Should I compare the fall to the fall of Roman empire? Should I compare the fall to the fall in moral standards or community standards or anything that relates directly to the growth of the city? What caused the fall from the pinnacle of being recognized as the garden city of Karnataka to being seen as the garbage city of Karnataka? Why did it happen? How did it happen? What can be done now?
Yes. If you have guessed it right, I am talking about the Bangalore then to Bengaluru now. I sometimes wondered why spend all that money to change the name all over the city and add more to the filth that has already accumulated than to plan the change first to carve the path to design a new city to reflect the new name.
You name the type of devastation that one could see in a Garbage city – it is there. Drainage overflowing with the rain water – yes; sewage water flowing on the streets – yes; playing grounds in the park water-logged – yes; plastic bags decorating the side-walks, roadsides, drainage system – yes; cigarette butts littered virtually everywhere – yes, yes, yes.
What really did happen? How did we arrive here? Many reasons and most of them point to the failed governments, failed corporate societal responsibilities, failed education system, failed policing and failed what else – you think of it and it has failed.
It’s like going down a slope for a certain outcome without noticing that downward slope started when the education system shifted gears from producing leaders to producing degree holders who had no future in front of them except to take up whatever work they can see or that comes across to earn some livelihood. So what was the meaning in producing educated people without giving the necessary skills to leverage that education? Was there a meaning to produce them in such large numbers, if the society or the community or the corporate world is not ready to absorb them.
Then came the influx of people from various cultures. The city infrastructure was not ready to deal with it. This influx brought with them the culture they had followed from where they came from than to assimilate into the culture that was already existing.
Then came the feeling that the city is there to make money. All that mattered to keep the garden city evergreen were thrown out of the window. The growth was neither planned nor sustained. The infrastructure was not ready to handle the economic growth or the growth was not anticipated or the lackluster performance by corporations and government to fulfill their obligations to general public accelerated the fall.
Then came the influence of the western world to market the packaged commodities. Wait. Did anyone think about the waste that gets produced when the contents were unpacked? Did anyone plan for something like that before letting the retailers or the wholesale industry to use the packaging materials that cannot be either recycled or turned into an organic waste? Did anyone realize that we all once carried a shopping bags to fill our grocery, our vegetables and used most of the products used turned into organic waste?
What can be done now? Step back and please have a look. It is easy to fix. It needs small steps in the right direction, and an awareness in general public and a commitment from the law makers to enact certain laws that directs the move to the direction that can facilitate the reversals.
How can it be done……..will be in my next blog.