The problem of Indian Retail

The sheer quantity of small shops, market stalls and street-sellers is an immediately obvious characteristic of India; the only requirements to set up shop are a space next to the road and a tablecloth.

One of India's small retailers

The Indian parliament, in winter session is currently in paralysis over the ‘FDI in Retail’ issue.  Indian newspapers write only in acronyms, but Foreign Direct Investment is a recent removal of the Indian law restricting ownership of multi-brand retail developments to less than 50%.  Conventional Indian malls, as found in the centre of Raipur are really an agglomeration of small shops that open directly onto the street.  Its more about congregation, than the western hermetic, internalised mall environment.  The law doesn’t prevent these though and many are springing up on the outskirts of Raipur, catering for the increasing wealth of its citizens.  The FDI restrictions did effectively prevent large format retailers though, especially global supermarkets but also Ikea, who have been one of the first to confirm Direct Investment now the restrictions are being lifted.  The debate paralysing parliament is around the likely impact on India’s millions of small retailers.  Our experience in Europe is that supermarkets do have a distorting effect on the market, but of course they cater for real desires and liberate a portion of people’s time that would otherwise be spent grocery shopping.  The Hindu nationalist party BJP have argued that the FDI law is unconstitutional; being anti-socialist, but the motivation behind the change is also based on a social problem.  India produces enough food for all of its population, but storage and distribution are so poor that food rots whilst many go hungry. The Government’s hope is that global retailers will be able to transform India’s distribution networks where the state has failed to. Whoever is right, this will be an unprecedented experiment, affecting more than 1 billion people.  

Mixed-use building in Raipur, with retail at the ground floor

An experience of Chandigarh

Earlier in the year, as part of our scoping for the workshop in Raipur, we visited Chandigarh: Le Corbusier’s planned city, built from the 1950s.  Mostly the city feels as European as it does Indian, but in the south where the city expanded later, we came across this neighbourhood with an entirely different character.  A consistent module of narrow, 3-storey terraced houses, each customised by their owners; arranged around tight open spaces barely 20m x 30m.  Although organised rigidly on a grid, the scale of the streets, the buildings and the spaces seemed to us to work almost to perfection.  Key vernacular elements such as the threshold space between building and street is successfully integrated into a modern urban pattern.  Scale, rather than form is the key here.

An experimental 'rehabilitation colony' in Chandigarh

Now in Raipur, we discovered that this neighbourhood was a village re-housing scheme, developed through consultation with the residents.  For the workshop, we built two comparator massing models at 1:250.  The first model shows a large section of this neighbourhood, with a density of approximately 2,000 persons per hectare.   The second model shows a portion of the currently planned central ‘sectors’ in Naya Raipur, with an average density of 225 persons per hectare.  The road through the middle of the model is a secondary road – 60 metres wide, whilst the primary roads are 100m wide.  An entire block from the Chandigarh neighbourhood can fit in this road, with space either side for traffic.  These models have prompted intense debates within the teams: what is the minimum intensity for a city?  How can public transport, commerce and Indian life be supported in a city with such a suburban character?  The teams will present their work to an international Jury, including the Naya Raipur development agency on Friday.

Scale comparison models at 1:250 - Naya Raipur in the foreground 

and the neighbourhood in the photo from Chandigarh in the background

Raipur, India, 17th November

I’m in India with French Urbanism NGO Les Ateliers, running a workshop on the new city of Naya Raipur.  Professionals from around the world have been selected to bring alternative points of view to the emerging masterplan over the next two weeks.  This morning we had a tour of the existing city of Raipur (its my second visit) and the participants are clearly engaged and fascinated by the vibrancy and immediacy of the streetlife.  After visiting inside an old courtyard house and a temple in the city centre, in the afternoon we visit some new developments on the periphery. 

Raipur is a city of ponds that provide spiritual, practical and social resources

‘Fortwall City’ is aptly named: accessed via a kind of causeway across the fields, we enter a heavily-secured perimeter gate into an oasis of calm.  The Italianate villas are huge and very well-built especially by Indian standards.  A pool and terrace and immaculate gardens complete the surreal picture.  The experience is literally that of leaving India: ‘offshore urbanism’ as somebody described it.  Clearly aimed at the urban elite, it is roughly half occupied; apparently people are reluctant to move so far from the city centre. 

'Fortwall City' provides a sanitised version for urban elites

In later discussions we talk about how the new city has to attract development by providing what people want.  There is clearly an appetite for these elite enclaves, which are a relatively new phenomenon in India.  But, there is also a resistance to them.  Indian society is so inextricably interconnected that the isolation offered by these developments runs against the grain of people’s daily lives.  The services provided by informal workers to the middle classes are not easily replaced by Western-style living.  As we drive back out along the causeway, we see the cinder-block shacks, presumably erected by the construction workers for their families; the seeds of a new slum, which is not antagonistic to the new development, but symbiotic with it.  This segregation is not what the new city of Naya Raipur is aiming for, but the combination of market forces and weakness of development control in India makes the outcome difficult to predict.  This will be the subject of the workshop.  www.ateliers.org/en

Walthamstow, 7th November

It takes a moment to notice the double-door under each wider-than usual archway.  One leads up to a first floor 2-bed flat and the other to the same at ground floor level.  There are streets and streets of this stuff; unremarkable mostly, but with occasional arts-and-craftsy flourishes.  Street corners are handled skilfully, with sculpted gables giving visual strength and managing to emphasise the corner, whilst still following the English terrace peculiarity of not turning it fully; leaving glimpses into back gardens.

Built around the turn of the Century, by a local philanthropist as affordable housing for workers, these purpose-built flats have withstood the test of time. The rear garden is usually split so upstairs and downstairs get half each and the plan is surprisingly deep.  It follows the familiar L-shape of Victorian housing, but with a longer leg so the flats don't feel mean.  You can pick them up for under 200k and they still operate effectively as affordable housing for young families who want a garden, but can't afford a house.  Doesn't seem complicated, does it?

Windrush square, Brixton

There's something a bit different about this public space in Brixton, that's hard to put your finger on at first.  Its a big space, but it doesn't feel wasted and does actually feel like that old cliche of an outdoor room.  Its busy in the morning, with people walking to the buses and tube and the uses that open onto it give it a proper sense of civic function.  It feels comfortable and inclusive, somehow.  I expect the enormous plane tree helps.

London has seen a lot of 'new and improved' public spaces over the past ten years.  Some are better than others, but many of them seem to be designed as if transplanted from Sweden or Denmark, or Italy or Spain and for me at least, they don't really work in the quite distinctive urban fabric of London.  Many also seem to rely on the 'cafe culture' surrounding them to make them feel safe, but they also end up kind of feeling the same, yet not very grounded in their locality: Bermondsey Square and More London to name two random examples.  Windrush square is quite different in these respects.  When the Black Cultural Archives building opens, it will complete what is an unusual and clever piece of public realm.  The landscape architects, Gross.Max. seem to have managed to subtly break free from the stylistic tendencies of contemporary London urban landscaping.  They certainly seem to have understood what makes public space work in London and I wonder if they read this book; the only one I've come across that really explains the nature of London's fabric.

Leyton Road, Olympic park boundary