Discovering Delhi

In between my adventures with monkeys and my experiences sitting in temples and contemplating religion, I figured it would be a good idea to actually explore a bit of the city in which I was residing—Delhi. This post will go over some of my initial impressions and process of discovery in the city as well as offer some thoughts on urban planning and building construction in Delhi and India based on some of my initial meetings in the city.

What surprised me most about Delhi when I first arrived (aside from the driving, cows in the road, and general lack of pollution controls) was that I could not from street level or even riding the Metro identify a commercial, financial, or residential center of the city. I had expected that, like Nairobi, Beijing, and Shanghai, there would be a distinct city center with high rise office and apartment buildings clearly marking the heart of the city. I had initially thought that I missed this on the drive from the airport to Paharganj because it was night and the road may not have run that way, so I set out in search of the city center over the next few days. My first guess was to head to Connaught Place, the portion of the city that Lonely Planet identified as one of the highlights for shopping and a district that on a map appears to be both central and shaped as though it was meant as a focal point (Connaught Place centers on a park ringed by three circular roads lined with buildings).

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when I arrived in Connaught Place I was extremely surprised at what met my eyes. This high street shopping complex was a collection of run down colonial buildings carved up into quality retail and small second-hand shops that had varying levels of dirt and grime on their exteriors, and in some cases on the interiors. For some, the interior was glittering and spotless—a stark contrast to the polluted white facades on the outside. Despite the presence of a few high rise buildings, the open nature of the whole Connaught Place area didn’t satisfy my requirement for the city center. So within a few days, I headed to the political center—Rajpath. This is a broad road running from India Gate, a monument to the fallen Indian soldiers, to the President’s house and the buildings for Parliament. It is the political center of the nation and a clear statement of the British might of yore.

Though Rajpath is certainly monumental both in its breadth and in the surrounding buildings, all of which are colossal in structure, massive in foundation and construction, and imperial in appearance, it does not rise above the level of the trees. In fact, from the road itself, all you can see is India Gate at one end and Parliament at the other. The remaining buildings are hidden by trees on either side of the road. So though you know the massive museums, courthouses, and other structures surround you, on Rajpath itself you feel as though you are away from the city. Though impressive that such a beautiful, serene park exists in the heart of the capital, this again was not the city center for which I was searching.

Throughout some of my meetings I found myself soon in other neighborhoods in Delhi—Lodi Estates, Chanakyapuri (the diplomatic area), South Delhi, Saket, and other areas, and yet in none of them could I find a veritable city center. Each had a couple of scattered high rises and some important functions, but none had the town center which I sought. The same was true of Old Delhi. Though this area had at one time been the extent of the city walls, it did not have any true city center. This area, also called Shahjahanabad after the creator, Shah Jahan (the same emperor who built the Taj Mahal), had the Red Fort as its center of life and Chandni Chowk as its economic center and neither have changed much since the decay of the Mughal empire and the relocation of Delhi to Lutyens’ New Delhi in the early 1900s. So even here there was no city center but only a crowded bazaar full of hawkers peddling off-brand items and electronics that were suspiciously cheap.

So as I continued to explore Delhi, I came to the conclusion that this city didn’t have a visible urban center in the sense that I expected. There was no central business district easily identifiable by its skyscrapers and modernity. Though there are a few new massive shopping malls glittering in glass, there is not a central shopping district or a single place where people flock to do their shopping and enjoy their nightlife. In fact, the city began to remind me of Los Angeles which, in this case, is not a good thing. In my explorations I found multiple centers to the city which draw different groups of people at different times and a very spread out environment that made it tedious to get around at times. The increasingly bad traffic, overcrowded Metro rail, and infrequent and sometimes dangerous buses meant that the city was a challenge at times to navigate. Follow that with the lack of sidewalks, encroachment by small shops, trees, and motor vehicles on pedestrian paths, and you get a model that in my opinion is not a very sustainable city.

It wasn’t just in transit that Delhi reminded me of LA (though rush hour in Delhi did bring back images of the packed 405) but also in form. The low-density, polycentric city was very reminiscent of the sporadic and unconstrained development of LA. Because Delhi is still experiencing this whereas LA is growing less rapidly, the city is able to better plan transit like the Metro but still is lagging behind the demand. The reason for this, in my considered but inexperienced opinion, is that such low-density cities are inherently unsustainable. They do not lend themselves to mass transit possibilities. This is not just my opinion actually, and is not revolutionary in the least—I think any study of an American city (save some on the East coast) will show the same result. When you have lower densities and people who are more spread out, the challenge of servicing all of those locations with public transit becomes inherently uneconomical and impossible. This is referred to as the challenge of the “last mile”—something I discussed briefly in my post on Chinese transit.

Yet what is interesting about Delhi is that the low-density nature of the city did not arise as much out of style as it did in LA but out of necessity. In LA, the concept of the nuclear family and the dream of a single family house with a white picket fence led to the creation of suburbs and flight from the apartments of the city center. By contrast in Delhi, low-rise buildings became the standard due to a lack of constant, stable electricity, especially further back than 20 years ago. Rolling blackouts are common which, for tall buildings, render elevators unusable and therefore would make taller structures than 4 storeys or thereabout difficult to manage as a resident. Imagine being stranded on the 20^th floor with your only means of leaving being the stairs. Certainly some of us would merely shrug and accept the possibility, but most would be appalled. Building codes reinforced this idea especially as water began to run out in Delhi. Rainwater harvesting was found to work best in mid-rise buildings simply because in taller buildings with a smaller footprint, the amount that can be harvested is much smaller than the amount needed in the structure. Mid-rise buildings offer a sweetspot where all harvested water can be used and not too much excess needs to be taken from the ground. Delhi is entirely fed on groundwater (trust me, you don’t want to drink from the heavily polluted, yet sacred, River Yamuna which bisects the city) which has in recent years dropped to unsustainable levels. Therefore, rainwater harvesting became a necessity and put an artificial limit on the height of residential buildings.

The challenge then is one of balancing the stressed and infrequent resources with the desire for higher densities and thus reduced energy and emissions from transportation. It does not make sense to build taller if you do not have the resources to service such a building. Yet as affluence in India increases, this challenge will only be compounded. Citizens will demand larger spaces for themselves and their families and the four storey houses that may now house four families will only house two or one. Compounding this further is the decline in what is known as “family home.” In Indian culture, there is a tight bond between the generations within a family, and traditionally all would live together in a shared house. In cities, this means that you are likely to find rooms for grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, and other relatives all in one house. In more affluent families, each unit may have their own floor. The problem is this practice is declining now as Western ideas of families and culture permeate India. More families now want their own houses and thus do not live in shared accommodation as frequently.

Given these factors, the challenge of transportation in turn relies more heavily on personal transit, which increasingly means cars. Growth in private autos hit a record high last year, and growth of two-wheelers (motorized) is also significant. If Delhi continues to spread as it has been, the growth of low-rise and lower density housing will become a bigger problem.

There is evidence that this may be changing. New developments advertised in the Metro stations are often for flats in larger towers, often 12 storeys or more. Disappointingly, these higher density buildings are often built as glass boxes like Western residential structures and are therefore not climatically appropriate for India (more on that in a later post). On top of this, they lack the mixed use component that is typical of current Indian developments. In many areas, grocery, chemist (pharmacy), and other everyday shops often are integrated in each residential block in a single area as part of a mixed-use development. This is not as true in the plans for new developments. Furthermore, the new buildings, to overcome the challenge of infrequent power, have their own back-up generators, almost all of which run on diesel. Put that into your life-cycle analysis, and then it is even blurrier as to whether the benefits from living in higher density spaces outweigh the increased energy use in the space. Oh, and to make this even blurrier, most of these new developments are just more sprawl. They are not replacing existing buildings in the capital that are in need of upgrades but rather adding to satellite cities around Delhi proper. That means that new residents likely have a longer commute and perhaps even more embedded transport emissions by virtue of living far from where they might work. That is the price of increasing affluence in Delhi at the moment.

I don’t mean to paint so bleak a picture of Delhi and its future, but unfortunately I don’t think that the city or the Government of India yet have a good, comprehensive urban planning process. Growth is good right now in India as the country tries to catch up after years of mandatory 3% growth. Unfortunately, that growth is taking the form of Los Angeles rather than Mumbai in the case of Delhi (Mumbai is one of the world’s densest cities which leads to its own set of benefits and challenges. Still, I personally would advocate looking at this model instead of LA). That said, Delhi still has a chance to set itself on a better path. They have a good plan for expansion of the Metro light rail system which will certainly help improve transportation in the capital. Building regulations are improving as well, and the government is focused on trying to develop a comprehensive sustainability plan which ideally will consider some of these tradeoffs. Solar power and rainwater harvesting are actively being promoted in all sectors to help address the resource challenges. Yet despite this activity, the rate of growth is outstripping the rate at which these issues are being solved. Things must change rapidly to avoid lock-in either in terms of resource use or in transportation energy (the former, resource use in buildings, is a topic I will save for another post).

I hope this hasn’t been too rambling, but before I leave off for now, I want to add one more thought on urban planning to the mix. As I was riding the Metro to and from all of these sites in Delhi and looking at my map, I couldn’t help but notice the large swaths of protected forest that cut through the heart of the city. I found that to be very interesting and unique relative to many cities I visited. On the surface it sounds great, right? Green belts are supposed to promote better air quality, allow for relaxation and better health, and provide aesthetic value to the city. Yet protecting these areas has had the effect of forcing sprawl to be further from the city’s centers. That means that transportation energy is increased, commuting time goes up, and eventually the green spaces become isolated from one another which, as any ecologist will tell you, is not an ideal situation for conservation. So as I was riding, I began to wonder whether the ecological benefits of these forests in the city was outweighed by the added pollution and challenge of navigating around them to commute from home to work. Personally, I think it would be an interesting study. Hopefully in later posts I’ll comment further on this and the other issues I’ve raised in this post regarding urban planning. In the meantime, any thoughts or feedback are, as always, appreciated.