are no longer called old people.  They are, I suppose, differently youthed people or something like that.)  But I figured when old people can actually walk on the streets, without the fear of being mowed down by an assorted variety of vehicular manslaughterites, especially because of my patented ‘Wheelchair Test’ idea, that would be respect enough.

When a road and its footpaths are built, or so claimed by the road and footpath czars, let the elderly unleash themselves on them.  Whip out the wheelchairs and run the test.  Count the number of old people and their wheelchair pushers in the test team.  Chalk out the routes.  A to B. B to C. C to Z.  Ready, set, go!  After the trip count the number of people in the team.  If no one is missing, the team did not have to get down from the sidewalk, etc. test passed.  Else failed.  Sue government.  Take authorities to court.  Picket the city corporation.  Repeat until success.

Wouldn’t that be an inspiring sight ?  Large groups of old people and their well wishers testing their footpath.  Also, no complicated physics, chemistry or mechanical and civil engineering to tell us whether the road and the footpath actually work.

(My apologies to the old people, for any perceived slight of their physical abilities.  Many of them are healthier than so called young people.  If this is the case, the young person can sit in the wheelchair and the old person can push it.  My test is flexible.)

Jokes aside, this would come handy whether the road is being built by the government or by private companies.  This could be part of the bidding process for road building contracts.  Old people association certified.  Like ISO 9000 certified.  The point is that private groups and associations should have more say in these matters.  Old people or not, consumers should have a choice.  Roads should be built by agencies who satisfy consumers’ demand.  If government agencies cannot do this, then let the private companies do it.  Reward private companies if they deliver.  Punish them if the fail.  When it comes to many things, including roads and sidewalks, pedestrians are not treated as tax paying consumers.  This must change.