According to a newspaper metro guide to Kolkata of 2019, about 120 real estate housing complexes may be listed in Kolkata and neighbouring urban centres including Rajarhat, Uttarpara, Serampore and two in Santiniketan. These luxury multi-storey apartment blocks represent the culminating apex of the new landscapes of urban power that have penetrated the skyline of postmodern Kolkata of the early 21st century
Are they the signs and symptoms of the new trends in gentrification and renewal that mark much urban growth in Kolkata today?
The Dictionary of Human Geography (1986 second edition 2003) edited by R J Johnston, Derek Gregory, Geraldine Pratt and Michael Watts, published by Blackwell states that “(g)entrification is a process by which dilapidated subdivided dwellings or slum neighbourhoods are taken over by the wealthy or their agents through purchase, the non-renewal of lease or occasionally, the harassment of tenants, and then reconverted to expensive single-family housing. It occurs within the inner city because the wealthy wish to live near a central city office and have recreational opportunities. Gentrification is a reversal of the normal filtering process, for it involves old substantial dwellings that usually filter down the social hierarchy but in this case, are recolonised and filtered back up.”
Urban renewal has been defined as both the process and result of a large-scale redevelopment of the built environment in downtown and older inner-city neighbourhoods, typically on a massive scale, and undertaken by the State or public-private partnerships. Professor David Harvey, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford, writes in his The Condition of Postmodernity” (1989 reprint 1995) that renewal is a classic term which has been replaced with the term ‘revitalisation’ in flexible postmodern terminology.
{{/usCountry}}Urban renewal has been defined as both the process and result of a large-scale redevelopment of the built environment in downtown and older inner-city neighbourhoods, typically on a massive scale, and undertaken by the State or public-private partnerships. Professor David Harvey, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford, writes in his The Condition of Postmodernity” (1989 reprint 1995) that renewal is a classic term which has been replaced with the term ‘revitalisation’ in flexible postmodern terminology.
{{/usCountry}}However, Jayarati Das Gupta and Lakshmi Shivaramakrishnan (2013), two Calcutta University geography academics, mention in their book Urban redevelopment and highrise buildings in Kolkata published by Progressive Publishers in 2013, that the concept of urban renewal is a more modern one encompassing the concept of urban redevelopment, reconstruction, conservation and rehabilitation within its domain. They cite Johnston et al in The Dictionary of Human Geography who considers urban renewal to signify the rehabilitation of those portions of urban areas which fall below the prevailing standards of public acceptability. Such areas are characterised by problems such as inadequate housing, traffic congestion, lack of amenities, environmental deprivation and social malaise. Community renewal, open space provision and transport network development are the hallmarks of urban renewal.
This phenomenon is true of Kolkata to some extent. The older parts of Ballyganj, Chetla and north Kolkata have seen old housing being demolished and replaced by multi-storeyed blocks. When we moved to New Alipore in 1980, every house was a family affair with a garden. Today, all the gardens have been taken over by four-plus-storey housing complexes. The former zone in transition or intermediate zone between Park Street and Bowbazaar has witnessed the demolition of old havelis and crumbling mansions mostly occupied by Anglo-Indians and Muslims and the percolation of new tower blocks while many old colonial mansions have been replaced with modern tower blocks and jerry-built structures as land values have soared in these crowded central parts of the former second city of Empire.
However, gentrification and renewal of a different dimension characterise East Kolkata. The former wetlands and marshes that were drained to give way to Salt Lake City, Rajarhat and other new metropolitan hubs had flat, watery landscapes with stretches of wetlands, fisheries, swamps, and the Corporation garbage dump at Dhapa, with occasional villages punctuated by the occasional Chinese temple, tanneries or Arabian Nights mosques. Now, the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass slices its way through the landscape, a sign of domination according to Henri Lefebvre. New housing and office developments have sprung up all along it and subsequently, the flyover linking Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Road from the racecourse to Salt Lake, Rajarhat and the east, named “Ma” euphemistically, has seen burgeoning urbanisation of the sort detailed by the 2019 metro guide.
The development of transport networks and connectivity has, therefore, played a major role in this form of gentrification and renewal, linking New Town, Rajarhat, the Bypass and the central city. The significance of adaptive reuse should not be underestimated, as mentioned by Major-General L K Gupta, Chairman of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, in his speech at the Indian Museum in 2017. Old structures may be fit solely for demolition but old heritage structures are also gold sources. They may be conserved, put on view to earn vital foreign exchange and local currency from international and local visitors and also turned into luxury hotels, venues for weddings, conferences and films, like Oxbridge colleges and stately homes across India, especially Rajasthan.
In 2018, The Statesman reported that the former Finance Minister, the late Arun Jaitley, had commented in the budget that urbanisation is a top priority of the Union Government. The government produced two interlinked programmes: the Smart Cities Mission and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT). He announced that the Smart Cities Mission aims at the construction of 100 Smart Cities with state-of-the-art amenities and that 99 cities were selected with an outlay of ₹2.04 lakh crores. These cities have already commenced implementing projects such as the smart command and control centre, smart roads, solar rooftops, intelligent transport systems and smart parks.
AMRUT is a project/mission launched by the augmentation of basic urban services. According to the ministry of urban development sources, this mission aims to tackle basic services relating to water supply, sewerage, stormwater drainage, urban transport, the development of green spaces and parks and capacity building and management programmes. It is not a poverty alleviation project nor devoted to slum improvement and welfare but targets basic household infrastructure and largely substantiates the earlier Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) which targeted the improvement of everything ranging from urban transport to heritage buildings.
To preserve and revitalise the spirit of our heritage cities, the National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) has begun. It was launched in 2015 and initially covered 12 cities. The scheme aims at preserving and revitalizing the unique character of heritage cities in India. It is operated as a central sector scheme and initially, the 12 cities selected were Ajmer, Amravati, Amritsar, Badami, Dwarka, Gaya, Kanchipuram, Mathura, Puri, Varanasi, Velankanni and Warangal. Other major urban development schemes include the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Housing for All (Urban) Mission which was launched in 2015 and targeted urban poor living in slums and other facets.
So, have gentrification and renewal played a role in shaping the new urban landscape? Yes, they have.
Dr Aditi Chatterji is honorary associate, Centre for Urban Economic Studies, University of Calcutta, Kolkata
The views expressed are personal