Cities are jam-packed with apartment buildings to accommodate the huge population in the limited area of land.
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The modern cities of today have sky-touching flats and apartments as part of their housing system. The traditional house with only a ground floor, verandas and cow-dung-painted outer walls is now history. Our ancestors used to live in such houses.
Old generation houses have much openness, spacious rooms and corridors. This has created an open environment for people to live a healthy life. Even if the house is small, it has enough space for a veranda as well as spacious corridors to allow free living with more candidness.
But in the name of modern urban planning, we are shifting towards a congested housing system where cities are jam-packed with apartment buildings to accommodate the huge population in the limited area of land. Multiple storeys are created, where so many families live with no verandas and share tight corridors and rooms. There are no personal gardens or parking space, and everything is shared.
Look at the poor conditions of urban slums, where too many people who are unable to afford adequate housing are compelled to reside in congested dwellings. Sometimes more than 10 people have to share a two-bedroom apartment. Can you imagine the pathetic architecture where even the sun does not reach properly? Congested building designs are made with poor planning only to cram the large population in the limited available space.
In fact, modern builders have no ideas about making sustainable buildings. They are just building up one storey over another for completing their tenders and making more and more money. One project is completed in hush to start the next project.
But we rarely consider the grim reality of living in the congested housing system in the rushed lifestyle. It is a matter of urgency to stress how we are making our lifestyle complex and congested. Humans are making trouble for themselves only by accepting such congested housing structures and living in that congested reality. We are not seeing the overall picture properly. And unfortunately, this poor urban planning is eating into all our open space for no reason. Children have no grounds left to play, they are just tied up in their homes and lobbies to play and have fun.
The streets are also turning narrower day by day. Public parks have been either utilised for parking vehicles or are home to stray animals or garbage or slum dwellers. Nobody is there to manage the crippling conditions of these cities. Even municipalities have failed to manage the condition of these urban sprawls. Urban dwellers are using poor and broken roads, blocked drainage systems, congested apartments and buildings, narrow streets and densely crowded areas.
And unfortunately, we are part of this congested ecosystem. We need to address the congestion problem by making laws for adequate dwelling designs. We need to focus more on sustainable building pattern that may suit our well-being. Including a spacious and green life will unleash exuberant health boons on all of us. Though dismantling the existing architectural design is impossible at large numbers, what we can do is focus on building sustainable dwelling design from now for the vibrancy of our future generations.
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