As a student in America years ago, I lived in a low-rise of row houses lining a narrow Philadelphia street. Along the street were two small restaurants, a pharmacy, a provisions store, a coffee shop and a bar. I lived upstairs from one of the restaurants. On summer days on my way to college I walked through a neighbourhood park. In the evening the restaurant often became my living room. In a regular exchange with its stores, bars, restaurants and parks, I derived a direct benefit from the neighbourhood. In every way the place contributed to my daily life. The pleasures of this personal urban landscape — in which divergent occupations, residence and leisure occurred side by side — made the neighbourhood truly mixed use.

Two reasons make a city: convenience and pleasure. First, to have your daily needs met in the most direct way: school, shopping, healthcare, and office, all within reach. Then, and only then, pleasure: the pleasure of monuments, parks and recreation. In the daily exchange with concrete buildings, hard sidewalks, and the hot metal of cars, the two are essential for well-being.

Yet, for these two ideas to succeed, people, places and actions need to be highly interdependent. Is that even a remote possibility in a city of BMW showrooms and migrant labour? Is it possible in a place where you drive to walk in a park; pick up a loaf of bread from the market in your Pajero, where children play on the road? But Delhi’s new notification on mixed use has an ulterior purpose. It obviously does not arise from a concern for preserving the current character of Delhi neighbourhoods. Nor indeed to make life easier for its residents. The need to appease its commercial clients, builders and partners in graft has obviously triggered this hasty insertion of the mixed use clause into the rulebook. At present the minor reprieve allowing shopkeepers a temporary stay against court orders only confounds the issue.

... contd.