Notes from an Urbanite Urbanist: Reflecting Social Life in the City
- Daniel Cotia
- Feb 27
- 8 min read
A creature of the city
I fondly share with my friends that the smokey belches of Taft Avenue genuinely reminds me that I am home. Malate (Manila) has been the place that I have found daily comfort at: I have seen buildings fall for another to rise; businesses change and new transient neighbors every season. I typically just walked or rode a jeep to school, to church or to the mall (In retrospect, I lived a genuinely 15-minute city life). Growing up, my ‘bubble’ remained in this rather dynamic district and I did not even know what else was out there in the metro. Turns out, there are other cities, other ‘bubbles’ that exist.
So to speak, I am a creature of the city; one of the sixteen million plus, in Metro Manila.
I did not realize how big Metro Manila was until I studied at UP Diliman. Travelling from Taft to Diliman (Quezon City) would take at least 45 minutes by UV (van), bus or train. Curious as I always am, commuting is filled with - not encounters - but gazes: me gazing at the daily Filipino, in the mundanity of navigating this city; in mere scenes of walking, alighting and dropping off the bus. In this gaze was I first horrified of the commutes that pack people like sardines in disgustingly-ventilated buses. I gazed from the sidewalk and saw them; both the seated and the standing. I was lucky enough my route may be long but it’s against the heavy flow of people.
Movies have long articulated that cities are rather hellscapes. The master pieces like Lino Brocka’s Maynila sa Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Light) and Ishmael Bernal’s Manila by Night meditate on the struggles of provincial immigrants. The hellscape of cities is defined by the need to work, to look for a job, to prioritize the chase of coin; leaving behind homelands and families, ripping people off from their roots. Little islands of comforts with fellow workers and immigrants help comfort the longing for love, family and community in an otherwise overwhelming expanse and dynamicity of Maynilà.
Studying in UP, I met a lot of friends that hail from the regions, and it was my first time to meet sensibilities that see the city at an overwhelming lens, but at the same time thinking that mastering the city is needed to succeed in life. Being a transient student gives you a taste of a migrant’s life: from looking for places for rent, to having a stable income; calling your parents every now and then and always being alert against those who would take advantage of your naivety.
I am a mere outsider to such an experience. I can only gaze at it as a film watcher, or hear such stories. My grief is but secondary; It’s rather weird to even articulate to say that as a creature of the city, I ‘root’ myself here; where most people are fleeting; where many would choose to leave if it were possible. Besides, how do you root in concrete?
Planned, built and formed social spots
In the provinces, I have always thought that most of a town shares only one park: the one by the town hall and the church; the usual plaza. Of course, malls have become ubiquitous too. I visited Tarlac once, when I explored a barangay to know how urbanism (or built environment) differs from that of the usual city. Of course it had a plaza; it’s rather visible from Google Maps and the grid-pattern of the Poblacion leads to such an open center.
Even our research at WTA Labs finds that in Metro Manila, there is 0.65 sqm of parks per person (versus the advised 9 sqm parks per person). In rural towns, OpenStreetMap data would typically depict more or less one or one cluster of parks to be present. I then wonder, what fills the gap in the absence of neighborhood parks?
Upon exploring Barangay Tagumbao, Gerona, Tarlac with the help of local barangay, I explored that social life in public spaces in the rural barangay can seem to have three notable features. For one, front yards double as outdoor living spaces; some eat their breakfasts or merely spend their quiet mornings sitting on the wooden bench under the tree shade. These spaces are owned and shared by them. Second, I discovered some built structures that are meant to be small public spaces. Waiting sheds that double as shrines, sometimes hijacked by parking tricycles. These small sheds are spread across the barangay, typically by its borders and by notable intersections towards other puroks or streets. It’s just a simple structure; square, around 3 meters by 3 meters or roughly the size occupied by two motorcycles side-by-side.
Some social spaces are rather fleeting or temporal. A barbecue stand (may have) appeared by 4PM, and with it, some bystanders: old people and tricycle drivers watching the afternoon TV gameshow, probably patrons or good neighbors. The set up was quite simple: by the barbecue, the displayed skewered meat was just one tricycle, concrete seats by the side and a small, poorly receptive TV. These temporary places rise by late afternoon, like kids appearing to play in the street. In front of them is the barangay’s basketball court, now brightly lit and filled with leisure players and watchers.
One of the most striking scenes for me is a group of senior citizens, who are hanging out in the afternoon. They have monoblocs with them, coffee and some newspapers. The thing is, it’s around 5PM and they set up beside sugarcane fields by the rural street. When droplets of rain arrived, they took their chairs and moved back to their house just in front of their spot.
In the lack of parks and sidewalks, people produce their places.
I am fortunate enough to live in front of a school, where trees lined the street. Summer heats are a bit kinder here than in other streets. The sidewalk was blank; the school wall was too: a blank bland pale yellow. The trees have grown a lot: the Narra tree’s roots have cracked the concrete opening up the soil as if desperate to breathe. What I like about the Narra is that it even sheds its flowers and leaves around thrice a year (if I notice correctly). It’s like yellow cherry blossoms beautifully blanketing the otherwise concrete ground.
Every summer, we set up a makeshift stand at that sidewalk to sell Halo-halo; and in the harvest season, we also sell mangos from our province orchard. It was a table we brought out from our house and some monoblocs. My dad also loved to sit on a monobloc chair outside, sipping his daily morning coffee after walking our dog. The morning wind was crisp and the dog happily sat beside him.
It was that happy father-and-dog scene that I recall when I recently explored San Juan city for a research on street vibrancy and walkability.
San Juan is rather hilly; its whole name is San Juan del Monte (Saint John of the Mount) after all. As a Spanish-era city, its roads are also narrow. Walking it takes a lot of effort from the treacherous slopes and sidewalks are also quite inconsistent as well. Residents love taking out their seats by the streets, just hanging out. One appears to merely stay by the barangay grotto-shrine beside a school. There are also some who appears to be Barangay Tanods (citizen-volunteers) patrolling. Their barangay outpost is them, ambulant, transient and is composed of them; not an actual structure. In the whole scenery was a sari-sari store, a restaurant and students walking home.
That street actually was pretty narrow, a bit poorly lit and was a ‘shortcut’ for cars to N. Domingo St., the city’s main artery road. But it is in these marks and spots of people that the streets felt a little kinder and safer: a mark of care for their streets and for their community.
Streetside Communal Spiritualities
Spirituality is collective and social; and it easily manifests in the streets. Grottos and shrines are ubiquitous in Manila, like those grottos of the Our Lady of Lourdes. Even our barangay in Malate has one, beside the school. At one point, we had monthly rosary and masses and people ate dinner together afterwards at the eatery in front. This grotto was new, an initiative by our barangay, devotees of the Virgin Mary.
It truly manifests differently per place: the Virgin Mary is quite everywhere; Tondo has Santo Nino. Every January, the Hesus Nazareno (Jesus of Nazarene) have replicas being processioned by barangay groups. In Binondo, I also frequent the Filipino-Chinese-Catholic shrine.
People find a place for their faith and collective practice down to the streets. Chances are, these are legally considered obstructions in public space. Processions can be nuisances to cars passing by. Bypasses can merely stare and gaze as locals pray in their local shrines. Communities mark their places, and outsiders can merely stare at these marks.
The city is then a mosaic: each tile, a bubble of tightly knit connections, shared contexts and collective experiences; and oftentimes, outside and between these bubbles are people and moments that feel disconnected and isolated.
Urbanism is a Social Act
My experiences as a ‘native’ urbanite is marked with ironies, contradictions and contrast. I am a mere outsider to the thousands of bubbles; a blank character to someone else’s morning commute; and the love for a place that is full of grief, longing and frustration.
As someone pursuing urbanism, both as a career and advocacy, I have seen that the grief of seeing parts of your home crumble to neglect can be complex to extinguish. There are times that problems are too local: the simple management of garbage and waste at the street and barangay scales; and some are just heart crushing as seeing heritage buildings felled in Manila one by one.
When airing out our frustrations, the natural inclination (and easiest one) is to cling to social media. Typically, trends and discourse emerge like Mt. Kamuning (Kamuning Overpass), the dolomite beach (for both who loves and criticizes it) and the outcry against PAREX (Pasig River Expressway). The good thing with social media is that it could connect us with other people who have similar interests, struggles and aspirations. Communities grow online, but it must also manifest in the physical world, where we, humans truly feel both our bodies and the actual warmth of people who surround us.
‘Action is the antidote to despair’ activist Joan Baez popularly said.
We are called to transform our grief and despair into community and action. We must find comfort in the place of likeminded people; we must find and create support with the people within our streets and barangays. We must multiply the bubbles we belong to, particularly those that direct us to do something, to speak and share and nurture our reimagination of our futures. We can dispel the state and feelings of outsider-ness.
The ordinary Filipino produces and reproduces their space that would allow them to extend care for their communities. Senior citizens hanging out at noon, fathers and dogs in the morning and tanods with their seats by the street at night. I see that this is resilience rooted in rootedness and love for community.
For a scarred city as Metro Manila, urbanism is a social and radical act that requires us not to merely ascribe hope to buildings or to periodic elections, but to our involvement in the collective action of people around a shared ground: a shared ground anchored on care for others and a hope that actively reimagines the future that is inclusive, evolving in thought and empowering for our fellow people.
Do you also advocate for cities, social life and civic causes?
If you also have that burning fire of advocacy and hope for the improvement of cities, many organizations are open for us to reach out and join, each with identified causes and interests.
**This is not an exhaustive list nor are we officially partnered with them.
Urbanism and Heritage
Renacimiento Manila | |
Heritage Conservation Society | |
Ilog Pasiglahin | |
Young Urbanists Philippines |
Transportation and Mobility
Move As One Coalition | |
AltMobility PH | |
350 Pilipinas |
Research + Urbanism
Youthmappers | Various university-based chapters |
Ulirat Collective |
Environment
Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines (YACAP) | |
Nilad Metro Manila Environmental Network |
