Choosing a community to become a part of is one of the important things when building a house, one of the many jobs of an architect, when they are asked by their client to help them find a lot, is to find one with a good social status and has good community, ideally no one wants to own a house that is somewhat located inside a compound or has a neighboring slums or illegal squatters, even I would be lying if id say I am willing to be a part of that kind of community. If you think about it carefully, having this kind of perception among bad community layout areas kind of feels bad, it’s like somehow we are discriminating those who are below than us that can’t afford to find a better place to live.
going further, bad community layouts isn’t the only problem that is shown, it may not be visible but community problems create a ripple of bad effects on its surroundings, the environment, and security of the citizen. these ripples are violence and drug related problems. a bad community is the home of many drug related problems, and now that the current administration’s number one agenda is the war on drugs, the pile of bodies increases each day, so drug the sole problem? maybe but a peoples environment is also at fault, to explain clearly, for example, a normal person is a blank canvass, its environment will dictate what is going to be written or drawn, having a good company will help you do good things, love, help respect others, on the other hand, while having a bad company could give you bad influences and bad habits. it is the same in the community a person is living in, a person with a bad community will make that person become part of that bad community. Accept it or not, squatters and slums tend to be the home of drug related crimes, they are the most vulnerable to it, what could be the cause of it? lack of jobs, poverty, bad family planning, not having a good home.
so think, what or who is at fault behind these bad community layouts, could it be the city planners? the illegal squatters? or even the average citizens? my answer is everyone. everyone who is irresponsible, everyone who chooses to make the wrong choice even tho a right one is present, every one of us is guilty, every one of us is affected for we only live in one country, maybe a different city, area or street but we represent as one, as per City planners, Architects, Engineers, Urban planners, their sin are construction of infrastructures without thinking for the long term. a structure cannot be called Architecture even if it has luxurious aesthetics unless it is placed in a right way, a good community, and responsible then it can be called right Architecture. right now we are known for having the worst Human rights among countries and I think that is self-explanatory. we need to change ourselves, we need to choose better, Duterte’s slogan of “change is coming” is nothing but bull- unless we change ourselves.