Engines of growth or hellholes of misery?

In the first part of my series on Urbanisation, I mentioned how there is little realisation of the long-term implications of this “problem”. Urbanisation could possibly be India’s biggest challenge in coming decades (although you would find it hard to guess judging by the space & time devoted to this issue in mainstream media).

At the same time,  it offers a great opportunity to fundamentally transform India & put the economy on a dramatic growth curve. But do our leaders really understand “urbanisation”?

Are they able to think beyond flyovers, malls & apartment complexes when we talk of “urbanisation”? Do they understand the complex trade-offs that are involved in developing our cities? The strategic planning? The massive investments in infrastructure? Do our leaders have a deep understanding of issues linked to “urbanisation”? Do they possess the empathy – or the sheer determination or the strong political will or soaring imagination or ability to dream? I am not sure they do.

As this report by KC Sivaramakrishnan so eloquently mentions, “… the crisis in managing India’s urbanisation is a policy crisis, a crisis of mindset, a crisis aggravated by the approach that throwing money at the problem is the best solution.

So long as the political spectrum is not engaged in the substantive aspects of city planning, development and equitable growth, Indian cities, barring exceptions, will remain dysfunctional..”

One reason why planned urbanisation has never really taken off in India (with some notable exceptions such as Chandigarh) is decisions are not taken on the basis of common good or rationality but on the basis of lobbies and nexus between business, politics and crime.

As Chandrashekhar Prabhu, an architect who was one the youngest MLA to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, says, “Unfortunately, most decisions for this city (Mumbai) are taken neither by the politicians nor by the bureaucrats and surely not academically by urban planners. They are taken by the nexus of the builders-underworld-politicians.”

Unsurprisingly, “urbanisation” in India has long been seen as an opportunity to make a “killing” via well-placed and manipulated land deals. It has also come to be equated with reckless development – with complete disregard of what already exists and a near-total obsession with construction & more construction.  Construction of roads, housing colonies, malls and commercial areas.

Scant attention is paid to space for pedestrians, the elderly, the kids. No one thinks of developing the older parts, the decades old gardens or reviving the centuries old waterways and reservoirs that marks most urban areas in India.

Urbanisation is of course a lot more than mere construction. It is planning for water and sewage. It is thinking about electricity and telecom networks; It is about multi-agency partnerships & innovative financing. But is anyone really thinking of all these aspects in a holistic manner?

More worrying is the mistake many of our leaders and activists make when they talk of “urbanisation” – speaking of it in a way that evokes fear, distrust, even hatred. “Urbanisation” becomes the great evil that is causing exodus from our beautiful villages. It becomes the cause of miserable lives in cities, the dirt, the dust, the slums and the risk to personal safety. While this is not entirely true, it will take some serious effort before such deep-rooted perceptions change. In the meantime, they must be vigorously challenged.

How we deal with the massive shift of population from rural to urban areas in India will determine how we live in the 21^st century, the quality of our lives and the safety of our children.

More than anything else, India’s cities will determine India’s future.

Cities collapsing under the weight of an ageing, over-loaded infrastructure, hobbled with poor policies and suffering from gaps in implementation will not make a great nation. They will only increase economic and social disparities and worsen everyone’s standard of living.

Well-designed and planned cities – in contrast – offer the opportunity to unlock huge gains in education, healthcare and employment, not to mention improvements in infrastructure and public works.  Such cities – and the businesses and services that develop alongside – can also catalyse the shift of workforce from agriculture to manufacturing and services. They can offer a quality of life that is presently unthinkable for most Indians.

They can reduce the ever-increasing burden on the more established urban areas. They can be powerful levers to increase and spread opportunities for education and employment more evenly, across regions.

Equally, unplanned ad-hoc urbanisation can lead to monumental problems that’ll burden generations to come, including the very real prospect of massive environmental degradation.

Almost no one who lives in a fast-growing city in India today believes that cities can be something more than evil places of crime and grime. That they can actually be liveable spaces with a rich cultural lifestyle that people can aspire to seems to be in the realm of fantasy. But the challenges of urbanisation are not insurmountable.. The city of Curitiba in southern Brazil is show-case example of the wonders that good urban planning can do. Almost 4 decades ago, under a new, forward-looking Mayor, Curitiba began doing things which seemed outright crazy.

“In the early 1970s, when Brazil was welcoming any industry, no matter how toxic its byproducts, Curitiba decided to admit only nonpolluters; to accommodate them, it constructed an industrial district that reserved so much land for green space that it was derided as a “golf course”…

Curitiba’s success prompted Arthur Lubow to remark, “(Curitiba).. is the answer to what might otherwise be a hypothetical question: How would cities look if urban planners, not politicians, took control?”

Not that India is lacking in examples of such innovative planning either. TheIndore City Bus Service which became a case study from IIM-A is a case in point.  Unfortunately, its sister project BRTS has run into a series of problems including faulty design, missed deadlines and poor quality of work. That unfortunately is the common thread running through most plans for urban areas in India.

And yet, all is not lost. As long as realisation dawns.Realisation of the opportunity and realisation of the danger of ignoring this phenomenon. Remember, “urbanisation” is inevitable – whether we like it or not, whether we plan for it or not.

Will our Cities become the engines driving India’s growth or hellholes of misery? That is the only choice we have. We can tame the beast or be devoured by it. Cities & urban areas is where the great “transformation” will happen.

Let us hope our leaders have the imagination & wisdom to seize the opportunity. Let us make sure we do not squander this opportunity to transform India. Jai Hind, Jai Bharat!

A slightly different version of this post appeared over at Times of India blogs.

Related Post: I am beginning to dread Mumbai..