Access to green spaces is your right to the city

As of 2011, 31 per cent of India lives in cities and by 2030, when today’s teenagers will become adults with jobs and families, 41 per cent of India will live in cities. Urbanisation across the world is relentless and with it comes congestion, pollution, mental stress and a diluted quality of life. Urban green spaces — the ensemble of gardens, public and private parks, playgrounds and green belts — are the soothing balm cushioning the population against the ill effects of city life. 

The World Health Organisation stipulates that all residents must live within 15 minutes of a green space. Western countries have tended to adopt a norm of 20 square metres of per capita green space.  Many of them, however, overshoot this requirement. So, in Dutch cities, the per capita green space is 228 sq m, while in the Greater Paris region, it is 80 sq m. In India, according to the “Urban Greening Guidelines, 2014”, a report from the Ministry of Urban Development, the per capita green space in metropolitan cities is abysmal — 0.81 sq m in Chennai, 2 sq m in Bangalore and 1.24 sq m in Mumbai. Smaller cities like Varanasi (24.78 sq m), Bhopal (18.62 sq m) and Chandigarh (17.43 sq m) fare much better in this respect. Gandhinagar fares spectacularly with 162 sq m of green space per person.

The component of urban greens that is most conspicuous by its absence in Indian cities is neighbourhood parks. Even in small western towns, every neighbourhood has a park where children screech and run wildly around see-saws and slides while their mothers catch up with each other. It is a great stress-busting space that allows free play for children of all social strata. As per Indian planning norms, there ought to be one municipal neighbourhood park per 10,000 people. The adherence to this norm varies widely across cities and even if there are municipal parks, they are often run down and turn into dens for gamblers and drunkards, which makes families wary of going there. In Kolkata, for example, one survey revealed there are 711 parks in the city but most are poorly maintained. 

To some extent, neighbourhood parks are being salvaged in the last 15 years or so, coinciding with an increased health consciousness among middle-class Indians. We were spurred into walking by the realisation that India was becoming the Diabetes Central of the world. To create walking spaces, many private trusts opened their own parks or adopted neglected ones and started maintaining them, sometimes charging a small entrance fee. In some cases, the municipality is stirring, typically motivated by an upcoming election. In Versova earlier this year, the BMC opened a lovely park based on a musical theme, with a giant musical fountain and lights that change to musical beats. In a different corner of the locality, amidst lower middle-class dwellings is a small well-maintained park that opens at 5.30 am and closes late, enabling people from different occupational strata to use it for walking depending on their working hours. In Jalandhar, the municipal corporation renovated a park just outside its office, turning it into a hub of lively activity. Gentle film songs play in the background as families relax until as late as 9 pm. Yet, these are exceptions, and by and large, our cities lack even acceptable, if not well maintained neighbourhood parks.

It is significant because several studies are showing a clear relationship between the availability of green spaces for walking and improved health of the population. I would link the lack of sporting talent that we lament about in every Olympics to the lack of usable neighbourhood parks. If children have no place to run freely, there’ s no motivation to play sports. Neighbourhood parks are where the future sportsmen or women discover as children that they can throw a ball or jump or sprint better than their peers. 

The writer is the author of the book Urban Villager: Life in an Indian satellite town​