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| ISBN-13: | 9781504958332 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 11/24/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 100 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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Socio-Cultural Harmonic Human Settlements and Urbanization
By Nadim Ahmed
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2015 Nadim AhmedAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5049-5834-9
CHAPTER 1
SOCIETY AND URBANIZATION
The present day cities have been developed consciously or unconsciously in a manner to suit capitalism and industrialization and also the rapid mass labor mobilization to work places at a minimum cost to the industrialist and capitalists. s is the reason no serious and sincere efforts were ever made to create a socio-cultural urban environment. Contemporary urban developments are such that they cost tremendous amount of mental and physical energy to the dwellers to mobilize within these urban dwellings and find places of social activities, facilities and amenities in addition to the stresses they have to go through both mentally and physically. Huge highways have been built with millions of cars and vehicles speeding around for mobilization of masses used 90% of times for back and forth movement of labors, workers and professionals to work places and their respective residences, and all these energies and resources for mobilization are at the expense of the masses. The more they built highways, speedways, expressways, super ways, the more the traffic problems and congestions and sufferings for the travelers spending hours on these highways and super ways. Urban planners from time to time brought in many ideas and implemented them to solve such issues such as Garden Movement, New Urbanism, Unified Settlement Planning, Landscape Urbanism etc. Latest innovation is Mixed-Use Developments to solve mobilization issues, but each and every innovation at one place solved some issues and created another. For example, take the Mixed-Use Development claims to solve the mass mobilization issue. But contrary to their claims, I have seen these developments where people reside but instead of working within such developments they work in previously established Industrial-Zones thus further creating the issue of traffic congestion and creating other social issues such as privacy issues, more crimes and insecurity, higher stress, lack of play grounds, lack of space, daylight etc. A building or such development cannot have all the facilities, and therefore, their claim of providing ease of availability of social amenities and facilities is not a reality as they have to go from building to building facing accessibility issues etc
When man established societies, came with it a strong bonding relationship with the land because this was the pre-requisite or requirement for a society to come into being. People had been living in the same place for generations. Industrialization broke this bonding as more and more workers, labors and professionals were required irrespective of their nationalities and gender. Family bondings were not desirable either, therefore, an urban infra-structure was required where emotionless human beings could reside as commodities and may be utilized to fed the industries and commercial and trade centers. Huge buildings, mixed-use residential towers and complexes were ideal for such purpose. The purpose was twofold- Provide human materials to the industries, factories, service centers, commercial and financial institutes and trade zones and force the subjects to buy or rent residential units at a very elevated cost to further the financial benefits of capitalist classes. This was also important to separate the wives and husbands, so that they may not be able spend much energy towards family developments and nurturing so that most of their energies may be utilized to the benefits of such production and service centers. Due to breakup or weakening of family bondings, many social and emotional issues evolved out of human behavior and attitude towards self and other fellow beings. This is the time now to pause, evaluate and analyze our approach and direction and correct the path and direction to optimize human efforts and achievements to avoid further damage to humanity. This is, therefore, needed to come up with an urban plan which may provide an optimal solution for all the stake holders of urban living without the cost of their family living and alienation issues, stresses, increased daily life costs, and negative social aspects that result from mass marginalization of the dwellers of such urbanization and human settlements
Such an approach is required now, when democratic governments are becoming more and more citizen welfare oriented and common masses are getting more say in the everyday and policy matters of their governments, where an urban plan may be envisaged and formulated which will return much of the lost family living and related happiness, so that instead of being the tools for capitalization and industrialization, masses may become able to materialize the very reasons for which they agreed to a social setup where they could live together thousands of years ago, in order to enjoy the fruits of their individual achievements with the help of the collective efforts of their fellow beings
Hence we can say that urban planning or city or town planning has to be a technical, social, cultural and political process related to the use of land and design of the urban environment and infrastructure including transportation networks etc, based on socio-cultural traits and characteristics of human living, to guide and ensure the orderly development of human settlements and communities. It should also concerns itself with research and analysis and strategic thinking to achieve a socio-cultural spatial representation of a uniform and harmonic distribution of social activity hubs and facilities centers to minimize energy losses, stresses, alienation and negative social impacts and maximize happiness, social and cultural interaction, quality family living and time to enjoy fruits of individual achievements with family, relatives and friends
For this purpose we have to go back in time to the point where we may find the very basic principles and components of the formation of a society when man was happy enough by making collective efforts with fellow human beings to achieve individual goals and enjoying the fruits of individual achievements in the places of solitude with his family, relatives and friends. Therefore, we need to understand the basic definitions of some very common terminologies we use in our daily social living related to human settlements and urbanization specifically
Society is a group of people sharing the same geographical territory and therefore subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Such people share a distinctive culture and institutions, which characterize the patterns of social relations between them. Large societies typically further develop social stratification and dominance patterns among its subgroups. A given society may be described as sum of social relationships among its members
Human beings had been living in hunter-gatherer societies for millions of years. The hunter gatherer society did not practice agriculture and used to raise and herd animals. Social structure was usually egalitarian with little economic and gender inequality. Private property was minimal and they had no settled area on land for permanent housings. In a hunter-gatherer society the primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either. This was since the invention of agriculture, hunter-gathering society have been replaced by farming or pastoralist societies in most parts of the world and human beings begin to settle and started getting associated with land. Horticulture and agriculture as types of subsistence developed among humans somewhere between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago in the region of the fertile and climatically feasible Middle East
Agriculture allows a much greater density of population than can be supported by hunting and gathering and allows for the accumulation of excess product to keep for winter use or to sell for profit. The ability of farmers to feed large numbers of people whose activities have nothing to do with material production was the crucial factor in the rise of surplus, specialization, advanced technology, hierarchical social structures, inequality, and standing armies. Agrarian societies thus support the emergence of a more complex social structure. It is when the concept of building houses and residential structures started. Man learned to build cluster of residential units close together and surrounded the farmlands and work places and a clear concept of Family structures evolved alongwith relation to land. Agrarian societies led to the introduction of property rights, patriarchal social setup, domestication of plants and animals, and larger families. It was around such time period when the society was transformed and State was formed assumed to be founded on Social Contract
In moral and political philosophy, the social contract or political contract is a theory or model, originating during the Age of Enlightenment, that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Social contract arguments, as suggested by Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau, typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some or all of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social contract theory. This led to the formation of societies
Family is the unit of socialization, a socially recognizable group in physical representation. One obvious sign of a family is that of a common residence, housing two or more persons related by birth, marriage, or adoption, who reside together. In addition, there is usually a long term commitment of the man and the woman, a joint economic goal, other shared goals and values, a socially approved relationship. The primary function of a family is that of reproducing society, the birth, nurture, training and education of children. This is called Nuclear Family. Families transformed into Extended Families, which refers to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. A strong relationship with extended families was socially as rewarding as close ties inside the nuclear family. Thus extended family also ensures the survival of the family members by providing the protective aspect of the "herd" instinct in human beings which provides safety of its members by polarizing into groups. This security also promotes sharing work and property, emotional support, and birth, growth and nurturing of children
The concept of the family, therefore, should be the most important part of our urbanization. This is basic building unit and any error in this respect means a complete erroneous, in-efficient and failed urban planning and corresponding urban development. As families grew in numbers, they started living in groups of relatives. Individual Nuclear Families and Extended Families functioned as part of groups in such a manner that their lives were greatly influenced by the group even more so than by their own individual beliefs. People spent more time together in such groups in both a physical sense and social as well. Of course, the most important group had always been the family, which encompassed a broad sense of kinship even among those family members living in separate residences. In order to perform such functions, the socializing space or place needed was called House. It is, therefore, the primary building block of a society physically and spatially. The houses built were usually such that they used to have a Central Meeting Place and living quarters for single and married were built around this Central Meeting Place with usually closed boundaries. Extended families might have been using the Central Meeting Place to socialize and spend quality time with each other and communicate to support each other socially and economically for a better and secured living. These houses were usually built around the agricultural lands. In addition to the financial and social security, such extended family and friends structure with its members in physical and direct presence and communications with each other over a long span of their lives create, develop, nurture and nourish a sense of physical and spiritual cohesiveness and attachment necessary for human beings to experience happiness and joy just by their being physically present which no other form of material and social achievement and success can bring into a human being. This is very important and in fact I would say the most important factor in the life of a person socially. In the struggle for material success and possession, man forgot this most important factor
Industrialization and capitalization weakened this most important connections between human beings, weakened the relation of man with the land, caused mass mobilization and migration, displacing millions and millions within and abroad their countries or native lands in search of happiness wrongly associated with material possessions and successes. Man for centuries established its relation with the lands and used to settle and live at a place for centuries with their children, grandchildren, grand grandchildren and so on, all living and growing up and spending their whole lives at the places of their forefathers. This essentially brought genetic changes into the brains of human beings and made them to feel happiness and joy associated with their nuclear and extended families and friends. All is lost during industrialization and globalization. This pattern of globalization and industrialization must be curtailed and minimized in order to bring back the much lost happiness, joy and pleasures man had in his connection with families nuclear and extended, friends and the land
Neighborhoods are common, and perhaps close to universal. A neighborhood should usually supposed to be a combination of many Nuclear or Extended Family houses built together in a close area or space and is a geographically localized community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area. Neighborhoods are often social communities with considerable face-to-face interaction among members. It is generally defined spatially as a specific geographic area and functionally as a set of social networks. Neighborhoods, then, are the spatial units in which face-to-face social interactions occur — the personal settings and situations where residents seek to realize common values, socialize youth, and maintain effective social control while maintaining face-to-face communication. In a Neighborhood people are visible to each other as well as their social activities on daily basis including all in social hierarchy
In the words of the urban scholar Lewis Mumford, "Neighborhoods, in some primitive, inchoate fashion exist wherever human beings congregate, in permanent family dwellings; and many of the functions of the city tend to be distributed naturally". Most of the earliest cities around the world as excavated by archaeologists have evidence for the presence of social neighborhoods. Neighborhoods are typically generated by social interaction among people living near one another. In this sense they are local social units larger than households not under the control of city or state officials. The residents used to have connections and relations with the land and the people sharing the same place from generations and staying together for their whole life keeping associations with the land, culture, language and people
But in addition to these benefits, considerable research indicates that strong and cohesive neighborhoods and communities are linked — quite possibly causally linked — to decreases in crime, better outcomes for children, and improved physical and mental health. The social support that a strong neighborhood may provide can serve as a buffer. Hence Neighborhoods should be considered as a semi-closed-boundary] spatial representation of a society usually comprised of families, their relatives, close friends, close acquaintances and other socially and culturally related individuals and groups. Trespassing and foreign movements and interference are usually not the norms of a Neighborhood. In Asia such dwellings have erected boundaries encompassing approximately 25 to 100 houses with all the required facilities and activities of social nature
Community is a group of interacting people sharing an environment in a common location. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present in common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness, and need organization and order. Therefore, Community is often used to refer to a group that is, though may not be related, organized around common values and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household and a neighborhood.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Socio-Cultural Harmonic Human Settlements and Urbanization by Nadim Ahmed. Copyright © 2015 Nadim Ahmed. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Intellectual Property Declaration, v,Dedication, vii,
Preface, xi,
Introduction, xiii,
Society And Urbanization, 1,
Contemporary Human Settlements And Urbanization, 8,
Socio-Cultural Harmonic Human Settlements And Urabanization, 12,
Socio-Cultural Harmonic Transportation Systems, 50,
Formulation Of The Principles, 75,
References, 81,