Urban market planning: regulating autopoietic market system case of Beltola Bazaar Guwahati

Abstract

The pattern of growth is different for cities across the world and the impact of this growth on people is different. This growth is associated with the growth of socio-economic activities occurring within its bounds. In an era that is luring cities around the world towards a global network of megacities, the urbanization of traditional elements of the society, like the marketplace, provides a stark contrast to the homogeneity of the city in midst of continued globalization. These activities need spaces to occur and over time, the place of exchange of goods and ideas began to evolve into markets. These markets attract people from surrounding areas and lead to the growth of these spaces. The concept of autopoiesis primarily refers to systems that are self-producing not in terms of their physical components, but in terms of their organization. This in turn can be measured in terms of information and complexity of the system. However, with time the autopoietic systems undergo degradation, which needs to be regulated to prevent further issues. This is the third stage of any autopoietic system which include processes like production and bonding, basically describing the life of an organism. Like a living organism, such system produces some elements (here organizations), which bond or link with each other for the system to run efficiently, and the last stage is degradation where the older elements die off and are replaced by new elements or in another scenario the whole system dies out. For the study, the case of Beltola Market in Guwahati is selected. The market is a lease market and one of the largest markets under the jurisdiction of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC). At the same time, it is a market with an ancient origin which makes it historically relevant and therefore is an important market of the city. The market system two-parts part – first the formal shops (including people who have been setting shops in the market for more than 2 decades), and, second the informal vendors, who have outgrown the formal shop owners and have completely changed the urbanscape of the area. This has led to a variety of conflicts over the years. It is a bi-weekly market consisting of 1136 shops (comprising both formal shop owners and informal vendors, handled by a large number of actors and organizations). This occurs on two days of the week – Thursday and Sunday every week and is characterized by mismanaged spaces and congestion. The government of Assam has taken several steps to improve the scenario of this market but the efforts have been in vain or mis-directed which eventually failed to create a difference. This study tries to integrate the different actors of the market who are directly impacted by the market issues (both for the daily and bi-weekly market). The study showed that the linkages between the different actors are largely organized and eventually add up to the benefit of the system. Both the informal (autopoietic part) and formal parts of the market have several coinciding actors and linkages which have the potential to be tapped into for proposing a regulatory body for the market. The study further conducted showed the interlinkages between the different actors involved or associated with the market functioning. As these actors maintain the market, an efficient network of communication is a necessary aspect needed in the market. This factor was observed to be lacking in terms of the interlinkages of the market space which has led the market into growing in all directions. At the same time, other conflicts like encroachments, localization and lack of amenities were highlighted in the survey, which showed the lack of integration between the government and the market actors. Thus, establishing a proper system of communication is an essential part of developing a regulation strategy for the marketspace. Upon further inspection, the spatial orientation of the vendors is determined by the time spent in the market. This however is consequential to the various factors analyzed in the study, such as the goods sold, shop sizes, and other factors. This helped in analyzing the market in terms of functional and spatial arrangements and turn helped identify gaps and areas of work. This would help in the regulation of the marketplace and inculcate the different policy level interventions taken by the government. The proposals work towards the integration of the market with the organizing factors of the market