Haphazard Urban Growth: Time to Look at the Future

Haphazard Urban  Growth: Time to  Look at the Future

Dr BK Mukhopadhyay

A noted management economist and an international commentator on business and economic affairs. He may be reached at m.bibhas@gmail.com

Governments in Africa and Asia must embrace and plan for rapid urbanization or risk harming the future prospects of hundreds of millions of their citizens — with knock-on effects worldwide — warns a study published by IIED and UNFPA (the UN Population Fund) on 6 August 2010. It says policymakers should heed lessons from Brazil whose failure in the past to plan for rapid urban growth exacerbated poverty and created new environmental problems and long-term costs that could have been avoided.

The Reality

While urban population is expected to increase by 1.5 billion over the next 20 years, the number of megacities will double. The UN predicts that by 2015 there will be 358 ‘million cities’ with one million or more people and 27 ‘mega–cities’ with ten million or more. Much of this growth will happen in developing countries. What a big challenge!! India is set to become the world’s most populous country by 2050 with a population of nearly 1.6 billion people!

The stern reality: the world population has risen seven-fold over the last 200 years. For the first time in history, a majority of the world’s six billion people are living in cities. Between 2000 and 2025, the world’s urban population will double.

French Institute of Demographic Studies projected that by the end of this century there will be 10 to 11 billion people on the planet. The world population will jump from the current 7.1 billion to 9.7 billion by 2050. In India the same is assessed to rise from 1.2 billion to 1.6 billion, while that in China will remain at the same level [1.3 billion].

The crucial role of cities as hubs of economic and technical innovation is an established fact by now. Cities matter because the productivity benefits they provide to knowledge–intensive business are important for regional and national prosperity. The lessons extracted from successful cases of city revival in Europe and city growth in other economies like China clearly illustrate the importance of human capital and creativity for cities to compete in a global market and help national economies to maintain their competitive edge. This awareness, no doubt, has been closely associated with the ongoing structural changes in most emerging economies.

Side by side, it is not to be forgotten that urbanization is not a curse in as much as the same creates huge wealth and opportunities, enables better use of assets and creates new ones. Urbanization – being a continuous and spontaneous process – in most developing countries is bringing about enormous changes in the spatial distribution of people and resource and in the use and consumption of land. The unfortunate part is that though such process is strongly linked to development [social, technological and economic], many countries lack the appropriate policies and frameworks that can leverage it for increased development gains and can guide it towards sustainable patterns. In a word, these are not harnessed for development and de facto urbanization’s challenges often seem to outpace the development gains.

Innovative Approach a Must

Obvious enough, economic growth will increasingly come from the strength of innovative activities instead of factor accumulation as in the past. Recent researches also suggest that such innovative activities are concentrated in high–tech clusters in globally–linked cities. Over time as the share of the rural sector in GDP goes down, urban activities take the lead in the very growth process, ably backed by the service activities [major components of the urban service activities include business and creative industries with high value added]. In fact globalization [integration with the global economy and interdependence] and the emergence of the tertiary economy have raised the profile of cities in development, especially as innovation and foreign investment are attracted by the agglomeration economies offered by well managed large cities. [e.g. telecommunication, broadcasting, energy, tourism, and major urban infrastructure services – water supply, transportation, and education].

Side by side, it is crystal clear that the near future of globalization and urbanization will bring enormous challenges as well as opportunities to both developed and developing countries. Douglass (2005) rightly located that development is likely to be polarized in a limited number of urban regions, which shows and indicates that while convergence of production and income may happen across countries, divergence is likely to occur within each country as globalization will bring a concentration of activity to a few sites. The emergence of mega–urban regions with the development of world cities and links among them is the strong possibility – the formation of trans-border regions, the development of international corridors, and significance of international networking, among others.

Clearly, the near future of globalization and urbanization will bring enormous challenges as well as opportunities to both developed and developing countries. Noted urban planner Douglass rightly opined that development is likely to be polarized in a limited number of urban regions. That is to say, while convergence of production and income may happen across countries, divergence is likely to occur within each country as globalization will bring a concentration of activity to a few sites. The emergence of mega–urban regions with the development of world cities and links among them is a strong possibility. The formation of trans–border regions, the development of international corridors, and significance of international networking cannot be ruled out.

Looking at the writings on the wall following Mila Freire, World Bank, it may be located that the main challenges include (a) the need to keep urban planning and management flexible and ready to adapt to new developments in the economic or social front; (b) getting the best possible technical analysis; (c) pushing the agenda of excellence; (d) thinking big and long–term; (e) looking at the big picture – overall competitiveness, labour market, environmental quality, and standing as regards capital and human capital; (f) engaging the private sector; (g) understanding and discussion with community leaders of how much limited–resource local governments can offer; (h) establishing contracts vertically with the Central Government and horizontally with other municipalities

The utmost need is there for integration of urban development in national sustainable development policies. Such policies serve as enabling frameworks for transport corridors, job creation and at the same time development of [within and between] cities. Plus, they can also empower local authorities to work more closely with national government. The importance of developing national urban policies as levers for sustainable development remains beyond any shade of doubt.

Clearly, successful national urban policies has the ability to yield multiple results: the identification of urban development priorities towards socially and economically equitable and environmentally friendly urban and national development; future development of the national urban system and its spatial configuration concretized through National and spatial Plans for regional development; coordination and guidance of actions by national functionaries vis–à–vis lower levels of government in all sectors; and, of course, increased and well coordinated private and public investments in urban development, which, in turn, lead to consequent improvement of cities’ productivity, inclusiveness, environmental conditions and people’s participation in the development process.

Policymakers can learn much from the experience of Latin American countries — especially Brazil — that have already gone through an early urban transition

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