1.2 PRINCIPLES OF INTELLIGENT URBANISM

In the year 2001 the Royal Government of Bhutan set out to prepare the new Capital Plan for Bhutan, now known as the Thimphu Structure Plan. The process involved participation and consultations. In this lengthy process it became apparent that the regime of planning and the regime of land have inherent conflicts, and the stake holders, like all places, have a variety of agendas. But it is only through engagements, which are real and lively, that the process of planning can be transparent, and finally “owned up to” by the people for whom the settlement is planned. These interactive engagements between planners and local stake holders must be based on a charter of values, which the majority of participants agree upon. This interactive dialogue is in many ways a process of transforming the underlying values of Gross National Happiness into axioms, or principles, against which issues and decisions can be examined, debated and decided upon. To make these principles, and the values which underpin them, more imageable, we should list these. This value based process in Thimphu lead to what are now called THE PRINCIPLES OF INTELLIGENT URBANISM. Thus, a development process begins with the creation of a kind of meeting place of minds; a charter of principles against which any planning decisions, regulations, fiscal or physical inputs, or expenditures and incentives, can be reviewed.
Clearly these principles emerge from the concept of Gross National Happiness, and the participatory meetings which took place in Thimphu over more than a three year period. These continue through the medium of the Local Area Plans and now Structure Plans for Growth and Service Centres.
It is important to note that a new paradigm is always measured, analyzed and judged by the methods of the old paradigms. Each historical paradigm creates its own biases, rationale, descriptive tools and measures. Thus, a new horizon appears too hazy to visualize through the old tinted lenses of the old paradigm. Western society needs to measure everything, and thus cannot visualize the measureless! The Bhutanese way of seeing things is more emotive, spiritual and diagrammatic, like a Mandala. There is wholeness and a completeness that we fail to see because it is not laid out to us like a Renaissance one point perspective. Rather there are overlays of symbols and motifs, each implying meanings and knowledge systems. So also in urban planning we must make our guiding axioms very clear, and the themes of planning, as sets of over-lapping meanings we want to build on.
In preparing the Structure Plan of Gelephu, we have worked between the spiritual and the empirical. The Principles of Intelligent Urbanism become a vehicle to achieve this.

1.2.1 Principle One : A Balance With Nature

In the past, quarry mining in the hills to the north and west of the town, accompanied by siltation of the natural drainage system caused deposition of soil and gravel into the stream beds making them shallower and therefore wider. In a major storm season this resulted in severe flooding and vast damage to private property and to public infrastructure. In an environment like Gelephu the cutting of forests compounds this grave problem. Biomass, which historically has maintained the hillsides through roots and annual compost, is slowly disappearing. The subsidiary flora and the symbiotic fauna are fading away for lack of the required ecosystem. Even in small towns like Gelephu there must be a balance between nature and human endeavor! We must understand the difference between exploiting nature and utilizing nature! There is a level of human habitation wherein the resources that are consumed will be replaced, through the replenishing cycles of the seasons, creating environmental equilibrium. So long as nature can resurge each year; so long as the biomass can survive within its own ecological system; so long as the breeding grounds of fauna and avifauna are safe; so long as there is no erosion and the tree coverage is maintained…we are only utilizing nature.

But there is a fragile line that we cross in areas like the Bhutanese tarai when the fauna, which cross-fertilizes the flora that sustains the soil, which supports the hillsides… is no longer there! When the soil is washed off the land faster than it can be replaced; when the rivers and streams silt up faster than the natural currents can wash them clean; when the river basin widens and we have to artificially contain the edges… then we have destroyed the natural balance. There is an imaginary threshold…a kind of line that we will cross over… from where we cannot come back. At that point of no return utilization of natural resources will outpace the natural ability of the eco-system to replenish itself. This is when we are exploiting nature, exploiting our town and exploiting ourselves! From there on degradation accelerates and amplifies. Sadly, this is the present situation in the Mao Chhu basin, due to the mining activities near the town. Deforestation, desertification, erosion, floods, and landslides all incessantly increase.

Blatant acts against nature include indiscriminant quarry mining, especially in the upper watersheds, cutting of hillside trees, minor quarrying on hill slopes, dumping sewerage and industrial waste into the natural drainage system, paving and plinthing excessively and construction on steep slopes. Intelligent Urbanism proposes that the balance of nature can be maintained when fragile areas are reserved as preservation, conservation, or as low intensity habitation precincts. It is important in Gelephu that the general public be sensitized to the emanate perils which face the town in the forms of changing stream lanes and severe flooding. Primary education must include instruction in the theory of ecological and urban balance, including practical fieldwork in the threatened areas.
Intelligent Urbanism operates within the balance of nature. Intelligent Urbanism aggressively protects and conserves those elements of the ecology that nurture the environment. Therefore, the first principle of Intelligent Urbanism is that urbanization be environmentally sound! So also in Gelephu, our first concern must be the protection of the fragile ecosystem and repairing the damage already done.