Why do we have to destroy our cities, then backtrack and restore them ?

1. First ruin, then restore
In 1978, as the city of Seoul in South Korea 'developed', a 6 km. long river called the Cheonggyecheon was
covered up. An 8-lane street was built over it, and an elevated expressway built over the street. The road was
called Cheonggye Road, in memory of the late river.
In 2005 the elevated expressway and the road were broken up and the river restored. It took 2 years and the
equivalent of Rs. 4000 Cr. for the restoration.
2002 : Cheonggyecheon river in its avatar as a road
2005 : Cheonggyecheon river after its restoration
quot;Now we are just waking up to the fact that our economic miracle had come at a steep price and have made the
first step toward ridding Seoul of its concrete eyesores and making the city greener,quot; said Mayor Lee Myung Bak.
quot;For me,quot; he said, quot;the restored river signifies a Seoul that boasts of clean waters, a Seoul where the citizens bask
in happiness as they enjoy the beautiful natural environment as Mother Nature intended it to be.quot;
Most developing countries go down the route of adding concrete, tar, steel and plastic to their landscape at a
breakneck pace as they become prosperous. Development is somehow confused with raping the environment.

2. South Korea too was one such developing country, and fell prey to this developing country syndrome. It is now part
of the first world, and is redefining the term 'development'.
Bangalore : Trees being destroyed to make way for vehicles
In Namma Bengaluru, we are now engaged in the task of recklessly building elevated roads and flyovers,
widening roads, chopping down trees and filling up lakes, all in the name of ‘improving infrastructure’.
We do not have rivers, but we have covered up a lot of lakes in our greed for land. Majestic bus stand used to be
Dharmambudhi Tank, Kanteerava Stadium was Sampangi Tank, City Market was Siddikatte tank, the Football
Stadium was Shoolay Tank. Many of today's localities were once tanks - Channammanakere Achkattu, Leggere,
Abbigere, Konanakunte, Mathikere, Kargunte, Sarakki kere, Tavarekere, Agasanakere, Mavalli. Kere means lake in
Kannada, and all localities with names ending with 'kere' or 'gere' were once lakes, some of them man-made,
some natural. In fact it is mostly these areas than get water-logged in the monsoon. How logical is it to live in the
middle of a former lake (which is the lowest point in the area, into which water naturally flows from the surrounding
space) and then complain when water enters our house during heavy rains ? But then, that's another story.
The damage that we are doing to the city is mostly irreversible, or reversible at an astronomical cost, like the Rs.
700 Cr. per km. of the Cheonggyecheon river.
The government is worried about businesses moving out of Bangalore, and talks of making the city once again the
preferred destination for businesses from all over the world. Most companies that came here in the past did so
because of its climate, clean air, greenery, culture and history. We are now destroying the very reason that brought
all those companies to Bangalore in the first place. Why would they come to just another hot dusty concrete jungle,
when they can go to cheaper ones like Faridabad, Kanpur or any of the hundreds of such towns in India ?
We in Bangalore are at the beginning of the 'ruin-then-restore' cycle. We can either learn from those (like Seoul)
who have gone ahead of us down this path and change course right now, or go down the same path and learn
from our own bitter and costly experience.

3. Given our confidence in our 'glorious 4000 year old cultural heritage and history of scientific achievements',
something tells me that we will not want to learn from the experiences of other countries and will want to chart our
own path. So (pardon my cynicism) I think we can brace ourselves for some serious concreting, asphalting, tree-
cutting, lake-filling and Bangalore-warming for the next 20 years.