Is the city the same everywhere?

I think we should be debating this point - we find it very easy to either blindly copy western notions of the city or dismiss them altogether as irrelevant to our context. For example, some of the issues concerning the western Suburbia are present in Porur too.

Should'nt there be a more informed choice that we should be making when it comes to learning from western cities?

Considering today's rapidly globalizing world, the very idea of western and eastern is by itself subject to scrutiny - to put it simply, cities in developed countries maybe worse off than cities in developing countries, and the fact that they are in the west doesn't automatically grant them access to the club of great cities of the world.

So should our perspective of cities be colored based on where they are located on the globe? Or should we accept that cities in a global village share common issues and concerns? Will learning from them, irrespective of their location, be a rewarding experience?

The first post

Hi!

This blog is a place to put all our thoughts together - something that we have been finding difficult.

So lets start posting random thoughts that we think will be of use to the study - Something substantial will definitely come out of it...

Arvind