Mumbai Day 18: Interview with Sonal Shah

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking with Sonal Shah, an Urban Development Associate at EMBARQ India. Ms. Shah graduated holds a Bachelor’s degree in architecture from Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies, Mumbai, and a Master’s degree in International Planning from Columbia University, New York.

Taylor Cornelson: Before we continue, could you briefly describe your role at EMBARQ India?

Sonal Shah: Perhaps it’s best to give you an overview of the organization as well, before delving into my own area of interest. We have three primary divisions at EMBARQ India: the Integrated Transport System divison, the Urban Development and Accessibility division, and a Research and Practice divison, which is just getting underway. ITS looks at transport systems and para-transit systems; the main objective of the Urban Development and Accessibility unit is to see how we can design cities to encourage sustainable transportation. 

I am an architect/urban-planner, so I work in the UDA division. At the present moment, we have a three key areas of focus here: the first relates to access of public transit stations, and the second deals with improving access to public transit and non-motorized transportation in residential developments. The third program develops how to understand how we can influence city master plans, in order to encourage sustainable transport. 

Right now, I’m coordinating a project which aims to improve access to the elevated public transit corridor that is under construction right now. It’s an east-west corridor, connecting Versova to Ghatkopar, in the suburbs. We are partnering with a local association, because there is a business district very close to one of the stations, to improve pedestrian access to the station, and improve pedestrian access within the business district itself. I specialize in accessibility, and a very broad sense of accessibility, not only universal access.

TC: You mentioned earlier that your division of EMBARQ is attempting to influence master planning and, presumably, its affects on the city. There seems to be a great divide between the master plan and what is implemented on the ground here, especially in Mumbai. What are the challenges of influencing development through policy reform and developmental planning?

SS: Mumbai has a very low implementation rate, if you will, when it comes to these master plans. Just eighteen percent of the last urban development plan was actually implemented.

TC: Wow.

SS: One of the major reasons for this happening is what you might call lack of public participation in the public planning process itself. In fact, one of the organizations––the Urban Development Research Institute––is trying to, in this current master plan, open up the design and bureaucratic processes so that there can be more public participation. I think that this lack of public participation is one major reason there is such a disconnect between these grand visions and reality. 

A lot of the attributes of the city, in terms of what you would call transit-oriented development, already exist in our cities and already exists in Mumbai. Planners, however, generally tend to overlay a singular zoning system on a fabric which, by nature, is already mixed use, negatively impacting this transit-oriented development strategy. I In this sense there is a big disjuncture between the imagination of planners and what actually exists on the ground––you’ll have areas that are zoned as residential, but there is a lot of mixed-use already; these two strategies sort of start competing with one-another. Because there is not enough interface with the public, there is really no way to have residents’ needs and desires met by this singular design guideline, and in a lot of instances it tends to produce a sharp disjuncture between planners’ desires and the reality of the city.

It’s also important to mention that a master plan is at best a guiding document, it is a vision, it’s a growth-management plan. To translate the objectives of a master plan into, say, a neighborhood is difficult, at best. We don’t have neighborhood, ward-level plans to translate the vision of the master-plan to a local level; the master plans are too generic, too broad, and don’t enforce enough specificity. Some of the other issues in realizing a master plan you’re probably already aware of. Inter-agency coordination, for example: how do you get different agencies (and government agencies) to buy into the master plan. It seems that either they are not consulted in the envisioning of the development plan itself, or, if they are, they are not ultimately accountable for the realization of this complex document.

For example, we did a master-planning workshop for twin cities north of Bangalore. What was interesting is that area has a state housing board, it has an industrial development corporation, many different bureaucratic entities all with their own norms and operations. None of these individual organs, however, are bound by the master plan developed for the region. So you have a number of different agencies who can do whatever they like, who are not obligated to follow a grand vision or adhere to the master plan. There are also many issues that relate to the coordination between departments within agencies, between state level agencies as well.

TC: In terms of encouraging pedestrianism in Mumbai, what are some of the different strategies you’ve used to encourage a more pedestrian-friendly environment in the city, especially given ad-hoc development which has taken over sidewalks and other pedestrian corridors?

SS: I think one of the biggest challenges in this regard has to do with codes; in this instance, with the Indian Road Congress. This is the code that is used by the transit department to design our streets, but that code is suited towards and focuses primarily on automobiles. Even in terms of the language of these guidelines, in the unites with which they measure the width of a road or sidewalk, everything is very automobile-centric. Rather than incorporating comprehensive plans for pedestrians, these same guidelines will simply say, ‘for so many pedestrians, your sidewalk must be this wide.’ I think the code is the biggest challenge in this sense, actually, because that’s what traffic engineers use to design our roads. There’s a very big mismatch between [pedestrian] demand and supply as stipulated by the code. 

Only recently, in 2012, did the language of these regulations change somewhat to include the term ‘level of service.’ With this development guideline, you don’t have just one standard width of sidewalk, for example, you can actually articulate what level of service and access you want to provide to a certain area, and then see what width of pedestrian walkway will provide this level of service. Having said that, the job of traffic engineers in government agencies is simply to look at the movement of vehicles; when you start to talk about pedestrians, it doesn’t fall within their field of view, so to speak. So in many cases this comes down to a question of language when talking with planners. For example, you could make the argument that, if you provide space for pedestrians, your vehicle traffic will actually become less intense in a certain area, because you now have people walking to access certain points within the neighborhood, and you don’t need as much roadway as you originally planned for. You have to really change your argument in order to get them to see this. 

We’ve done a number of things in this regard: the project that I’m working on, we are partnering with the local association, and that has also involved a certain level of––I’m going to use planning jargon for a minute––capacity-building, if you like, but trying different kinds of arguments, saying pedestrians are actually good for the economy. There’s a fantastic argument which was used by Mayor Bloomberg in New York City, which we also shared, because he argued that pedestrians resemble the growth of the economy. He used Times Square as an example, saying that, after the pedestrianization of Times Square, the rents of ground floor retail space in Times Square suddenly became more expensive, per square foot, than the rents of all the floors above these spaces combined. You therefore need to tailor the argument depending on your audience, because sometimes everyone might already be aware of the social and economic, but not enough people might really care.  So it’s very much about language, framing the improvement of the public realm as a way of creating an image for the business district. 

We’re using these multiple arguments to think about planning for pedestrians, depending on who the audience is. As you mentioned earlier, however, there really does seem to be a pushback on informal vending. Informal vendors are seen as an obstruction; you’ve probably seen this a lot around the city. But no one seems to recognize the enormous value that they bring, both in terms of provision of goods and services, to the city. They also make streets safe for people, and especially for women, simply by acting as small outposts in otherwise undeveloped stretches of the city. Unfortunately, the informal sector is not being considered as a part of planning for our streets; that is a problem which very much needs to be addressed in the near future.

TC: It seems like much of this informal development is actually very exciting from an urban development point of view. It seems unfortunate that there’s a constant stigma against it. As you said, perhaps you have to use different methods of framing arguments to help in the planning process. Before we run out of time, however, I wanted to ask you about public spaces in Mumbai. They are very few and far between, and seem to desperately be clinging to their public intent. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the future of public space in Mumbai, and what challenges there are in creating more for the city’s residents to use.

SS: Great question. One important thing to remember, before I go any further, is that streets in India are used as public spaces, in a very different way than they are in many other parts of the world. You’ll have children who are playing in streets, and many other demographic groups who use the street for different purposes. So first, I think streets need to be re-conceptualized to include this under-appreciated territory. 

Now, talking about public space. I think everyone knows about the dismal ratio of open square meters in Mumbai in comparison to its population. It is obvious that we do need public open spaces. There is also a very disturbing trend that is happening right now in Bombay: the appropriation of public spaces as semi-public spaces, a transformation initiated by resident welfare associations, in the name of maintaining them for public use. They develop the space, and then will charge an entry fee, removing the truly public nature of the space––you can see this in many small parks in Mumbai, including the famous Jogger’s Park. As planners, we need to be more aware of this colonization, and try to prevent it from happening on a larger scale. 

There is also a very delicate balance here between land which is zoned as ‘public’ and land on which informal developments, and especially slums, have now been built. The whole conception of public space as you described is, perhaps, an upper-middle-class claim on land. For example, there was a mapping of public spaces that was done recently, where fish-drying grounds are marked as public open spaces. These fish-drying grounds, as you may know, are now home to thousands of people across the city who live and work in these spaces. In order to reclaim their truly public nature, we would have to evict the residents which now call this public space home; we need to be very aware as to who is getting displaced in this process. 

As I grew up, we actually used to play in our building compounds, within the setbacks of our building, and not in these larger spaces zoned for recreation. We never played in truly public open spaces. As a result, I think we really need to understand how we design these larger spaces so that they are used more, particularly from a woman’s safety perspective, as well.

TC: So there is perhaps a different conception as to what public space is, and it’s very different than a European or North American model?

SS: Maybe, but I think the need for more public open space is definitely not debatable––everyone knows that we need it, it’s obvious. But how they are designed, and whether they are accessible to all through design, or through management structures, is something that will become of great importance in the near future.