Village life

I’m glad I moved from Katipunan.Yesterday, I made the mistake of taking that road back to Makati, where I’ve recently moved. The traffic, despite the vaunted U-turns, was horrendous! It took me an hour to get from UP to White Plains. Clearly, the current interventions by the MMDA do not work. An urgent sign put up by the Miriam school says, "We need a long-term sustainable solution to Katipunan now!"

Part of that problem is the ongoing construction of the tunnel connector from Katipunan to Eastwood. I managed to slip a peep at the DPWH plans for the massive tunnel/flyover and reckon that it would take another two years for the thing to be completed. Why don’t they inform citizens of things like this? (Maybe to hide their inefficiency or the corruption that many believe goes hand in hand with all DPWH projects?)

All that said, I’ve moved back to Makati – to Salcedo Village, to be exact. Access to Ortigas where I hold office is a snap and Makati itself has morphed into a pleasant pedestrian-friendly place that is more and more urbane in character and texture.

I did a piece in this column on Makati’s Legaspi Village almost five years ago. Then I noted that life was slowly coming to the streets of Legaspi and Salcedo Villages with the advent of cafes and restaurants at the ground level of formerly desolate buildings.

Five years down the road, the processes are well advanced, as almost every corner of Makati, save for Ayala Avenue, boasts a café or convenience store. None of the fears that the streets would turn into messy strips of retail with jologs istambays materialized. The istambays are there in droves, except that these are yuppie executives during the day and call-center youngsters in the evening and all night.

The good thing about all the activity spawned by the new café/convenience culture is that the streets of Makati are actually safer (save for those near banks, which seem to be robbed with impunity by uniformed armed men … usually before an election). The lights from 7-Elevens and Ministops keep the streets lit all night and all early morning. These cafes and shops serve as refuge for pedestrians from tropical storms. It is wonderful to note that some Makati buildings, in fact, now sport an almost forgotten element in building design – the covered arcade.

These cafes and restaurants cluster where they are needed and brighten up drab corners of both Legaspi and Salcedo villages. For those on a budget, sanitized and standardized rolling carinderias have been allowed in these villages’ minor streets. Now, many a grumbling clerk’s stomach can be appeased with some skyflakes and instant noodles.

There are higher-end restaurants and cafes like Segafredo, Figaro, Ed’s Café, Confusion and even adaptively-reused buildings converted to mixed use. One of these is the old IBM building designed by Carlos Arguelles. The original international-style edifice was a handsome building that set the tone for Paseo de Roxas in the 1960s. Today, with IBM itself having moved to Eastwood, the place has been adapted to cater to the caffeine and fast food needs of Makati’s workforce. UCC and Seattle’s Best are there along with Dencio’s and a MickeyD. What sets this facility apart is that it does have a gallery and book store, care of Ces and Rock Drilon’s Magnet.

I live in a condo and can now sleep. There are no tricycles allowed in Legaspi Village. A block away is Velasquez Park, a wonderful green oasis, small but lush, for everyone’s enjoyment. Trees and green do make any district more comfortable and humane. A Starbucks fronts the park, and laundries and small specialty shops are opening in adjacent buildings. On weekends, the place is full of people exercising or just strolling. There is life in Makati now.

The Makati Sports Club is nearby, almost a physical anachronism as it is dwarfed by surrounding towers. It is a country club in a city setting. I am not a member. Not that I could afford to be and besides, I am reminded by a Groucho Marx saying: "I wouldn’t want to be part of a club that would have me as a member."

I’ve not fully explored my new "village." The number of condominiums in this area is increasing and the district is taking on the persona of an urbane neighborhood complete with early morning city joggers, coffee and scones at the corner and some people actually greeting each other in the morning.

We are finally learning to live a city lifestyle and enjoying it. Trips to buy groceries do not need long drives in a car. I hardly take mine out. Everything is conveniently located nearby and even the commercial center at Greenbelt is a not-so-long walk away.

We should learn to live more this way and learn to build our buildings to cater to this lifestyle. Urban design for tropical Philippine cities needs to look at all these alternative ways of city life as a corrective to unsustainable suburban growth. I’ll look at other similar places in Metro Manila in future articles but in the meantime, I’m just glad there are no U-turns in my new village.

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Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at citysensephilstar@hotmail.com.