A Search for Commons in the Pressure of Growing Cities

This blog is the first part of a trilogy about a village, its residents, and the ruins of a chapel. The Charles Correa Foundation has been actively involved in assisting the villagers in their project, and our combined efforts have recently yielded positive results. You can read about it on the news section of our website or Aliya Abreu’s article in the Goan Everyday.

As in most of urban India, Goa too is presently undergoing a transformation – large scale development projects are visible everywhere and the older rural and urban fabric is being frayed and reformed in the process. One construct that has transferred well from the past to the present is that of the commons. This is evidenced in the way planners and architects often envision cities. They allocate and provide tracts of land designated into public open spaces. Ebenezer Howard (1898 ) introduced the concept to create commons while planning built space. This may account for the quiet acceptance within select urban townships of a balance around built structures and open spaces.

Townships and built complexes are one thing, existing villages are another. But what of the in-between? The spaces between urban and rural are fast disappearing and how do we find commons for communities as a whole? Jan Gehl (2008) says, “Cultures and climates differ all over the world, but people are the same. They will gather in public if you give them a good place to do it.” We have to pause and consider spaces outside the built landscape or rather think about the commons for settlements and spaces in between urban and rural.

Let us take the case of a village called Chimbel in Goa. Chimbel is a settlement situated five kilometres from Panjim, the capital of Goa, south of the Mandovi river. The original settlement of “old Chimbel” pre-dates Portuguese occupation in Goa.

Map showing estimated boundaries of the villages in between Old Goa and Panaji in the 18th Century.

Chimbel in the throes of development

Villages like Chimbel, Panelim, Ribandar, Santa Cruz and Merces (en route to Panjim city) became important as the residences of administrators and builders of the Portuguese capital of Panjim in the 18th century. It must be noted that the shift of the capital from Old Goa to Panjim took almost 70 years to be completed enabling the growth of these villages.

Over the next two centuries, Chimbel continued to function as a satellite of Panjim. The old village presently has around 6000 residents and the settlement area is spread over 4,20,000 square meters.

32023556550_a472485211_k

Chimbel Old Village
Source: URBZ: https://www.flickr.com/photos/urbzoo/32023556550/in/photostream/

In the early 1980s, the government acquired and allotted 66,000 square metres of land (named Indiranagar) on the fringe of Chimbel to settle a large number of migrants who had been called in, to work on development projects like the Mandovi bridge and infrastructure for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

The settlement of Indiranagar now hosts more than half of the 17,000 residents of Chimbel, in tiny dwelling units with struggling services and an absence of an open space.

32023747190_381a7469e7_k (1) A lane in Indiranagar
Source: URBZ: https://www.flickr.com/photos/urbzoo/32023556550/in/photostream/

The recently completed Panjim-Old Goa expressway on the plateau, just a couple of kilometres uphill from the village, has led to a series of luxury gated colonies and expanded vehicular use. This comes from the fact that despite Goa is India’s smallest state, the coastal landscape and unique cultural identity has made it a major tourist destination for most Indians, and a retirement or second home aspiration for those who can afford it. This has led to rampant development of real estate, mostly hospitality and second homes.

This situation presently leaves the state and it’s locals in an awkward position for there are almost three ‘visitors’ to the state to every local.

Serenity row villas, just uphill from Chimbel village.
Source: http://www.classifiedsgoa.com/serenity-avenue-luxury-villas-kadamba-plateau—goa-id-6603

So, what one now sees in Chimbel is three distinct housing situations: The gated colonies, the original village and Indiranagar; marked by inequity based on social class and identity. This inequity compounds itself when it comes to open space: in Indiranagar there is no space for an open area, children play in the gullies; there are no public benches or public spaces in the old village. Yet, in some of the gated communities, each villa has its own pool!

Old Chimbel Grain Indiranagar Grain Gated Community Grain
Source: Google Earth

Triangulating the present Chimbel context and surrounding areas

We are now presented with a context that has three settlements. Each defined by a specific social and economic background, each with a distinct grain and hard access boundaries between them.

Google map overlay inequity.jpg

Diagram showing the boundaries and inequality between the three housing situations in Chimbel.

In governance of Chimbel this complex situation is treated unidimensionally. There is a single Panchayat whose representatives are predominantly from the ‘‘old village’’ who must take into account the needs of distinctly diverse populations and habitats. Within this ‘‘unified’’ space of Chimbel the matter of the commons must be considered. Space allocation is impossible in the traditional (Howardian) imagination; especially with such heavy pressures of development. This leaves the village of Chimbel searching for a common space. In a difficult situation like this, how and where could such a space be found?

Stay tuned for the next two installments on Chimbel, you can get updates: either on social media or subscribe to our mailing list here.