Last week attended a conference on the subject. Was thinking how sharing of thoughts drive change. It really was amazing to see most of the participants were worrying about cost of construction. Some realized it is cost of land and others were also pondering on the living costs.
I just asked myself, is Urban development all about buildings? Surely not. The famous quote - 'We make buildings then they shape us' could be corrected to ' We make cities and then they shape us'. How can a person live in buildings? How can a Socially Good person live in buildings? We will have to afford them to be near us otherwise we will end up creating social cleavage of millions of people. Cost of land is market driven and imaginary as, there is no input cost to Land. It is a matter of time before we create a huge problem while trying to solve another. One needs to understand the significance of Living Together. A down market location can not be 25-50 kms away from up market. It is Unaffordable by the UP Market people.
I just asked myself, is Urban development all about buildings? Surely not. The famous quote - 'We make buildings then they shape us' could be corrected to ' We make cities and then they shape us'. How can a person live in buildings? How can a Socially Good person live in buildings? We will have to afford them to be near us otherwise we will end up creating social cleavage of millions of people. Cost of land is market driven and imaginary as, there is no input cost to Land. It is a matter of time before we create a huge problem while trying to solve another. One needs to understand the significance of Living Together. A down market location can not be 25-50 kms away from up market. It is Unaffordable by the UP Market people.
