Looming urban challenge

THE global percentage of urban population grew from 13 in 1900 to 29 in 1950, and 49 in 2005. If the present trends continue, by 2030 nearly 60 per cent of the global population will be living in cities. In 2015, the world will have 58 cities with 5 million people each; and by 2025, 27 mega cities with more than 10 million people each.

A Harvard economist, Edward Glaeser, in his recent book, “Triumph of the City: How our Greatest Invention Makes us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier”, argues that cities are “our species’ greatest invention”, as they make people more inventive, productive and kinder to the planet. But are the cities indeed such an unmixed blessing, particularly in the global south?

Cities do offer advantages of agglomeration, better infrastructure and economic and social opportunities. They serve as cultural melting pots, centres of knowledge and innovation; fora of political engagement; and sites of investment. Cities thus become magnets that attract people from less developed regions. But particularly in the global south, cities are also home to acute congestion, slums, deprivation and poverty. Their large ungoverned spaces are conducive to organised crime, drug and human-trafficking and urban warfare.

Cities expand due to natural growth, migration, greater employment and economic opportunities, declining labour-intensity of agriculture and globalisation. Instability and civil strife in parts of the global south, coupled with weak governance, also contribute to rural-urban migration.

For the first time in history, most of the world’s population will be concentrated in cities located in the world’s poorest countries, where policing, sanitation and medical facilities are scanty. The World Bank estimates that between now and 2050 over 70 per cent of population growth will take place in 24 low and lower-middle income countries that have an average per capita earning of less than $3855 (2008). Asia’s urban population is currently 37 per cent. Over the next two decades, it is projected at 55 per cent. By 2030, India’s urban population will be 500 million. The mega cities of South Asia are expanding even more because of rural poverty and high fertility rates rather than economic dynamism. Mumbai, where at least half the population lacks adequate shelter, is projected to have a population of 22.6 million in 2015. Karachi, already trapped in chronic political turbulence, will have 16.2 million people by 2015. Dhaka, one of the world’s poorest cities, is likely to have 17.9 million inhabitants by 2015.

Cities in the developed world grew at a more leisurely pace than those in Asia’s developing countries. For example, between 1950 and 2015, New York’s population will have grown by just 30 per cent, whereas Karachi’s will have grown by 2000 per cent and Dhaka’s by 5400 per cent. In the developed West, moreover, growth took place after nation-states and governments were firmly established. The developed world’s urbanisation also predated the information revolution, which has led to rising expectations and a heightened sense of deprivation among the less affluent.

The cities of the global south are unlikely to be what Edward Glaeser calls the mankind’s “greatest invention”. Their pattern of growth will pose a serious challenge to human security in diverse ways. Firstly, deprivation, poverty and social exclusion will have a predominantly urban face. Between 1993 and 2002, the number of poor living on US $1 a day declined by 150 million in villages, but increased by 50 million in cities. Deprivation and disparities are particularly acute in slums and shanty towns, which lack basic amenities like water. Slum-dwellers sometimes pay 50 times more for clean water than those living in serviced colonies.

Secondly, in many urban spaces, and particularly in poorer neighbourhoods, effective governance is non-existent or is overwhelmed by the magnitude of the challenges. In such pockets, violence becomes the basis for alternative “parallel” forms of order, control, identity, legitimacy and resource distribution. The poor in such areas survive in chronic insecurity and face the risk of urban warfare.

Thirdly, haphazard and rapid urbanisation leads to severe environmental degradation. Crowded cities become centres of disease and epidemics. Inhabitants of congested cities are highly vulnerable to devastation in the wake of extreme weather events. Cities close to low-lying coastal zones will be prone to flooding and consequent economic loss.

Fourth, cities marked by religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity can accentuate tensions arising from other factors like competition for the limited number of jobs and resources. Rapidly urbanising centres affected by a youth bulge can foster violence in an environment of deprivation and denial.

Cities are also becoming both the sources and targets of urban terror. They offer tempting opportunities for shock and publicity, which are greatly valued by terrorists. It is hardly surprising that recent terror attacks have targeted iconic symbols in cities like New York and Mumbai.

The urban challenge looms large in India. A UN-HABITAT report notes that 63 per cent of South Asia’s slum-dwellers are Indian. The largest number of slum-dwellers in the country live in four mega cities: Mumbai (6.5 million, which is more than the entire population of Norway); Delhi (1.9 million), Kolkata (1.5 million) and Chennai (0.8 million).

If governments continue to adopt a business-as-usual attitude towards the urban challenge, chronic chaos in most mega cities of Asia is the most likely scenario. While cities like Karachi already present a picture of unending disorder, other mega cities like Dhaka, Lahore, Mumbai, Kolkata and Jakarta could well face a similar fate.

Densely populated urban centres will be particularly vulnerable to natural disasters and these in turn will challenge governments’ capacities to address them. Climate change scientists forecast extreme weather events and disasters like the Asian tsunami of December 2004. The recent earthquake and the tsunami in its wake have been termed by the Japanese Prime Minister as the country’s greatest crisis since World War II. Massive damage caused by natural events, epidemics or other disasters may overwhelm city and national governments.

Chronic neglect and exclusion make people particularly prone to embracing radical ideologies. Left-wing extremism, which presently afflicts 196 districts in 20 states of India, is making systematic inroads in several cities. This is likely to grow unless the urbanisation process can be managed more imaginatively and efficiently.

The urbanisation phenomenon, therefore, needs to be viewed from a strategic perspective. Policy interventions to tackle the challenge may include sound planning for urban growth and effective implementation of such plans; giving due emphasis to environmental protection; vigorous efforts to provide basic amenities; slum improvement, pro-poor policies and inclusive growth. Appropriate measures are also needed to prevent disasters if possible, and mitigate and manage them when they cannot be prevented.