Urbanisation is a positive phenomenon provided the cities are able to harness its potential. A recently published UN-Habitat global report on human settlements shows that not many cities in developing countries such as India have managed to do this. Indian cities struggle to manage the swelling numbers: they tend to have inadequate infrastructure, poor mobility, and a lack of affordable housing. The challenge they face is twofold — efforts to distribute growth across urban centres have been inadequate and the urban planning practices are outdated. Much attention is paid to mega cities, leaving the smaller cities largely unattended. Of the 5,161 urban centres, as the Eleventh Five Year Plan points out, only 1,500 have some form of a plan to manage their growth. With quality of life suffering in the smaller cities, more people tend to move to the metros, burdening them further. Although the need for developing small and medium-size towns was highlighted as early as 1988 by the first National Commission on Urbanisation, not much has happened on that front. As for the bigger cities, the additional attention and the presence of a master plan have not necessarily meant improvement.
Managing a city through a single unified master plan has failed to deliver. The reason for this, aside from poor implementation, is that the plans are conceptually flawed. Indian cities are complex composites. Alongside the formal city exists a large and an equally important informal city inhabited by the poor. Even the formal city is composed of many parts such as the historical core, the colonial enclave, and new areas of post-Independence growth. Notwithstanding these differences, the master plan tends to paint the city with a single brush, favouring the new formal areas and ignoring the informal. This has fragmented cities further and skewed development in favour of new areas. The recommendations in the UN-Habitat report do offer a way forward. The suggestion to implement the strategic spatial planning system should be immediately adopted. Unlike the master plan, such innovations recognise the intra-city differences better and help focus on priority aspects or areas. They should help eventually to mitigate spatial inequalities, integrate infrastructure, and evolve compact city forms that will optimise travelling within the city. Simultaneously, the institutional framework for planning should be strengthened with an emphasis on people’s participation and regional networking. Earnest implementation and regular monitoring of the plans are equally vital for reaping the benefits of planning.
Keywords: Urbanisation, UN-Habitat, Eleventh Five Year Plan, Indian cities, infrastructure, affordable housing
We need to:
- Create more employment opportunities in the smaller towns and cities. (So that more pressure is not put on the fragile City infrastructure.)
- Also, try to make the each district self-sufficient.
- We must try to avoid building huge skyscrapers. They make an already busy locality really dense.
- Specialized Industrial/Economic Zones inside the city limits raise the costs of living artificially.
- Creative transport solution are needed. (That would, however, need co-operation from the public.)
The root cause of the problem is not improper planning but migration of people to places which have more opportunities. Though there is definitely a room for improvement in planning of urban areas, the problem of expensive housing can be better mitigated by giving people opportunities in their native places. From Economics we know that industrial concentration is necessary for the industry to add to growth of the economy but this theory should not be taken to its illogical conclusion by having jobs only in metros. No doubt the problem is complex but strong-willed humans can find a solution to every problem.
A city like Jaipur has been a good example of planned and futuristic development. But still it is not able to be part of that cycle which accelerates its development on its own. Even after having good roads and better infrastructure, MNCs and other industries are away from the city. Government not only needs to develop infrastructure of a particular city but also provide incentives to companies to attract them and being there in 2nd tier cities such that load of Mega city like Delhi can be reduced.
The developmental plans are flawed most of the times. The recent phenomenon catching up in most of the small cities in India is building of malls. Malls have become synonymous with development. The government needs to focus on developing better infrastructure and transport facilities rather than providing the common people with mere illusions.
When it comes to metros like Chennai,there is lack of proper integration, the long stretch of road constructed in front of the Tidel park has become a source of problem for the layman and the autowallas, who need to take a long round about as there are no in between roads to crossover, the only option one is left with are the pedestrian bridges.
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