Mosques and Urban Development

Religious places are interesting urban and human development artefacts. By and large, religious places are one of the biggest things one can see in human history. One only needs to see the seven ancient wonders of the world to see what I mean:

1. Great Pyramid of Giza
2. Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3. Statue of Zeus at Olympia
4. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
5. Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
6. Colossus of Rhodes
7. Lighthouse of Alexandria

With the exclusion of the last one and perhaps one can argue the 6th one, rest are religious buildings. How about the medieval wonders?

1. Stonehenge
2. Colosseum
3. Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa
4. Great Wall of China
5. Porcelain Tower of Nanjing
6. Hagia Sophia
7. Leaning Tower of Pisa
8. Taj Mahal
9. Cairo Citadel
10. Ely Cathedral
11. Cluny Abbey

Again, mostly religious in nature. Walk around in any city in any country and you will find religious buildings as one of the key urban infrastructure artefacts. Religious buildings also play a huge part in the social dynamics of cities. The second point is that from this year onwards, there are more people in urban areas rather than in rural areas. So its important to know how religious buildings interact with urban development. You need to know this for a variety of reasons, for town planning, for security, for urban warfare, for traffic, to determine the value of your home, etc. etc. So how do you do it? Well, these chaps seem to have done a good job in doing this. I quote:

Explaining historical urban development using the locations of mosques: A GIS/spatial statistics-based approach, Irem Ayhana and K. Mert Cubukcu, City and Regional Planning, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey

Abstract

Religious buildings, including temples, churches, synagogues and mosques have always been one of the integral components of the urban layout. This paper aims to answer the question whether the historical spatial development of a large-size city can be approximated using historical geographical and categorical data pertaining to its places of worship. We use data for 525 mosques built in Izmir, Turkey, over the years 1550–2008 and maps of built-up areas for the same period. Based on the results of GIS/spatial statistics-based analyses using the three basic measures of spatial statistics (mean center, weighted mean center and standard deviational ellipse), we conclude that the spatial distribution of mosques is a close proxy of urban development. Thus, location data for places of worship, often available and accessible, can be used to derive historical urban development over a given period.

Here’s the relevant image of the city.

 

this is how the mosques were constructed by time period:

And immediately you can see the differences between the construction period and how the city grew. In terms of going into statistical measures, this image now shows how the mean centres of the city changed by time:

As you can imagine, various things like land values to traffic patterns will change dramatically based upon this kind of data. Very interesting stuff.

Like China in Africa, UAE is buying up Pakistan

I talked yesterday about how the Chinese are buying up land in Africa and other places. And as it turns out, UAE is now purchasing land in Pakistan for the very same reason. I quote:

One of the Middle East’s largest private equity companies has been quietly buying farmland in Pakistan as part of plans by the United Arab Emirates to increase food security and to damp inflation.

Dubai-based Abraaj Capital says it is working with the UAE government on the strategic agribusiness investments in Pakistan. The government in Abu Dhabi has been holding talks with Islamabad about a framework for investment in its agricultural sector as it seeks to secure cheaper long-term supplies of staples such as wheat and rice.

The Gulf state, which imports 85 per cent of its food needs, has already said it is to consider building a strategic reserve of staple food items, part of a broader strategy to tame inflation of more than 10 per cent, with sharp rises felt in food prices across the entire UAE population.

A senior Pakistani official told the Financial Times the government had agreed in principle to allow the sale of rural farmland to investors from the UAE, setting aside Pakistan’s own domestic concerns about increasing food prices and shortages of important commodities.

Be warned, this is not going to be an easy step for the common farmers in Pakistan, this will hurt them specially since there is no safety net and no good economy to back them up just now! And doing this without having land reform.....

Technorati Tags: Pakistan,UAE,Agriculture

Remember the power of the people!

Twenty five thousand people are on the march to Delhi. They are on the Delhi Agra Road and will reach Delhi in a few days now. These are not even people in the eyes of the state and the urban populace blinded by the advertisements for TV, reality shows, cars and holidays. These are the tribals, the untouchables, landless labourers, people who have nothing left to loose.

They are marching on to Delhi to demand land, land that was promised to them, land that was stolen from them, communal land which was sold out under their noses, land that they cannot recover from corrupt land developers and politicians.

I talked about Naxalites last year and agreed with the Prime Minister that the Naxalites were the single most threatening issue to the integrity of India. But nothing much has happened to them. The same corruption, the same ignorance and same mindless consumerism has taken hold.

The Naxalites have used exactly this issue, the issue that the rural poor are not being looked after. The government has become a parasite at worst and uncaring at best. When that happens, there is a vacuum of governance and it is no surprise that ideologies such as Maoism have crept in and now threaten the viability of a large democratic state such as India. The same thing is happening in China as well.

Land reform which started promisingly in many states such as West Bengal, Kashmir, Kerela, Andhra Pradesh, etc. But the Bimaru states suck at this. See here for a great overview of this very complex issue.

Another factor, given the state of the world agriculture markets, it is impossible for a small 1-2 acre plot to be economically viable and support a family. It is simply impossible. But still, that is an asset to the family and if you do want to take away the land under the eminent domain laws, then you are then forced to pay compensation to that poor tribal, landless labourer or untouchable. That is fair, no? But corruption takes away his land, his living, his compensation and more importantly, rots away the framework of the state which allows termites like the Naxalites to bore away and weaken the state.

Technorati Tags: India , Legal System , Land Reform , Corruption , Democracy