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Responding to extremes: managing urban water scarcity in the late nineteenth-century Straits Settlements
No full textIn 1877, the major towns of the Straits Settlements—Singapore, George Town, Penang Island and Malacca—suffered a drought of exceptional magnitude. The drought’s natural instigator was the El Niño phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, a climatic phenomenon then not understood by contemporary observers. The 1877 event has been explored in some depth for countries including India, China and Australia. Its impact on Southeast Asia however is less well-known and the story of how the event unfolded in Singapore and Malaysia has not been told. This paper explores how the contemporary British government responded to the drought, arguing that its impact on hydraulic management was at best minimal yet, it did have impact on other areas, such as forest reservation with the hope of preserving future rainfall. It also highlights how, in contrast to studies on urban water plans in other British Asian colonies, the colonial authorities in the Straits Settlements had a far less coherent and meaningful relationship with water in their town planning schemes. As this paper is part of a special issue, Water History in the time of COVID-19, it has undergone modified peer review.</p
VERNACULAR ANSWERS TO SPATIAL NEEDS OF HUMAN ACTIVITIES: INDONESIAN HOUSES
No full textThe process of building traditional houses requires sizes of activities to determine dimensions of spaces. This study seeks to reveal how the activities of occupants relate to the dimensions of space in the vernacular society in Indonesia. It uses a literature study approach by reviewing various studies on vernacular housing in Indonesia. A total of 18 vernacular houses were reviewed and compared to find common relations between the activities and dimensions of the vernacular space. It was found that there were high variations in various placements, uses, and relations between activities and human living spaces, influenced by anthropometric factors, location, and socio-cultural factors. There are a very flexible space utilization and very rigid space utilization and between the two. This finding is expected to be a material for the development of simple, mass-built houses considering the habits of local residents in their activities.</p
Revisiting the transnational building of a modern planning regime in Iran: the first Tehran master plan and the interplay between local and foreign planners
No full textIn the late 1960s, the first Tehran Master Plan (TMP) was envisioned by a constellation of local and foreign experts. The TMP, which has been extensively studied, is usually credited to big-name planner and architect Victor Gruen. Scholars have neglected the contributions of local professionals in shaping the plan. Many depict the TMP as the product of Cold War geopolitics and a scheme directly exported to Tehran to facilitate top-down modernization promoted by the pro-American Shah. This popular narrative flattens the complexity of transnational urbanism and obscures the transformative role performed by locals therein. Through archival studies and conducting interviews with local planners involved in the TMP, this paper aims to discover the complex nexus between national and international actors and unravel how Iranian planners collaborated with foreign counterparts to negotiate Tehran’s urban problems and project the future of the city. This paper argues that Gruen served as a figurehead to validate the formation of the first planning document for Tehran by young local planners who had their own planning agenda. The conclusion argues that the transnationalism of planning practices in Iran grew out of an attempt to institutionalize a modern planning regime compatible with global standards while nurturing local experts.</p
Lost in transition: Perspectives, processes and transformations in Periurbanizing India
No full textThis paper reviews efforts at defining, conceptualizing and demarcating the periurban. We draw on different perspectives in conceptualizing and defining the periurban, employing a combination of primary data and a review of the global literature on periurban processes. The primary data is a result of longitudinal research following an empirically – inductive approach to arrive at this understanding of a periurban space and dynamics. The literature on the experience of periurbanization in India and other cities around the globe has been drawn upon; we look at different approaches and methods used to delineate, define and characterize periurban spaces as well as to address the governance and natural resource management challenges confronted by them. The limitations of these approaches are described. We conclude by making a case for a deeper understanding of the processes of transition underway in periurban contexts. These should inform approaches to policy and interventions, as well as shape efforts at theorizing about the periurban.</p
The value of environmental (dis)amenities in the urban housing market: Evidence from Khulna, Bangladesh
No full textPressure of rapid urbanization on abiotic environmental parameters in the residential blocks is one of the major challenges of city corporation authorities in Bangladesh. Environmental degradation often reduces property value in the housing market. However, the studies attempted to assess the value of environmental amenities and dis-amenities in the housing market of Bangladesh are scarce. Hence, this study examines the economic value of environmental (dis)amenities in the housing market of Khulna city, Bangladesh. Hedonic pricing method was used to assess the value of four environmental attributes - ventilation, open space, waterlogging and landfill by waste in the housing market. The study found these environmental attributes explain the variation of house rents significantly. Environmental amenities–a hundred-meter reduction in proximity to open space leads to a 2 percent increase in rent while a one discrete unit increase in a 5-point ventilation improvement scale from very poor to excellent results in 5.4 rent increase–are found as rent booster in the urban housing market. In contrast, waterlogging and landfill by waste reduce house rents by 3.7 and 9.8 percent for one unit increase in the respective 5-point degradation scales. The further analysis showed that the rental price of planned residential areas is more sensitive to ventilation and landfilling while that of unplanned areas is more sensitive to both environmental dis-amenities – water-logging and landfilling. Furthermore, our study computed the implicit price of these environmental (dis)amenities in the housing markets of Khulna city. This study suggests improving environmental quality boosts house rent, which in turn attracts environment-friendly urbanization.
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Evaluation of the requirements of first time buyers in the purchase of affordable housing in Malaysia
No full textThe overall Malaysian homeownership rate is declining. However, despite the introduction of various schemes and interventions, especially to the first time buyers, the gap between demand and supply is widening unabated. Thus, this research aims to evaluate the requirements of first-time home buyers. Primary data were collected through a cross-sectional survey questionnaire involving 196 homebuyers. House price, crime rate, care for the environment, availability of parking and housing types are the five main requirements of the first time home buyers in the purchase of affordable housing. An exploratory factor analysis generated five underlying clusters named in order of their significance, as price configuration, accessibility, transportation and sustainability. The findings provide fresh insights into addressing housing deficits in Malaysia and beyond. The findings will be useful to urban planners and place managers involved in housing distribution and location management. The housing developers would use this information to plan their housing delivery and design criteria, while home buyers require this to develop or adjust their buying plans. This research will enhance social well-being and increase measures to increase homeowner rates in Malaysia and elsewhere.</p
Accommodating Islamophobia: how municipalities make place for Muslims in Paris
No full textA major issue in the geographies of Islamophobia is the place granted to Muslims in cities in which they are a minority, and one way of understanding this place, in terms that are not purely metaphorical, is by looking at the provision made for places for Muslims to pray. This paper aims to look beyond the framework of ‘mosque conflicts’ and consider forms of ‘accommodation’ at the local, municipal level, that demonstrate less frontal hostility to Muslims, yet sometimes mingle acceptance and celebration of their presence with discourses emphasizing the need to control and domesticate them that can be read as benign Islamophobia. The focus on neighbourhood space also allows for a consideration of the entanglement of gender issues with local management of Islam in Paris. A case of relatively unproblematic local accommodation, in Créteil, is contrasted with a far more complex situation in the Goutte d’Or to tease out the effects of Islam being dealt with as ‘culture’ rather than religion.</p
Polemics of Planning, Development and Environment
No full textThrough nuanced understanding and analysis of Kolkata’s urban planning efforts and initiatives and the complex relationship among planning, “development,” and “environment,” this chapter attempts to explore the reasons behind Kolkata’s mega-urbanization drive in the post-independence period, which has generated massive socio-ecological costs. Connecting global visions, national agendas, and local trajectories, the chapter investigates the incorporation of the “environment” within urban planning and development goals against the larger conjuncture of “sustainable urbanization” and “smart city” plans and policy discourses. Through detailed empirical analysis of a series of elaborately developed plans (from the 1960s to the present) that emerged out of particular historical and political contexts to address specific issues, this chapter critically interrogates the existing social science literature that explains Kolkata’s urban sprawl as being entirely determined by global and national dynamics, operating within the same logic of “accumulation by dispossession.” It argues that although the city has encountered tremendous ecological conversion and “cleansing” drives affecting the social livelihoods of marginalized communities, yet, a linear story of the city being entirely appropriated by and succumbing to global pathways and national trajectories is not strictly accurate. The chapter provides clues and directions to the urban sustainability puzzle in tune with Kolkata’s very own aspirations, requirements, capacity, and limits.</p
Untamed Practices
No full textThis chapter provides a historical account of the evolution of Kolkata’s sewage-fed fisheries—the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW)—as an outcome of the internal drainage design and the Kulti Outfall Scheme implemented by the Calcutta Corporation. It complicates the wetlands story by critically interrogating the existing binaries: “state” versus EKW, “municipal” versus “local,” “urban” versus “rural,” and “managerial” versus “environmentalist.” Using ethnography (including key informant interviews with irrigation officers, corporation officials, pump operators, lock-gate operators, project in-charges of government bheris, secretaries of cooperative bheris, leaseholders and managers of private bheris, and fishers and farmers) complemented with archival research (including consultation of drainage committee reports by the Irrigation and Waterways Department, records maintained at municipal pumping stations, minutes of meetings between government departments and wetland inhabitants, and also local documents and participatory maps), it establishes that low-cost waste management and recycling practices conducted by locals (leaseholders, fishers, and farmers) in the EKW are strongly associated with the history of municipal initiatives, encouragements, and interests so as to harness the best possible solutions for parallel management of urban sewage, generation of local livelihoods, and establishment of a revenue regime. The chapter ends with three case studies of three different types of bheris—government, cooperative, and private—to demonstrate that the EKW is a complex and heterogeneous space with each bheri marked by its own specificities in terms of geographical location, administrative status, size, ownership patterns, etc. These in turn shape its specific sets of challenges and potentials that await rigorous exploration towards conscious and comprehensive planning, policy formulation, and actions.</p