What clearly emerged was that development planning was not only multidisciplinary, it was cross-disciplinary: an architect must understand economics; an economist must know social change; a social worker must comprehend political processes.
For this reason, all our work – conceptualizing the future path, the working of our own group, the setting of a curriculum – comprised team efforts. There were always economists, architects, sociologists, political scientists, and many others in all the meetings and in our final structuring of the student body. This reflected our view that planning is cross-disciplinary. By the time we had built our little temple we realized that we had unknowingly created an outcaste – the temple of the untouchables.
• All the other schools were of ‘Town Planning’.
• All the departments in universities were for singular disciplines; you could not move from a BA in one to an MA in another.
• Planning courses were restricted to civil engineers, geographers and architects; planning was conceived as a physical planning exercise.
• Jobs that our students would apply for upon graduation would straitjacket them. In fact, the new professional we had defined generated new jobs. But we did not know this back in 1971.
What Happened?
We have always seen planners as people with a broad vision. They are conceptualizers. They have a strong grounding in social, economic, political and spatial issues. They know how to prepare plans. In addition there has been a trend for planners to specialize so that they become experts. This is good as they can provide expert inputs, for example, in transport plans, or shelter strategies, or urban or rural financial investment plans.
Yet, it becomes dangerous when planners fall into the slot of technocrats implementing broad concepts set by ‘higher ups’. They stop applying their minds and become ‘yes men’. They learn to please and connive rather than to profess values. Our planners have often merely carried out decisions like mechanics fixing automobiles designed by others. The planner must provide vision.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Major academic decisions are often made for the strangest of ‘economic’ reasons. The length of the postgraduate program in planning at CEPT was reduced from four to three semesters, to provide higher monthly stipends in the same budget! It was not done for academic reasons. (Note: This statement was true when I originally made it in 1998. I am happy to learn that since then, under changed funding circumstances, the course has been restored to the original four semesters.)
The training of a competent planner actually demands a full year’s grounding in situation analysis for identifying strategies, for providing plan options with social and economic costs and benefits. Planners must have a clear understanding of the users, their stresses, possible problem statements and the issues. The second year would allow students to focus on specific micro-level plans and project formulation.
A graduating student should be able to prepare a crisp Project Document including an outline of Stresses, Issues, Problems, Constraints and Potential Analysis, Goals, Objectives, Inputs and Outputs, Budgets and Cash Flows. These specific methods would focus on a number of specialization areas, but would be common in their applicability.
Yes, we must be able to provide experts focused inputs. But these must fit into greater visions.
(School of Planning Silver Jubilee Lecture, CEPT, Ahmedabad, February 1998)
Letter
Models of Habitat Mobility in Transitional Economies
Way back in the 1960s John Turner developed a model of typical migrants to cities, based on Lima, Peru as a case study. The model used the variables of time (and an assumed socio-economic improvement over time), security of shelter (tenure), level of development of shelter, social status and the interrelations between these variables. In his model, Turner compared the priorities that the migrants assigned to location, level of development of the shelter and tenure and showed that the priorities which determine dwelling environment change as the situation of the urban dweller changes. This was done by tracing the priorities as they shift over time (as in Figure One). As the migrant’s needs and means changed so did his priorities, which led him to change his dwelling environment. Thus, the migrant at first stayed with relatives as he could not afford rent, or slept on the street for ease of access to casual jobs nearby. Later, he rented space in a city-center slum to provide economical shelter for his young family while retaining work accessibility. Finally he squatted, in an organized take-over of land where enhanced tenure meant security and secure investment in home upgradation, improving his social status. With a slowly increasing income and with relative job security these need patterns could evolve.
Turner’s model, based on the situation in Lima, shows a direct response to the relevant human needs and household means. But the socio-economic movement Turner traced from a reception condition to the city center slum and finally to a fairly well planned squatter settlement in which consolidation takes place, is only one of several alternative patterns of habitat-mobility. In fact the ‘Lima Model’ is just one option.
This model does not represent what happens in South and Southeast Asia (and as conditions change in Latin America it also may not represent what will happen there). What is important about Turner’s Lima model is that it teaches us to think of ‘dwelling environments’ as needs that change as a migrant grows from a bachelor to a young householder, to a family man, to a father who wants to make a good marriage for his children. In this scenario (see Figure One) his need for status shifts from a minor to a major concern, and his ‘level of development of shelter’ bestows this status. Similarly, as a young man he is least concerned about the security of his shelter tenure. He can sleep on the street. But as he grows older to become a senior citizen the need for shelter security increases to become a necessity. Figure Two illustrates the total number of households in different income groups and their habitat mobility as their income increases.
Going beyond the Turner model, Figure Three designates four possible situations in which the poor urban dweller may live. These situations, familiar in the South and Southeast Asian context, are Reception, Intermediate, Consolidated, and Prolonged Reception. It should be noted that these are ‘situations’ in which the urban poor live. They are not environments. While an environment may be representative of a certain socio-economic situation, no single environment will adequately explain the general situation. Thus, the environments mentioned below indicate possible physical by-products of each of the socio-economic situations under discussion.
Reception is the situation experienced by the new migrant to the urban context. In this situation the newcomer – usually unskilled for urban jobs – needs maximum access to casual jobs and possibly proximity to a main market where he can obtain leftover food at the end of each market day. He has no money or time to spend on transportation and his need for shelter is minimal because he usually arrives without a family and carries what he owns on his back. Any independent shelter would in fact constitute a serious drain on his limited budget. The environment most amenable to this condition is the street, where in warmer climates the migrant may spread out a blanket, rags or newspapers to bed down for the night. Alternatively, he may camp in a railway station, where he can pass off as a waiting passenger. The more fortunate have family members who will allow them to camp in their homes while trying to find regular work. Whatever the environment, it is usually temporary and the situation changes fairly rapidly (within the first six months) to a more ‘urban’ existence.
Figure One: Lima Model
Figure Two: Optimal Model
Figure Three: Situations
Prolonged Reception is the situation in which a migrant’s condition remains the same over a long period of time. It becomes a lifestyle rather than a temporary solution. It might be called a situation in which the Reception
condition has become chronic. Generally it indicates a weak connection with the urban context, possibly a result of failure to integrate with the urban economy and social fabric. Usually the persons involved are engaged in casual manual labor, or in very marginal retail businesses. Although street sleeping is still the norm, it may have acquired a more institutionalized form. For example, in Kolkata shop-owners give certain people the right to sleep on the thresholds of their businesses against an agreement that the night-dweller will keep an eye on the place. In Ahmedabad and other cities in Asia, small lean-to sheds may be built, large enough only to store a small amount of cooking and sleeping items. At night a habitat environment is created by rearranging this equipment. Often whole families may be found in the Prolonged Reception situation, unlike in the Reception situation where only one member of a family has come to the city.
In the Intermediate situation, the migrant has become a part of the city. Very likely he either has a job with a regular income or he has established contacts with outlets for casual labor which provide him with enough assured income that he can rent shelter, even though the rent must be very low. Location is still of primary importance because he cannot afford transportation to his job, and his position with regard to job security has not advanced to the point that he can afford to be far from the places offering opportunities of casual labor. His family lives with him and they too may participate in small-scale economic activities. The environment most representative of this situation is the city-center slum.
The Consolidated situation has been well described by John Turner and William Mangin. Both Lima style squatter settlements and the established hutments of India represent this situation, though they are quite different in their physical structure and organization. It is a condition in which the migrant has assessed his position in the urban environment and his possibility of making a permanent place there. His job and income situation have become relatively stable and his income is adequate for him to afford some transportation. The family size is normally large and some children are old enough to put pressure on the parents to acquire certain status symbols. By this time, the erstwhile migrant can visualize his security needs within the urban context and can explore ways to assure it.
The actual physical structuring of these situations depends on the timing of the migrant’s movement through them. The environments will be different according to the timing and to the path taken by different segments of the migrant population through the possible situations offered by a given society. Therefore it is important to analyze the alternative models of movement between various situations and discover the types of environment which result from case study information. Figure Four is a graphical reordering of the situations depicted in Figure Three, showing the importance of sequence and timing.
The Turner model is a movement from Reception to Intermediate to Consolidation. It could be called an optimal model because all systems respond to the needs and means of the situations, and the environment which results has great potential in terms of the physical needs of a growing, transitional city. As the situation changes, or is perceived to be changing, there are adequate resources available to make a change in environment. In this model (and in the Lima situation presented by Turner) certain conditions are assumed to exist, such as available open land, transportation at reasonably low fares, and a low level of police protection for private and municipal land. Moreover, it assumes that conditions in the city-center slum are satisfying enough to prevent people from undertaking a premature unplanned or haphazard move to the consolidated areas. Thus, Turner’s optimal model assumes a great deal of planning in an institutional environment where land is up for grabs.
Figure Four: Models of Mobility
In Asia, and particularly in the settlement patterns I have studied in India, a model which could be indicated as Premature Consolidation is more relevant. In this model the migrant moves directly from Reception to Premature Consolidation. The resulting environment is quite different from the optimal model. The most noticeable difference in the resultant environments is that the premature model has no capacity for growth and change. Accessibility and utilities may only be improved by destroying some of the dwelling units, and plots are small and usually undefined. On the other hand the environment which results from the optimal consolidation model of an organized community shows a good structure in terms of the layout of streets and passages, with flexibility for the future. Drainage and utilities can easily be added within the network, and the size and configuration of the lots allow for growth over time and continuous upgrading. Low land values seem essential to this model, and forty years down the line since Turner published his findings, such low-value land no longer exists in most Indian cities that can offer livelihood opportunities to poor in-migrants.
Causes of Premature Consolidation include the highly unsatisfactory conditions in the city-center slum; a desire to live with relatives and traditional social groups; good location of areas coming under consolidation; and lack of funds for rent. In Figure Five, environments are indicated that match models of habitat mobility.
Figure Five: Situations and Environments
It is where the city-center slum is already overcrowded and rents are relatively high that Premature Consolidation takes place. In India, and other areas of the world where family, caste or tribal affiliations determine dwelling location for the poor, the Premature Consolidation model is very prevalent. In these cases a migrant will move as quickly as possible to the location of his caste group. If his father or his uncle is already in the city, he will certainly want to live next to them without considering an alternative better environment. This results in the construction of new hutments in areas where the land area is already overbuilt. In many cases a community of one caste is bordered by other caste communities, forcing it to increase its density and become overcrowded. In such areas community organization tends to be along traditional caste lines and oriented more to the ceremonies of life than to solving the pressing problems of an urban existence. Ties with the municipal and national political structure are paternalistic; quite unlike the Lima squatters who are highly politicized and who name their well-planned invasions and the resultant new communities after politicians whose favor they seek.
A third model includes people who remain in the Prolonged Reception situation. Although most common in the primate cities of Asia, it is certainly a worldwide phenomenon found in cities where a saturated labor market, causing underemployment and unemployment, permits many migrants only the most minimal personal income and where (the peripheries of growing cities in India and China are good examples) the available land area for building is already covered with structures, seemingly closing the option of moving on to the Intermediate phase. In addition to instances in which progress has become difficult there are constituent members in this model who can be called ‘drop-outs’. These are persons who may at a previous time have achieved higher status and environmental conditions but, due to some misfortune, were forced to drop into this pathological model. While misfortune may have thrust a person, or a household, into this model, the situation tends to prohibit them from moving on to a better lifestyle.
The Intermediate Model represents a movement from Reception to Intermediate that has become stabilized. For many inhabitants this can be a desired condition. The Intermediate situation may provide a level of shelter and access to employment not readily available in other environments. In a few cases, such as small families without children, it is in the most desirable location. Others who have had a long urban history may prefer the city center slum because it offers close family and friendship connections, which have economic meaning. They may consider that the security offered by home ownership in a consolidated settlement would not adequately replace the security offered in the existing close personal relationships. Referring again to India, where security is perceived to be in the village or ‘native place,’ and life in the
city is perceived as a temporary condition (even though it rarely is), a movement to consolidate has much less meaning than in the optimal model, where urban inhabitants are building security for themselves within the urban context. The Indian migrant in the intermediate condition will send any surplus earnings to his family in the village, where his status and his security are founded, rather than move on to establish a new permanent home in the city. He will often return to the village to marry and believes he will go to the village in old age, and even his children born in the city know the village as their native place. Conditions which encourage stabilization of the Intermediate model are a large supply of slum dwellings in the city-center; a strong police force inhibiting consolidation; a lack of good sites for such consolidation; traditional sources of security other than the dwelling place; a lack of a tradition of planning; and a status structure unrelated to the physical development of shelter.
The four models (including the one postulated by Turner) presented here represent the predominant patterns of migrants’ habitat mobility in many urbanizing centers of transitional economies. It seems possible to correlate environments with such models much more easily than to correlate them with situations, and further study of the determinants of these models may be helpful both in determining housing policies in such areas and in a better understanding of pathological environments and of what constitutes a ‘slum’.
(Slightly modified and updated from the version originally published in EKISTICS, February 1970)
Letters To A Young Architect Page 18