Understand the country and plan accordingly

RYAN DARMANIE

Mass suburbanisation in the United States was seemingly justifiable: the country had an enormous inventory of undeveloped land; it was developing an unrivalled automotive industry; and energy resources were abundant.

Why TT followed suit is baffling. Yes, we had cheap energy, but our supply of land remains limited, we have never manufactured cars, and we still are not wealthy enough to maintain the necessary infrastructure system. Gas is (was) cheap, but car ownership is not.

Seventh Thing to Know: We need to understand the country that we live in today and plan accordingly.

Anti-city rhetoric and planning are still somewhat common in Anglo-Saxon-influenced cultures like the US, Great Britain, and Australia. In fact, London, although a large and dense city, is almost three and four times less densely-populated than Barcelona and Paris respectively.

One may think it natural for such rhetoric to be commonplace here, since we speak English. But this is Carnival country. Culturally, we are far from Anglo-Saxon. Our distinct creolised African-Indian-French-Spanish cultural roots have left a permanent mark.

In fact, before the deliberate effort to decentralise population out of Port of Spain in the 1960s, the city had a population density greater than that of present-day San Francisco and London.

At Carnival time, pretences and expectations about how we should behave are gone. It reveals that we are a fun-loving, sociable people who are not individualistic. It shows that we love using the public spaces – the streets, squares, and parks – around us.

Observe a lower-income community in particular, and see how despite having front and back yards — which ideological planning dictates people should use and be content with – the ‘lime’ is more often than not on the street.

Why? It is a far more social and interesting place to be.

While there is an exodus of commuters from 4 pm every day struggling to exit the city, there is also a significant group of people entering from east and west to use its recreational facilities.

But why would people regularly come into the city during a hectic time to use these spaces?

The Queen's Park Savannah’s paved perimeter is an uneven hazard and cars are zooming by at ungodly speeds. Functionally, it is a chaotic mix of runners, walkers, dog-walkers, limers, and sometimes cyclists all on one narrow pathway.

Yet I, and countless others gravitate towards it daily.

Then there’s the Lady Chancellor Hill and the Nelson Mandela Park. The former is simply a road, yet it bustles with activity. The latter is an increasingly well-designed multi-use space, yet attracts people far in excess of its grandeur as a discrete place.

Of course, the catalysing spark for the use of these spaces comes from the city workers who choose to defer their commute to a later hour. That spark increasingly draws more people. To quote the urbanist Jan Gehl, “Something happens because something happens because something happens.”

We are instinctively drawn to places where there are a lot of other people.

If our innate desire to be sociable and our cultural roots are not enough to make you reconsider our living arrangements, then maybe our demographic realities will.

Here are some interesting statistics from the 2011 census:

• Birth rates are now 15 per 1,000 population versus 13 per 1,000 in the US.

• The average household now contains 3.3 people versus 2.6 people in the US.

• Almost 60 per cent of all households now comprise three people or fewer. The number for the US is around 76 per cent.

A common justification for the need to build suburban, single-family homes is the need for space. But households are much smaller today.

The census also shows that only 20 per cent of all homes are multi-family structures, even though 19 per cent of households consist of one person, 38 per cent consist of two or fewer, and 57 per cent consist of three or fewer. In other words, we have a huge excess of single-family homes.

Plan for the country that exists today and not the one from a generation ago. Ideological planning for its socio-economic and environmental repercussions. Design our communities for social interaction, and make it harder for us to retreat into economic, ethnic, and religious enclaves.

Our cities are far better planned and designed than our suburban areas, and are assets for our future. But years of well-intentioned planning, architecture, and decisions have still inflicted damage.

Increasingly, these cities are being designed as a series of insular buildings that do not relate to each or the streets and other public spaces in between them. You see, you can build the fanciest home, and style it to look like a multi-million-dollar loft in Manhattan or London, but you can’t privately replicate the joys of a great neighbourhood.

Ryan Darmanie is an urban planning and design consultant (facebook.com/darmanieplanningdesign) with a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Rutgers University, New Jersey, and a keen interest in urban revitalisation.