Week Two Addendum (Sidewalks)

Something I think about almost every new (or sometimes familiar) place I go, is this idea of sidewalks as the infrastructure of democracy, a cement proof and simultaneous breeding ground of a place's civic political sphere. There is the possibility of ubiquity or scarcity and an oddly inexhaustible range of variety of this piece of the built environment, often overlooked for its seeming banality, but reading a society through its sidewalks, through the way this 'democracy' is played out, is pretty interesting.

The sidewalks of Manhattan, particularly those flanking the avenues and busy thoroughfares, are wide enough to allow a huge amount of mobility even when encroached upon by capitalist set-ups, be they the rows of chairs and tables set up for the sake of dining amidst the hoots and hollers of the street or the creaky beggar shaking a coffee cup of change and smelling a bit off. Meanwhile, developments are often built without sidewalks, completely eliminating this facet of human mobility and its social connotations, its accessibility an therefore certain aspects of its market identity . Just as often, entire developments are built with gleaming white sidewalks replete with sloped wheelchair access points placed regularly... but leading to nothing beyond their welcome signs boasting arboreal fantasies at their entrances. Occasionally a dirt path beaten into the grass continues on along the highway, staked out by those who often lie outside of this community either literally or socio-economically, and thusly have a use and a mobility separate from this sidewalk infrastructure. But tall of these ideas of footpaths and sidewalks have been a bit challenged and confused by how things seem to work here.

In Kolkata, the sidewalks are a mess, never wide enough, never paved smoothly, a mishmash of different shaped bricks, mounds of dirt, gravel, trash, and of course an all too occasional pit of murky gray water and its mysterious lurking bits and pieces. The sidewalk vendors are not neatly set off to one side leaving the other free for traffic. Rather, they set up along both sides, their tarps strung overhead in a canopy of ropes and faded plastics hung at a height that often requires someone of an average (US) height to crouch or at least dart and wobble an umbrella, avoiding hanging dupatas and lion-king themed towels and of course the heads and umbrellas of everyone else. Those shopping at any of these stalls must stop, or at least choose to stop, directly within the middle of the sidewalk, creating ubiquitous snarls and blockages within a sidewalk now reduced to a meter or so wide. Thusly, many people (myself included) take to walking in the street, winding through cars and rickshaws, avoiding the careening bus and suddenly opened door or onrush of traffic emanating from a changed light.

So, if a city's politics and civic identity can be determined, at least in part, by the physical and programmatic states of the sidewalk, what does this nearly unusable but simultaneously overused sidewalk imply? Especially considering this within a country that proudly calls itself the largest democracy in the world and in a city with so strong a communist and labor-rights political identity that city-wide work-stoppages occur regularly to show camaraderie of cause, what does this mean?

Taking this idea of defining 'democratic' identity through sidewalks in isolation, creating an obviously narrow definition for the sake of argument, one can venture that despite the communist undertones of this city, the programs of the sidewalks, especially in that sales and haggling displace the general coming and going population, are in fact a testament to the highly capitalist nature of democracy at least on this microcosmic level in India. In other words, the democratic identity is highly defined by a kind of hyper-commodified capitalism where goods and their constant sale displace all other aspects of civil society. Production and sale often become one, the worker forming his goods as something to bide time while he waits for his next sale, a surplus of goods growing around him. I don't remember where I heard or read the idea of haggling as a form of actually quite amicable and desired - and required - social interaction, but this idea also seems to apply... the sidewalk's normal banter hugely subsisting of a kind of socialization fueled and formed by commodities and capitalism. The democracy of this place, at least so far as it can be read by its sidewalks (a statement whose absurdity I realize) is defined by a manic hyper-capitalism that seems to lack any controls beyond its own hive-mind of individual capitalist drive. While obviously democracy in virtually all existing forms can be claimed capitalist in nature, the degree to which this infrastructural element of democracy has been literally overrun by capitalism is perhaps an indicator of a democracy that has become to focused on its capitalist manifestation and quickly losing all other components of its political, civic, and social spheres.

And this whole diatribe came out of being frustrated by walking to school in the rain and dealing with crowded sidewalks and muddy puddles whose contents continue to frighten a bit. You will have to excuse me.