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Cities are where two-thirds of the world’s population will live by 2050, but many cities are already straining at the seams with immense problems on every level The voracious appetite of cities for raw materials, food, energy, and water (their “ecological footprint,” which is many times greater than their physical area) is a major cause of declining natural habitats worldwide but also our greatest hope for reducing this impact through making better cities. The alarming destruction of terrestrial and aquatic natural systems, which form Earth’s life support system, is the reason why some say we are now living through the planet’s sixth major extinction event. :-
Cities are where two-thirds of the world’s population will live by 2050, but many cities are already straining at the seams with immense problems on every level The voracious appetite of cities for raw materials, food, energy, and water (their “ecological footprint,” which is many times greater than their physical area) is a major cause of declining natural habitats worldwide but also our greatest hope for reducing this impact through making better cities. The alarming destruction of terrestrial and aquatic natural systems, which form Earth’s life support system, is the reason why some say we are now living through the planet’s sixth major extinction event. :-
Lack of Urban space
Lack of Urban space
The lack of provisions for public spaces hampers economic activities, pollutes the environment, and reduces social stability and security.
Traffic
Traffic
The challenge of congestion is a perennial issue for cities in the United States and around the world, and one that is rapidly worsening.
Housing
Housing
Constant migration of rural population to cities in search of jobs is causing unbearable strain on urban housing and basic services. There is a severe housing shortage in the urban areas with demand – supply gap increasing day-by-day.
Poor infrastructure
Poor infrastructure
When urbanization is rapid and unplanned, a combination of high population density, poverty and lack of infrastructure can create conditions where communicable diseases can easily spread. It is striking that, today, almost 700 million urban dwellers lack adequate sanitation.
Waste management
Waste management
Solid Waste Management (SWM) is one among the basic essential services provided by municipal authorities in the country to keep urban centres clean. However, almost all municipal authorities deposit solid waste at a dump yard within or outside the city haphazardly. Moreover liquid waste is not dealt with properly and the gaseous waste goes unnoticed.
Pollution
Pollution
Air pollution in cities is a serious environmental problem – especially in the developing countries. The air pollution path of the urban atmosphere consists of emission and transmission of air pollutants resulting in the ambient air pollution.
Water scarcity
Water scarcity
Urbanization creates its own forms of water stress via increasing per capita water consumption and rising incomes, as wealthier people use more water, energy, and water-intensive goods. Simultaneously, the urban poor in the developing world can face inadequate access to drinking water and basic sanitation. Cities in the developing world are, in other words, sites of both acute scarcity and high consumption.
Criminal activities
Criminal activities
Cities may create greater returns to crime because criminals may have greater access to the wealthy and face a greater density of victims in urban areas.
Inequality
Inequality
As the number of urban super-rich grows, many cities will also see increased numbers of urban poor. The widening gap between the haves and have-nots will be accentuated in the megacities of the future. Such inequalities, when left unchecked, will destabilize society and upend any benefits of urban development.
Most approachable wide-scale solutions (taking eg of Gurgaon)
Most approachable wide-scale solutions (taking eg of Gurgaon)
Expand air quality monitoring and daily reporting with health advisories. Implement pollution emergency measures: Exposure monitoring based on new emerging low cost but advanced sensor-based monitoring equipment can become a game-changer in air quality monitoring globally. Needed to bridge the gap in data availability to citizens and assess personal exposure.
Improve and scale up public transport and last-mile connectivity. Gurgaon needs to improve people carrying capacity of roads: Road space is limited and finite. But it is possible to improve people carrying capacity of roads by influencing travel choices. Even during peak hours, a car carries only 1.5 persons as opposed to a bus carrying at least 40-50 people. Two cars occupy the same space as one bus but carry 20 times fewer people. If this trend continues the capacity of roads to carry more people will reduce drastically. The planning challenge is to improve mass modes and people carrying capacity of roads as per the principle of the National Urban Transport Policy that states ‘plan for people, not vehicles’. Ensure reliable and frequent services, GPS enabled public information system; multi-modal integration for metro and bus and last-mile connectivity.
Design roads for public transport, cycling and walking. Implement a non-motorised network plan for time-bound implementation: Mandate people and cycling-friendly street design guidelines and standards for all roads. These should be made mandatory for approval of road network projects in Delhi. Protect walkways and cycle tracks from encroachment and ensure safe crossing. Implement the provision of the Motor Vehicle Act 1988 that bars vehicles from being parked on pavements. The city plans to build Metro and BRT systems. But such enormous investment may remain suboptimal and underutilized if they are not made accessible and supported with efficient last-mile connectivity. All public transport trips begin and end as walk trips. Use of public transport, therefore, can be optimized and scaled up only if walking infrastructure and design to access them to improve. Also, many short distances motorized trips can be converted to non-motorised trips if proper infrastructure is created.
Restrain growth of cars with parking restraints and taxes: Eliminate free parking. Introduce effectively high and variable parking charges; introduce residential parking permits with fees. Ban parking on footpaths under the provision of the Motor Vehicle Act 1988. Implement parking management area plans to plan and implement legal parking, ban and penalise illegal parking and rationalise on-street and off-street parking; Prohibit parking in green areas and neighbourhood parks.
Leapfrog emissions standards: Implement the Air Quality Index with health advisories and pollution emergency measures. Leapfrog emissions standards to Euro V in 2017, and Euro VI in 2020. Nation-wide Euro IV should be in place by 2025
Control dieselisation with tax measures: Diesel has been branded as class I carcinogen by WHO. Need fiscal measures to control dieselisation.
Strategies for older cars: The potential impact of banning 15-year-old private vehicles is limited. Studies have shown that the average age of personal vehicles in Delhi is much shorter – four-seven years. Therefore, a variety of strategies is needed to control pollution from on-road vehicles.
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