We're just passing one of the great milestones in human history. It is fundamental, in the sense that the Industrial Revolution in Britain was fundamental. 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. (Sir Peter Hall, 2005).
The world population has risen seven-fold over the last 200 years. As per the data furnished by French Institute of Demographic Studies, India is set to become the world's most populous country by 2050 with a population of nearly 1.6 billion people. The study also projected that by the end of this century there would 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. For India the same increase is predicted: rising from 1.2 billion to 1.6 billion, while population in China will remain at the same level (1.3 billion).
Urban populations are expected to increase by 1.5 billion over the next 20 years, while the number of mega-cities 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!
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" (HM Treasury, Office of the Prime Minister, 2006). 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.
Obvious enough, economic growth will increasingly come from the strength of innovative activities instead of factor accumulation as in the past (Yusuf and Nabeshima, 2004). 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, globalisation (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).
It is crystal clear today that urbanisation is not a curse inasmuch as the same creates huge wealth and opportunities, enables better use of assets and creates new ones. Urbanisation --- 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 them for increased development gains and can guide them towards sustainable patterns. In a word, these are not harnessed for development and de facto urbanisation's challenges often seem to outpace the development gains.
In fact, in many countries urbanisation is not considered a national development opportunity. In general, the overall understanding of cities in national development is also very limited, and so is the appreciation of the structural transformations represented by the dynamics of growth in urban centres. It is often forgotten that framing a national urban policy is the key step for reasserting urban space and territoriality and for providing the needed direction and course of action to support urban development.
A lot thus depends on how infrastructure requirements are financed. The amount required on this score, needless to say, is a big one. How that is met is definitely a question, but where is the way out? Fund arrangement must be made so that the assets created become extremely useful in future. A number of instances may be shown where the fund invested virtually went a begging inasmuch as the investment made was on relatively less important arena. Opportunity cost aspect was not adequately studied.
Clearly, successful national urban policies have 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 concretised 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.
Undoubtedly, housing has been the biggest problem and the way it is encountered in some cases goes beyond description. As of 2012, the United Nations estimates that over one billion people live in these types of conditions.
Globally, a number of different measures have been tried to eliminate or improve areas of substandard housing. One of such result-oriented methods is to clear out the entire rundown section of a city, demolish the existing housing and replace it with government or privately funded modern housing. Though this has been done in many parts of the world, yet some countries have issues with 'squatter rights', (which means law enforcement cannot force inhabitants of the slums to move out so that they can clear the area).
The utmost need is the one 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.
Mila Freire, World Bank, rightly opined that the Third World would continue to see increasing rates of urbanisation, and cities would continue to experience the stress of facing increased demands to provide infrastructure and create jobs without much of the needed resources and/or capacity. Yes, the main challenges include (a) urban planning and management has to be flexible and ready to manage changes - adapting to new developments on the economic or social front; (b) focusing at the big picture - competitiveness, labour market, environmental quality, encompassing capital, technological and human capital; (c) greater involvement of the private sector; (d) establishing contracts, coordinating vertically with the central government and horizontally with other municipalities.
Side by side, it is crystal clear that in the near future globalisation and urbanisation will bring enormous challenges as well as opportunities to both developed and developing countries. Douglass (2005) rightly located that development is likely to be polarised 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 globalisation 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 --- through the formation of trans-border regions, the development of international corridors, and international networking, among others.
So, the crucial need is forging ahead --- economically situating upcoming metropolitan areas through rigorous trend and empirical research on the top economic, social and demographic issues; innovating locally through redesigning metropolitan economic development strategies that build on distinct assets; bolstering 'State and Centre' policy ideas and platforms that are in service of metropolitan areas; and sharing global cooperation by linking decision makers to a global network of metropolitan areas. Global economic growth is calling upon all metropolises to join hands.
Dr B K Mukhopadhyay is a management economist.
m.bibhas@gmail.com
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