Jan 125 min read

What does it take to make your neighborhood approachable?

Why approachable all of a sudden? And neighborhoods? Seriously! Why would you care about such microstructures?

Let me tell you why. An ocean is complete with all its smaller water droplets. That is why a city becomes liveable with all its distinctive and approachable, unique neighborhoods. Each and every neighborhood is distinct with its composition, its taste of communal gatherings and its practice of festivities. It is quite specific for a country like India, where every state has a specific mixed diversity living within it's smallest of square foot. It is true gentrification and ghettoization has also quite vividly impacted the way certain neighborhoods are made invisiblized, loathed and antagonize in order to create an illusion where only happiness and coherence sustains and no tensions erupt among people.

Yet why the approachable part? Well this question arose in one of my visits in and around my own neighborhood, alongwith a certain neighborhood in Dhakuria ( both the areas are in South Kolkata). When I have been around my own neighborhood, things were a lot less coherent - where house numbers are not easily located, people are not so approachable after a few hours (at night), neighbours usually do not complain about unnecessary loud noises made at late night; and an uncontrolled speed of two wheelers moving through lean lanes of the locality which has caused accidents of several animals.

( Animals are also a necessary part of public spaces, whether you think them to be strays or not, they are essential aspects of any locality looking for a feasible shelter for safety, security and comfort - because whether it is your pet dog or cat or any other being you feel like domesticating, or an untamed animal, all of them are inevitable users of public space too).

To make any environment friendly enough or approachable enough, you need to make sure there is space for sociability. Sociability, socializing, loitering, exploring or even coming together forms a unique identity of a place. In case of Dhakuria, the apartments were groomed and placed in the fashion of a gated community ( except for the fact that it was not an array of complexes marked as building a1,a2 etc. but it is numbered accordingly with addresses). The whole locality had an explicit area map kept just outside the central space of their locality which was arranged by the local community organization. Due to privacy issues, would not be sharing detailed image of it, but here it looks like this.

Well designed, well maintained and located in a mixed land usage design space where residential spaces are surrounding a government funded primary school, within the vicinity of political party office and ward office of the locality. Municipal cleaning is done regularly, however recently the area not been maintained with regular interventions.

The fact that also makes a place approachable is having places to sit at, having religious locations constructed near residential spaces and also having food, grocery or stationary shops located within the neighborhood, alongwith medical shops which makes living easier and affordable in a neighborhood. However all these elements are very much present within our locality as well. Yet somehow the element of sociability is always very much restricted to middle aged, old aged or occasionally younger men sitting around on elevated spaces called "roaks" where the "adda" or chitchat is usually initiated. Whenever a woman has to occupy her space in a locality or 'para' she has to be loud, funny and easily equipped with the demeanor of the men of such locality. This again determines a lot about the culture of the area and how socialization is usually supported in such places. Our locality does have some good parts of it too, like children find it usually amusing to play in an area where the people encourage them being not just children but equal members of the community, or political parties distributing free books to adults or children to make them learn about the nearly losing out importance of one's native language texts. Example of which could be seen here:

Staying in the neighborhoods of Kolkata, you get to experience a lot of things right in front of your balcony which benefits people from the aged groups to consume their daily necessities. This increased more with the onset of Covid 19 Pandemic which resulted in selling of all these necessary food items likr vegetables, fishes or ice cream 'thelas' or pull carts/cycles from one neighborhood to another. Example of which you can see below:

Just not that, every individual getting to access their necessities within 10 minutes of their walking distance, or getting first mile connectivity quite easily nearly within 1 minute walking distance, with enough eyes on the street or sitting areas available nearby:

Things look much more approachable, affordable and accessible. Even as a matter of fact we even have a house with a neighbor who distinctly always stays at home, in his balcony watching passersby and helping them give necessary directions. That is also I believe a necessary category of approachability and livability of a neighborhood.

Having good lighting on the streets, better access to waste disposal spots and maintenance of cleanliness within and outside one's house/apartment becomes a clear indicator of an approachable and liveable neighborhood. Another and one of the last crucial aspect is of harmony and this centers as one of the critical elements of creating a liveable standard within an area, locality or neighborhood. Whether it is ethnic, religious or racial whichever way you might feel, a decent sense of harmony could uplift the environment instantly while also bringing in coherence and chances of collaboration within the inhabitants. While community centers are critical players of bringing in solidarity, here in Kolkata para clubs or neighborhood clubs play a fundamental role at collectivizing people where women and men or even other gendered identities should take equal participatory roles, yet sadly only men seem to dominate such decision making and gathering initiator processes. That is also something which could be altered. Making children's associations could also be an early step at bringing in community responsibility and a feeling of unity. If community clubs could reduce the influence of political parties and affiliations then probably things could even improve a lot in the Indian or international context.

Have you thought about what it would take to revamp your own neighborhood?

How about a community maintained animal shelter with pools of donation from members of the neighborhood?
How about community drives taken up every weekend with active participation to keep areas clean and having an accountability of it through community organizations?
How about arranging for a cctv system within smaller neighborhoods organized through donations just like it happens during organization of festivals, to maintain safety in the neighborhood?
How about traffic signals that operate just after a particular hour to ease down the speed of vehicles within neighborhoods to prevent accidents?

You tell me yours!!

A neighborhood could only be nurturing if the nature-nurture balance is cultured and grown with the cooperation and coming together of state agents as well as the people who are at the center of place making and receiving benefits out of it, which is a central quotient of Right to the City!

Thank you for reading till the end. Again these are my opinions, you can definitely have your own and if you want to express them, feel free to write to me and join this small community of free thinkers!

Enjoy these few more visuals of beautiful neighborhoods around Kolkata.