Concept of Urban Village

We talked about urban village because we felt we have lost the touch of village living while staying put in the urban area. We remembered how closet the relationship amongst villagers. We cannot forget the kindness, self-help spirit and down to earth attitude of our childhood friends. It is always in our memory of going to river for a swim and hiding behind the trees to play the game of seek and hide. We walked to the school every early morning and rode on motorcycle without helmet for afternoon drive throughout the whole village. We have our dinner at evening instead of night time because we did not encounter any traffic problem as what the hardship urban people are encountering. We got plenty of fruits free of charge during the season rather than spending money to buy. We walked through our neighbours' house behind us without people calling us trespassing. All these are rather to freedom of doing things closer to our heart and nature without fear and favour. It is our true self. We fond of having village spirit because it bring back good old days memory that brought us up. We cannot tolerate with the urban circumstances simply because we have experienced the goodness of village before us. That's why many especially for those migrating from village and rural area are talking about creating urban village in the cities.

Recently, I told the urban village promoters to revisit the concept of urban village simply because time change and aspiration of new generation evolves as well. We cannot expect our youngster to appreciate what we have enjoyed formally. They might not understand what we are talking about and so fond about past moment. For some of them, perhaps spending hours in front of computer screen chit-chatting with friends worldwide is better rather than going outing and picnicking under the hot sun. Some might have thought fried chicken serving in the restaurant is "chicken" instead of those running around in the compound of a village house. We need to apply new terminology, approaches and concept of discussing with them and along the process in building the underlying concept of urban village into their mind. For example, since many have acquitted with the idea of going green as a cool thing, perhaps asking the youth to plant trees while going for outing should be the way forwards.

Urban village is there to stay, but to create that environment in the city with many of its population born in the city and without any experience of village living is a challenge itself. New strategies are needed.