The UN Habitat report titled "UN system Task Team on the post 2015 UN development agenda" (2012) suggests governments across the world to prioritise in their agenda the development of cities for the next millennium. It calls cities as the space for creating new ideas, innovation and technology and requires a shift from regarding it as a space for settlements or production. It was published during the wake of rapid urbanisation across developing countries.
After a passage of decade, the Indian cities contributing 70 percent of the country's GDP have witnessed disproportionate increase in the fluidity of market, labour and production over the years. The novel ideas and innovations driven by the Indian cities integrated into a global network.
Urban India led the digital revolution from the forefront. The spurt of innovations and ideas springing up in the arena of technology has successfully consolidated a total of 1.26 lakh startups across the country.
The waves of migration from various parts of the country to assimilate with the highly skilled talent pool created separate economic entities within the country. It further accentuated the need for increasing competitiveness of cities to sustain the economic growth of the country.
It has been ensured with the improved connectivity via wide coverage of road networks and metro rails, establishment of high quality educational institutions, attracting global investors and enhanced quality of life with a spectrum of retail choices and hangout places.
The growth-led initiatives enabled cities to undergo expansion and creation of new ones after overturning wetlands, trees and orchards, waterways and water bodies. It created urban sprawls owing to poor integrated planning and design in place. The shortcomings have been covered up with the innovation of smart cities with centralised command centres to improve the quality of service delivery and increased surveillance. The newly created smart city, Pimpri Chinchwad, was recognised globally for its urban innovation last year. It has successfully created a sustainable model with women-led groups to manage community toilets.
However, the little efforts made towards preserving the sustenance of life forms turned the rivers into sources of sewage and normalised landfills for tackling solid waste. This summer, the potability of water sources running along Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad have been red flagged after finding traces of harmful contaminants in it.
Despite installation of sewage treatment plants along water bodies, the nodal pollution body has found over 300 points as highly polluted stretches across the country.
According to a report published by the World Meteorological Organisation, the economic damages incurred due to storms and floods in India tallied up to 7.6 billion during 2022. The recurring losses highlight that cities are non-homogeneous entities created after recklessly stitching peri-urban and rural areas under its fold.
While recognising the changing outlook of cities, the UN task team report identified the need for strong local governments for building resilient cities. A RBI report (Report on Municipal Finances), has identified the limited power of Urban Local Bodies over taxation (generate own revenue less than 1 % of GDP) and overdependence on central and state as reasons for the ineffectiveness of ULBs in the country.
The limitations placed on ULBs and the one-size-fits-for-all approach of the centre and state governments create cities without inherent characteristics besides economic activities.
The ULBs working closely with the people will be able to develop plans and designs that earmark a portion of agricultural fields for food security, effective utilisation of barren lands for developing amenities like housing, hospitals, educational institutions and transportation system, developing scientific ways of disposal of solid and liquid waste without disrupting biodiversity to make the cities more self-sustainable.
Sustainable urbanisation calls for preserving the diversity of areas bearing in mind medium and longer term development. While the cities built on adopted economic models for growth are falling apart, the need for strong ULBs rises sharply to sustain cities that do more than economic functions.
study conducted by the Colorado State University in Colorado, the sprawl development
pattern can exacerbate the impacts of water shortage events more than high intensity
development patterns.
The redefining of cities as humongous economic engines created natural disasters confined
to urban spaces namely urban heat island effect, urban floods, acute water scarcity, poor
quality of air and water as a recurring phenomena.
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