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 The urban poor are entitled to claim their rightful share of development benefits as citizens, and these include public transport and health care, as well as recreational facilities affordable for all.
Neo-liberal politics in the last two decades has greatly accelerated disparity in investment among cities in favour of the financially competitive as well as enforce the distinct pattern of geographic discrimination within cities such as slums and squatter settlements. We need to challenge the long accepted treatment and allocation of urban space as unproblematic and ideologically neutral. We must now recognise that space allocation has far-reaching impact on social and cultural well-being and economic opportunities. A progressive city is a social and spatial conflict zone with different interest groups contesting and negotiating through constant transformation. Any form of citizen participation is a form of conflict. In order to participate effectively, one needs to understand the complexity of the problems and to identify the forces of conflict that act upon that environment. ‘The right to the city’ is one of Lefebvre’s core concepts1 and is now a global battle cry in the struggle against all sorts of social injustices. Historically, the rich and powerful have always created spatial arrangements most favourable for themselves. The effective implementation of urban spatial justice is clearly a difficult task, as it is necessary to re-examine and challenge many long established planning theories and practices. To achieve spatial justice for citizens, those vested with power to produce the physical spaces must listen seriously to the grassroots and to critical alternative voices arising from active citizen participation. Spatial justice is a mirror reflecting the complex true image of those in power. It is in this context that many urban actions should be scrutinised for their effective implementation in response to the emerging New World Order and the rightful demands of the citizenry. Urban explosion and the poor The size and velocity of urbanisation today in developing countries are historically unprecedented. Cities of the four tiger economies (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore) and the coastal region in China have generated substantial job opportunities for millions of incoming exodus from surplus rural labour. With better financial support from the central governments, many megacities in developing countries such as Mumbai and Jakarta still appear liveable and manageable. In the meantime, substantial urbanisation in preserving the surrounding nature and agricultural land are often sacrificed for short-term gain and even for the benefit of the rich and powerful. Furthermore, rural poverty still remains the main cause for mass rural-urban migration. In the coming years, tremendous projected urban population growth is likely to occur in major cities in less developed regions and the second-tier cities. Substantial human and financial resources are urgently needed to ensure their liveability. Decentralised financial allocations to responsible local authorities with participatory approach as in Indonesia in recent years may provide a possible effective solution. A good example is the recent successful transformation of Solo (also known as Surakarta) in Central Java.2 More serious search for alternatives in improving rural living environment and quality of life must be examined, such as the idealistic radical proposal of Tay’s ‘Rubanisation’.3 With few exceptions, most cities in developing countries are overwhelmed by massive population explosion, with many inner city and peripheral slums approaching or even exceeding half the total population.4 Furthermore, the almost universal refusals to provide even basic facilities, minimum legal entitlement and other supporting social services for the slum residents are symbolic attitudes of the elitist-oriented authorities. In the name of modernisation and development, the present scale of forcible evictions of urban poor and farmers are immense and escalating.5 We are fast approaching a major urban catastrophe in these cities, unless the urban poor and farmers can unite and successfully challenge the imposed conditions of their terminal marginality and claim their rightful share of development benefits as citizens. Tenancy rights for slum residents and farmers must be given top priority by national governments and this issue should be placed on CSOs and international agenda of human rights and social justice. Sustainability and affordability In the global perspective, population stabilisation is one critical issue which requires urgent collective action. All efforts must therefore be made and prejudices put aside in order to achieve this in the shortest possible time. In the meantime, urban population in developing countries is projected to explode exponentially beyond four billion by about 2030. Much has already been written about urban sustainability from low-energy transport, green buildings and retrofitting of existing buildings to urban agriculture and various mode of recycling.6 New knowledge and theories are continuously being introduced such as the integrated eco-friendly design approach by Ken Yeang7 and eco-effectiveness in recycling when systems are designed with self-regenerating capabilities.8 Presently, many governments have adopted sustainable development as a slogan to attract and provide new investment opportunity without moral principles. It is important for us to ask the challenging question: - sustainable environment for whom – who benefits and who loses? To provide the basic needs and amenities for the whole community, particularly the poor in developing countries, it is essential to expand the concept of citizen rights, spatial justice and affordability. To eliminate poverty, improve quality of life for the majority and decrease income gap must be central to our deliberations on sustainability. Affordability particularly for the poor, the handicapped and the sick as well as the young and elderly, is a crucial moral issue for all countries. Public transport and health care, as well as parks/recreational facilities and entertainment/cultural activities should be made affordable for all citizens. However, there is no one-size-fit-all formula and each nation will have to find the most effective way how this can be realised. Public spaces for people to interact Public spaces are spaces accessible to the community-at-large without hindrance or restriction. Besides parks, gardens and numerous urban open spaces, public spaces also include a diversity of the unstructured, unique and chaotic. They range from the numerous underused older buildings, gaps/leftover spaces from urban development and single-focus projects such as spaces below elevated highways to exciting night markets in Taipei9 and vibrant chaotic environments in Geylang and Little India in Singapore. These public spaces are rugged in nature and are able to withstand rapid usage changes, fragmented idiotic design expressions and uncompromisingly irrational spatial arrangements. I have described them as ‘spaces of indeterminacy’.10 They provide welcoming places for everyone without discrimination and a forum for strangers to meet and interact, innovators to experiment, artists and designers to show their wares and flaneurs to dream and wander. They offer the potential to become effective instruments of contemporary intellectual, artistic, cultural and sociological discourses. Their multi-functionalities are exciting and often unexpectedly creative, and can greatly contribute towards the intensity of urban vibrancy. The quality of urban social life is clearly not measured by the scale of monuments, its shopping malls, its commercial extravaganza or its top-down officially regulated activities and festival celebrations, but the quality and intensity of interactions by participating citizens. This is a condensed version of Lim’s lecture delivered Oct 7, 2009 to Singapore architects, titled ‘Impact of New World Order on Architecture and Urbanism with special relevance to Singapore’. The full text can be read here in pdf. Endnotes:1 See Henri Lefebvre, “The Right to the City” in Writings on Cities, Oxford, Blackwell, 1996. Originally published as Le droit à la ville, Paris, Anthropos, 1968. Lefebvre’s concept was further discussed by David Harvey in “The Right to the City”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 27.4, Dec 2003, pp 939-974. Also see Harvey, “The Right to the City”, in New Left Review, Issue 53, September-October 2008. 2 “Indonesia’s regional leaders attract investors”, Reuters. 30 June 2009. Also see “Surakarta, on its way to being a MICE City”, The Jakarta Post. 26 Feb 2009 and “Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo: Changing the face of Surakarta”, The Jakarta Post. 29 Oct 2009. See Elizabeth Morrell, Hetifah Sjaifudian Sumarto and Noldy Tuerah, “Governing the Informal Economy”, Policy Brief 11 (2008) funded by Australia Indonesia Governance Research Partnership. 4 Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (London: Verso, 2006). 5 William S.W Lim, “Urban Land Policy in East Asia from a Cultural Perspective” (2008), lecture delivered to Urban Land Institute, Singapore. Published in SELAVIP Newsletter — Journal of Low-Income Housing in Asia and the World, October 2008, pp 9-13 and in SPACES (Nepal), September-October, Vol 4, Issue 6 (2008), pp 44-50. 6 See William S.W Lim, “Let’s Get Real – Critical Visions and Sustainable Eco-urbanism”, paper delivered at Workshop on “Towards a Liveable and Sustainable Urban Environment: Eco-cities in East Asia”, East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore (2009). 7 See Ken Yeang, “Ecoskyscrapers and Ecomimesis: New tall building typologies”, paper delivered at CTBUH 8th World Congress 2008. Also see article on Ken Yeang, “Green design is more than just gadgets”, The Straits Times. 9 Sep 2009. 8 William McDonough and Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (North Point Press, 2002). Also see William McDonough and Michael Braungart, “Toward a Sustaining Architecture for the 21st Century”, in Industry & Environment, Vol. 26, No. 2-3 (April-Sept 2003). 9 Chaolee Kuo, ed., Dark Discourse: Reflections of Taiwan City Culture (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, 2008). 10 William S.W Lim, “Spaces of Indeterminacy”, delivered at conference on Bridge the Gap?, Fukuoka, Japan, 24-27 Jul 2001 and published in Akiko Miyake & Hans Ulrich Obrist, eds., Bridge the Gap? (Kitakyushu: Centre for Contemporary Art and Koln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walter Konig, 2002).
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i can't understand what are you trying to explain?.but i think it is interesting.