Building Green Cities

Few people in the developing world realise that the western model of industrialisation and urbanisation is a highly toxic one. Every single industrialised country has gone through a period of intense pollution from London to Tokyo. If western cities are livable today, it is only because they have made major investments in pollution control and prevention. And even then they are just about managing the environmental problem. When developing countries try to emulate the same model but try to do it cheap, they only cook their own goose by turning their own habitat into a living hell.

All over the world and especially in Asia, as cities have started getting wealthy, they have also started running into serious pollution problems. Growing wealth means greater consumption, which leads to greater pollution. Delhi is the richest city in India in terms of per capita income. Similarly, Bangalore the pride of Indias anti-environment prime minister is also growing rapidly, but not surprisingly, both these cities are capitally polluted today. A large portion of Delhis citizens have enough money to buy a polluting two-wheeler and with the advent of the Maruti car, the upper and middle-income groups have also moved into car ownership, while the lower middle-income groups are aspiring for two wheelers.

 

According to the World Bank, the East Asian experience clearly shows that when economies grow at or near 10 per cent per annum and the industry accounts for the bulk of that growth, pollution levels can rise very fast in the absence of effective environmental policies. As an example, the World Bank estimated the industrial pollution loads in several southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, Phillipines and Thailand, for the period 1975 to 1989, based on their industrial growth patterns and pollution intensity coefficients derived in the US. These estimates indicate that while Thailands GDP roughly doubled over this period, most pollutant loads increased at least ten-fold. In the case of Indonesia, a related exercise projected forward pollution loads to the year 2010 based on recent industrial growth patterns. For each of the 11 pollutants considered, the annual emissions in 2020 are projected to be at least 10 times greater than those in 1990, assuming no change in environmental policies or industrial practices. Bangkok is the most notorious of all Asian cities because of its pollution. But Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai etc are in a similar mess.

This does not mean that pollution is inevitable. If growing wealth is the key cause of pollution, stupidity and indiscipline are the key factors that aggravate the situation. One Asian city that has escaped becoming a living hell is Singapore. And the main reasons for this is discipline and foresight. Singapore first became famous by allowing only odd or even numbered vehicles into the congested city centre on specific days. But later, only millionaires could afford to buy cars in Singapore, as the government started releasing only a limited number of permits every year to its citizens to buy cars. These permits were auctioned to the highest bidder.

This discipline in transport management became possible only because of the foresight Singapores planners had to develop an excellent public transport system. On the other hand in Delhi or Bangalore, in the absence of a mass rapid transit system, it becomes impossible to demand disciplined commuter behaviour and get compliance.

At the same time, one must realise that planning for a mega-city like Delhi in a poor country like India is not an easy task. Large investments are required to keep the environment clean and to provide basic services like clean air, potable water, schools, hospitals, proper transport and adequate road space. Countries like India with their grandiose and, in so many ways, fraudulent, love for socialism have further worsened the situation by providing most urban services through state-owned enterprises and through massive subsidies both of which breed incredible levels of callousness, inefficiency and wastefulness. Privatisation of urban services and infrastructure will introduce efficiency and appropriate pricing mechanisms, which will force urban citizens to pay the true cost of the services they avail. But it will leave the poor out of the ambit of these services and create a serious inequality problem. How does one, therefore, bring in efficiency and economic viability together with social justice? This is

a million dollar question and an extremely difficult one to answer because urban life is without any doubt expensive and subsidies just cannot provide an answer.

In such a situation, there cannot be good city planning unless there is some vision behind it. If the leadership wants clean air while the people prefer cheap vehicles, then there is precious little that anyone can do within a democratic polity.

It is clear that answers to this problem are not easy to find. They will demand considerable innovation in technology, management and, most of all, the thought process. However, I personally would set at least two objectives to begin with for any urban planning in the developing world. First, environment sustainability, and second, Public participation. To achieve environmental sustainabilty, whatever natural resources a city uses, should be used efficiently. Secondly, the public must be involved in this thought process and problem-solving exercise of developing a humane and green city. They may even be prepared to pay more if they know the nature of challenge they are facing.