(This article explores the role of Public spaces and infrastructure in providing sense of belonging and safety to its citizens within an Independent Country and how to achieve that successfully) Cities in developing countries are inadequately equipped with public spaces. The increasing urbanisation trend in focal cities is attracting more people from different areas to the cities, for their livelihood, without having appropriate sustainable developmental plan for public spaces. However, the social public place holds significant importance for urban well-being and collective recognition. This is the place where human can participate as fully fledged social subjects in complex civic life. Unfortunately, in most cases the provision of public space in these cities is always neglected or poorly integrated in planning legislation.
Moreover, the process of creating public spaces of a democratic independent country represents what equality and democracy means for civil society. These public spaces, and how they work narrates us either we are free to live in the city with harmony and equality or not. Either we are free to roam around, travel, meet, and interact in these public spaces or not. Either the ruling party of a democratic country is making the public spaces safe and inclusive to all or not? There are many questions that are not pondered upon regarding diversity and user needs and demand for a public space.
Recently, the motorway incident made us realise that how important is the role of social infrastructure and public spaces in the creation of a healthy society. The crime incidents do not always occur at random places; rather, there are certain areas in city where crimes occur much more frequently than elsewhere, making them highly vulnerable and predictable. Urban design and environment play a vital part in making the decision of whether or not to commit a crime (referred as safe zones); for example, the lack of natural vigilance, poor lighting and other variables mean that an area may easily be transformed into a potential crime hotspot. For example, in the case of that incident, the motorway has no road lighting system and have no other security measures related to urban design, and that enabled the criminals. The inadequate social infrastructure is one of the major factors in this incident which dispensed a message to masses that they are not safe to travel even in a free democratic country which pledge to give freedom to everyone without having gender, religion, age or any other kind of discrimination.
Being a citizen of a democratic and independent country like Pakistan, every person has a right to dwell, interact and enjoy the public spaces within the country. In fact, the state is responsible for providing safe and inclusive public spaces for all. But our cities are missing out on significant development opportunities by ignoring, under-leveraging, or mismanaging public spaces. There is an enormous opportunity for smarter use of public spaces, to unlock the “hidden” value they create for communities, neighbourhoods, and entire cities.
The publication, The Hidden Wealth of Cities: Creating, Financing, and Managing Public Spaces, says that “well-conceived, people-centred urban public spaces have vast potential to become assets that cities can leverage to transform the quality of urban life and improve city functioning.” Sustainable planning, financing, and managing public spaces with a focus on people is a key to unleash city’s potential for building liveable, resilient, and competitive cities for all.
Our ruling government does not invest in the creation and management of the quality of public spaces as we can see in poor and ad-hoc urban planning, budgetary constraints, and other pressing priorities arising from rapid urbanization. As a result, public spaces often become liabilities, creating a downward spiral that drains public resources and exacerbates various city problems. One of the major problems arise from having poor public spaces is the increase in crime rate which is costing us our natural freedom as well as the vibrancy of cities. Now is the high time that we realize this, and urge cities to adopt imaginative and effective strategies to create, finance, and manage public spaces; to prioritize their value for people, communities, and places.
Thus, Placemaking strategies play a vital role in creating better places and they must be considered and followed while planning about a public place:
1. Involving the Community in the Process:
Creating public spaces for and with communities is the first rule to develop public spaces of a democratic country. Include the people in the decision making and designing stage of public spaces. This makes the design of public spaces more inclusive and when people feel included in the creation of that public space, then they will own that space and a sense of community would generate. When communities will have their ownership in the public spaces, they will look out for the people and surroundings around them. This will result in natural surveillance and maintenance of the public spaces.
Moreover, this will make the design of public spaces more inclusive for people belonging to any gender, age, culture or religion. Furthermore, the state should recognise the need for strong partnerships between government, private sector actors, and citizens. This is how a democratic decision of public spaces should be done. As a result, the public spaces that come into being would have the strong sense of community which is associated with improved well-being, increased sense of safety and security, participation in community affairs and civic responsibility.
2. Policies, Planning, and Design:
Adapt effective planning policies, place making approaches, and innovative design solutions that ensure the equitable distribution, inclusion, access, and quality of public-space networks across the city. Transparency is the key to design a public space of a democratic country. Moreover, the public spaces have increasingly become a key component of many regeneration and development schemes (both residential and commercial), with far-reaching impacts on how the resulting places are perceived and used. Short-term experiments is the key solution to start with.
The current trend of ‘privatisation of the public spaces’ is a policy which is depriving the general public from their right of enjoying the public space free of cost. In this sphere, we are depriving the public from their power of being in a public space freely and giving them to the private stakeholders. In such context, it is vital to design public spaces well with the effective planning policies that are aligned with the focus for public life, activities and events.
3. Management, Governance, and Finance:
Implement sustainable financial, well managed, and good governance models across the entire public-space asset life cycle, from the initial creation, implementation, maintenance and to their renewal. Being a developing country, Pakistan have limited finances and along with that, we have poor governance where the major goal of public spaces is not for the people but for the diplomatic purposes. We need to regulate our process of designing and have to make it corruption free.
For example, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is the report which should be carried out before initiating any mega scale public project so that one should assess that either that project would benefit the surroundings or not. But during the mega scale project of Orange Line Metro Train, the EIA report is carried out after the construction has been started. Now what is the point of having that report if the ruling government don’t want to act on that report? We need to end this kind of practice now and have our interest align with the interest of the general public. In the long run, properly created and managed public spaces would reap the rewards including the environmental and social benefits that would go beyond economic gains.
Conclusion: Through these strategies the public spaces - whether the streets, infrastructure spaces and public facilities, or open and green areas – can yield returns on investment far exceeding the monetary costs. The successful public spaces help cities strengthen social cohesion and sense of place; promote urban health and citizens well-bring. Public spaces range in form from informal street corners to grand civic set pieces.
At a larger scale, formal public spaces have an important role as the perceived centres of settlements of all types and the focus for public life, activities and events. They can build urban resilience; support the local economy and livelihoods; spur urban regeneration and entrepreneurship; and attract further investments into urban neighbourhoods. At a smaller scale, they might simply be place to rest, hang out, or play whilst providing a visual pause in the flow of streets through urban areas.