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Why stop at 250-storeys, Mr CM?
Written By murali772 - 2 June, 2009
Bangalore governance Development environment Media Reports heritage
A world-class 200-250 storey building and a garden around it. That is what may come up on the Bangalore Turf Club land. Yeddyurappa envisaged this structure during the Vikasa Sanaklp Utsav.
“We have ordered Bangalore Turf Club to shift base. There is no need to hold races a stone’s throw away from Vidhana Soudha. We are thinking of having a 200-250 storey building, which will be world famous. The remaining space can be developed as a garden,” he explained.
The government has identified land on the outskirts and the Turf Club will have to move by December-end this year.
For the full text, which appeared in yesterday's TOI, please click here
When earlier I read about the 45-storey complex being planned by BMTC at the Majestic bus stand (check here ), was when I first began feeling that namma Bengaluru was finally arriving on the international scene. Now, this is really going to take us right up there!
What makes a city international are not the achievements of its industry (Infosys, Wipro, Biocon, etc), or those of ISRO, or academic institutions like IISc, IIIT, etc. Those are all passe'. What really denotes a city's coming of age are its buildings, the taller the better, and along with it, the multitude of cars (don't we owe it to TATA's to give them some business, now that they have bought over Land-Rover and Jaguar?), wide roads, under/over-passes, fly-overs, elevated high-ways, and what have you.
Heritage, a few thousand trees are all old-world talk. We don't have time for all that. We are now a modern city, and heading to become numero uno. And, nothing is going to stop us! Jai Karnataka! Jai Bengaluru! Jai Yeddyurappa!
But, the question I would like to ask the CM avaru is why stop at 250? The tallest man-made structure presently is Burj Dubai, a skyscraper under construction in Dubai that reached 818 m (2,684 ft) in height on 17 January 2009. Now, at an average of 12 ft per floor, Bengaluru's pride is going to be 3,000 ft, which will then make it the tallest building in the world. But, the problem is that there are others in this world who are equally ambitious, and it will not be long before, we are again humbled by some upstart. So, why not take it to say 5,000 ft, which is going to take some doing to catch up?
PS: Some 'idiots' had the audacity to suggest all kinds of things in place of the race course - check here . But, what the heck! Who wants any of those kinds of regressive suggestions, anyway?
Muralidhar Rao
COMMENTS
blrpraj - 4 June, 2009 - 18:57
s_yajaman,
I agree with you that each of us has his or her own idea of what a world class city is. From my
travel experiences to (which includes travel to even the remotest rural places in developed
countries) let me make an attempt to define what in my mind is a world class city what
facilities/parameters are an absolute must for a world class city
1) Law Enforcement - Be it traffic enforcement, building code enforcement, land use
enforcement to preserve greenery/lakes etc., or perhaps enforcement of road design etc,
... the buck starts and stops here since enforcement is the key and building block for rest
of the parameters.
2) Basic Infrastructure -
a) good pedestrian & bycicle infrastructure like sidewalks, bike trails,
bike lanes etc.
b) good road infastructure
c) good public space infrastructure for recreation like parks&lakes.
d) realiable supply of good quality - water & electricity
e) a reliable and efficient drainage system with appropriate treatment
facilities to prevent dumping of raw sewage. Also, When I mention drainage..I am referring to
the sewer system that serves buildings as well as the storm water system serving the roads
and public places..with of course..proper segregation between the 2 systems.
f) communication infrastructure - I am not sure what to write in this section
but I think we get the picture
3) Misc services
a) Garbage collection & disposal - What else can be more important than this for a
"world class" city? Take one walk down any Indian city littered with garbage, filth, stones,
piles of mud, in some cases feces...you get the picture. A reliable and working system for
garbage collection and disposal is a key hallmark of a world class city.
b) Emergency services - Prompt and reliable emergency services like fire
service,ambulance/paramedics & police. Incidents like the attack on Taj in Mumbai where the
fire could not be battled for 2 hours because of lack of availability of water OR delayed
response in the case of Jayanagar shopping complex fire in Bangalore are a testament to lack
of reliability of such services in our cities.
e) Access to health care and education - this is open for debate. I went to a good
school and know many friends who did. Even in the absence of proper buildings and other
infrastructure quite a few people have made it big (probably by sheer grit and emphasis laid
on education by parents). We could do better on this front but I think many people have
access to good schools (I could be totally wrong on this). On healthcare front I am not sure
what to say but many people whom I know and familiar with this topic say that Canada and UK
have some of the most accessible, affordable and world class health care system+facilities
that is envied by the rest of the world.
f) last but not the least good public transport alternatives..most US cities fail in
this respect and definitely European cities win hands down.
Of course, the above list is certainly not exhaustive but those parameters seemed to stand
out on my visits be it Seattle,LA,San Diego,NY,Vancouver,London,Cardiff,Amsterdam etc. where
no matter which country, I got some consistent experience of going into a clean, well planned
and orderly city with basic facilities. Sadly, the same cannot be said of our home country
India.
Coming back to the 250 floor proposed building, it could very well be a ill planned 250floor
building in a crumbling city without properly planned access roads, without proper building
codes & safety measures(in case of fire or earthquakes), or without proper evacuation
procedures. God help such a building and the people living in the immediate vicinity. In
Bangalore or most Indian cities an individual deserves a bravery award to walk on the roads.
Our cities fail on 95% of the above parameters I have listed for a world class city.
srinidhi - 2 June, 2009 - 07:18
its also in news that the alternate land that has been allotted to the BTC is actually on a lake bed..and there are no env clearences for it yet..
btw whos gonna build the 250 stories?? who has the money?
Did anyone say..what happened to HSRL to airport??
BS...Y only talks and talks and talks..
SOS - PIL and a NO CONFIDENCE MOTION...
Vasanthkumar Mysoremath - 2 June, 2009 - 07:55
F*******C (Fantastic) ^&*(*&
After reading this, my BP has gone up. I will come back for a comment later. Interalia, once upon a time we had a Germal Ruler.... I will come back later.
If the Race Course is sitting on a lake bed, then it is all the more convenient to create a mini organic forest as contemplated in the link below:
- Vasanth Mysoremath
mcadambi - 2 June, 2009 - 06:38
What a disgusting taste. Sir Ananda Coomaraswamy once famously remarked that nations are not made by it's businessmen or politicians, but by it's artists.
Even tough i am a BJP supporter, the honourable CM has lost his aesthetics!
Arun - 2 June, 2009 - 07:06
Nothing surprising...this is how this Govt is functioning
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