Questions for Cities Rising Week
Questions for Presenters - AfterChat Themes
These are issues Malini feels very strongly about:
Just wanted to share in advance the Questions for the presenters during the cities week May be they could be themes for each days afterchat in case the presenters dont address them on the main stage " How do you or can you be........
1. Designing cities to empower children ( I don’t mean children friendly) I mean where children are empowered to manage many of their family chores and activities. I remember being sent on many errands as a child and used to get very frustrated when I would find door handles and knobs unreachable, when post office counters would be too high up for me, when shopping shelves and water fountains were out of reach. I probably come from an era when children did a lot of household chores and ran all the random errands. Children get a great sense of self worth when they are an active part of family and community life.
2. Designing cities for inclusion of persons with disabilities or differently abled people. (Although there are numerous laws and regulations on a global scale this is not something town planners automatically look at when planning and designing city layout and complexes)
3. Designing cities to be safe from violence, arson and dacoity.
4. Designing cities to be disaster prepared.( different geographies need different disaster planning and preparedness, But the principals of ensuring there are such features inbuilt into cities is important. World War II had its own set of rules and paradigms for cities. The coming decade will need a new set of ideas but disasters there will be. )
5. Designing cities for resource optimization. Land is the only resource considered when a city is planned. But the resources of light( so that all dwellings get adequate sunlight, air, water, soil , food, waste management, transportation, power supply and all forms of energy requirement are also resources that need to be factored into planning of a city.)
6. Designing cities to uphold local cultural traditions. The way cities are being planned and designed they are destroying the cultural traditions of countries and local communities. I say this from a perspective of having travelled to and into 29 countries around the world. I find all of them are looking like New York or Singapore or Dubai or Tokyo . This has alienated people and communities in many ways. Especially the way communities engaged and managed their lives.
7. Designing cities to respect and honor the waterbodies in their region. Cities are being planned to only meet human needs and greed. Yet most cities are established on the banks of rivers, around lakes or near the oceans. Mankind cannot exist without access to water. And yet all town planners show scant respect for the waterbodies that are in or around or near a city. This needs to change. we need to plan cities keeping in mind that all of life thrives in these waterbodies. And we need to protect and preserve their integrity. and beauty.
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