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THE city I live in may well be one of the most boisterous expressions of the chaotic complexity of India as well as the current raw dynamism of the Indian economy. Delhi is a sprawling megalopolis in a way that has become typical of large metropolitan cities in developing countries - only sporadically planned, combining historical beauty with the thrusting ugliness characteristic of so much modern construction, with roads crammed with vehicles of every age and description, and physical infrastructure that was bursting at the seams some time ago.
It is well known to be a city of extremes. There exists every category and quality of physical space and standard of living, ranging from the squalor-ridden tenements of the destitute to the offensively opulent mansions of the very rich. Delhi plays host to every type of employment and economic activity imaginable: from the street peddlers and cart vendors struggling for long hours to earn far less than the legal minimum wage to the professionals in multinational companies earning "world-class" incomes; from the most staid of governmental organisations to the most frenetic of entertainment providers. It even includes farmers who somehow persist in some agriculture in the narrow confines of space still afforded by some of the "urban villages".
And, of course, now this city is in the midst of an economic boom. This boom is not characterised so much by remunerative employment generation, which is still unfortunately far too low, as by a frenzied burst of construction, as new and apparently futuristic buildings start filling the skyline, and humongous roads and flyovers start dominating the ground level.
The most visible forms of new construction are the shopping malls, which are proliferating across all the major areas of the city, with new ones coming up every day. In south Delhi, just outside the university where I teach, no fewer than three large malls are currently under construction along a road within the length of around one kilometre. Another two are just around the corner, while within a 5-km radius there are already four functioning malls with another five being constructed or planned. And all of these are in addition to the existing shopping centres and markets.
This is remarkable - and more than a little disturbing - for several reasons. Let me begin with the most trivial reason. All these malls are designed along "international" lines, with enclosed centrally air-conditioned spaces for retailers to the affluent. There is, of course, an aesthetic loss here, in the disappearance of any individual creativity in design.
There is a depressing sameness to the architectural features. These malls could be in Tokyo or Calgary, Jakarta or Buenos Aires, Cape Town or Bangkok, since they are everywhere informed by the same sensibility, regardless of climatic variation and local culture. They all have the steel, chrome, cement and glass combinations that have become the physical emblems of our globalised world.
Even the shops are the same - the same well-known large retailers displaying the same big multinational brands. This is curiously seen as a source of pride and delight, even though it means that there is less possibility of catering to local tastes and allowing travellers the joy of discovering differences.
Then, of course, there are the environmental issues associated with this particular form of retail development. There is no doubt that the mall format for retail trade is more energy intensive, more wasteful of water and other scarce resources and more potentially polluting than other smaller forms of retailing such as neighbourhood shops, local markets and community shopping centres. They are based on a lifestyle typical of American suburbia whereby most households have cars and can drive down to malls to make all their purchases but rare in most developing countries. Since this is an environmentally unsustainable mode of existence, it is surprising to see that this has become the desired model across the world.
But even more than all this, the real reason why this proliferation of malls is so disturbing, is because of what it tells us about the public policy choices with respect to urban space. Consider the 1-km stretch of land in south Delhi. Within half a kilometre on either side, there are already two major and busy shopping centres. Was it really necessary to have another three malls come up right there? Could no other use be thought of for this land, or even a part of it?
Even if we forget the more obvious useful occupiers of space such as schools and hospitals, there are so many other ways to use this land, which would provide more utility to the public at large. What about a sports complex that could be open to all the children and young people in the area? (In fact, there is currently nothing like that in the area, and there is a general understanding that only the children of the rich get to play sports in any meaningful way.) Why not a public library that would encourage both the young and old, and especially the newly literate, to broaden their horizons? Why not a community "banquet hall" given the new restrictions on using parks and other such spaces for such activities? Why not, simply, a park that everyone could enjoy?
It is depressing to think that most of the construction in the city at present, and most of what should be public space, is devoted to creating spaces where people go to make purchases. This shows more than a general lack of imagination - it is actually a constriction of even the possibilities of human activity, with the notion of leisure (for those who can afford it) being reduced to shopping and watching movies in multiplexes.
Of course for some of the better off, there is the indoctrinated pleasure of being truly global, in terms of access to goods and international similarity of shopping experience. And the building developers are clearly the real gainers from this frenzy of mall construction. But collectively as a society, we are all losers. For we not only have to face the problems of traffic congestion, environmental damage and exclusion that malls bring, we also have to deal with a more fundamental loss of imaginative power - the independent ability to make creative use of our own leisure.
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