People’s struggle for green space in cities

In terms of availability of green spaces, Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina, compares well with Mumbai, the capital city of the state of Maharashtra in India. They are among the least green cities in the world, with only about 1.8 square metres per capita of green space. Both the Government of India’s Urban and Regional Development Plans Formulation and Guidelines (UDPFI) and the World Health Organisation recommend a minimum of around 10 square metres per capita of green space. Even these meagre public open spaces in both cities are under threat of further erosion as even more land is claimed for development.

In both cities, the argument between built environment and open environment emerged as one of the key issues of public concern and confrontation with the local authorities. Mumbai witnessed very tardy implementation of green space reservations in the Development Plans (DP) of 1964 and 1991. These are primarily land-use plans prepared for 20 years. As a result, the city ran large green deficits. The city’s greens were further sought to be diluted in 2014 by reducing the standards for open spaces in the city’s Development Plan 2034. The plan sought to reduce the norms from 4 square metres to 2 square metres. This led to stiff citizen opposition. The citizens saw in this a complete surrender to the lobby for construction. The dilution of standards allowed justification for the paucity of green spaces and left no scope for reclaiming spaces for greenery in the future.

Several NGOs and citizens’ groups wrote to the Chief Minister to put a stop to the commercial and discriminatory use of public open spaces and urged the government to come out with an open space policy for the city. Nagar, a leading NGO for open spaces, proposed a plan of action for restoring, managing, and maintaining all spaces to ensure that they are accessible to all and not compromised by construction. Public opposition to the proposals in the DP, including the reduction of open space standards, was so strong that Government of Maharashtra was compelled to scrap the draft plan.

The team doing the plan was disbanded and a new team was put in place, to freshly craft a new development plan. The redone plan respected the citizen’s voice, retained the standards and sought to improve upon them. Additionally, it forbade any construction within parks and gardens, except very basic amenities such as toilets. The observance of complete permeability and no concretisation was built into the city development control rules.

About the same time, in Buenos Aires, the city government enacted a law termed as Ley de Bares or Bar Law. This permitted the local authorities to give licences to run cafes and bars in parks with a total area of 50,000 square metres or more. This law invariably promoted construction within the park leading to a reduction in green spaces.

Commenting on such constructions in the city’s south, local activist Paula Castelli remarked, “Our park looks more like a city than a park with all this cement.” In the north of the city, many large parks lost half of their green space. Matias Pandolfi, a biologist, recalls that this process began in the 1970s as the city witnessed the construction of large buildings and shopping malls. “Public parks and plazas have been considered economic commodities instead of places of public value, with the government taking on the role of entrepreneur,” remarked Pandolfi. “The soul of Buenos Aires is turning grey” is how a media report summed up the developments.

The city government’s actions drew media attention and a growing public debate on the loss of green spaces. Soon groups of citizens and opposition parties jumped in. While the enacted law remains valid, the local council, sensing the great opposition to the law and adverse publicity the move got, has desisted from implementing it. The permission granted to construct a bar in one of the gardens was withdrawn.

In another city area, Balvanera, a neighbourhood group sprang up in support of green spaces. It raised a protest against the local government’s attempt to build a music hall for an audience of 18,000 people on a vacant piece of land. The citizens wanted that a public park be built instead. The weight of public opinion forced the authorities to concede the public demand and abandon the idea of the music theatre.

In response to these successes, other neighbourhood groups in different city areas have emerged to protect public spaces. Unfortunately, these are splintered groups engaged in the issues of their areas alone. They have not coalesced into a city-wide movement. Although there are synergies among certain groups, there are some that have no interest in what other groups are doing. Some assemblages take up clear political positions, whereas others unite people of different political affinities. Some groups strategise to primarily protest on the streets, whereas others take matters to the courts to ward off privatisation.

Despite these efforts, it would be naïve to deny that the forces of ‘built development’ are very strong and a fractured people’s front may not be able to reverse the tide of developmental forces. There are several weaknesses in the opposition put up by the people. The most obvious is that the people’s organisations are led by the middle class and have little support from either the city’s poor or the rich. The poor are too engrossed in their own daily struggle for survival. The rich either have their own private green space and are hence not bothered about public open spaces or have vested interests in the forces of development.

Even the middle class is disintegrated into local groups and finds it difficult to confederate. There could be differences of opinion, or it could be plagued by internal egos and the quest for independent leadership. These can be spotted by the developmental and the political lobby easily. And they are ready to strategise, break the ranks of the popular opposition and move ahead with their own objectives. Even among the middle class, the young are struggling to establish their careers and those in jobs or professions already have high-pressure engagements.

Hence, citizens’ groups are predominantly populated by the old, who have finished their innings for earning a livelihood and now have spare time to give back to the community. There is also paucity of money to back the role that such groups play. Many times, therefore, such efforts are self-funded that have its own limitations. And at the end of such an activity, there may still be no substantial outcome. Local governments may not heed their entreaties and carry on with their own plans, contrary to citizens’ demands.

All these factors make public activity by citizens a difficult area of public service. This can best be resolved by people’s statutory representation within the local body with mandated rights to decide on local issues. The concept of ‘area sabhas,’ mooted by the Nagar Raj Bill would be the ideal solution. However, the ‘area sabha’ would have to be given teeth, mandating decision-making powers. This would be the right counter-balancing force in the affairs of the city.

The writer is Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai. He works on urbanisation — urban sustainability, urban governance and urban planning.