A brighter future: planned urbanization
"Don't wait for your cities to crumble into rubble and sand, ditch rapid urbanization in the name of planned!"
The reality is, cities cannot continue to growth in the same manner and at the same rate as they have so far. A change is needed. Urban planning needs to become a priority for governments who want their cities and economies to grow because without it, growth is meaningless and can prove to be detrimental to those involved in it. The time has come for a sustainable and viable change in the way cities grow. The time has come to move towards a future of planned and controlled urbanization.
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Solutions Closer to Home: Urban Planning in India
Urbanization is crucial to countries like India. It is estimated that in the next two decades, the creation of new jobs could lead to India's GDP per capita quadrupling. This means that urbanization must be encouraged: in a planned manner that is beneficial to all the parties involved. One idea to do this is to focus on solid waste management and waste water treatment. The reason for this is that poor health and poor sanitation are two major problems posed by rapid urbanization and must be dealt with immediately. The government has already begun to implement facilities in over 50 towns across India to achieve this goal.
What We Propose
While the idea of dealing with waste management by setting up more facilities seems like a great idea, the fact is that what we are left with is still a large number of unskilled workers from rural areas. As such, the government should plan and open more institutes which offer courses in urban planning and the more technical skills required to do it successfully. After conducting interviews with several workers and househelps in Mumbai households, we gathered the following data:
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Out of the four helpers we interviewed, all of them believed that sewage leakage and dirty water is a large problem in Mumbai.
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Out of them, 3 lived in slums and chawls, which are small blocks of small rooms built horizontally. One of them agreed that the government should improve training for urban planning in villages so that those moving to cities are aware of the issues cities face and can do their bit to help out.
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The other two had families of their own, and felt that instead of giving people training, something they felt was time-consuming and would reduce their ability to earn for their households, the government should pay more attention on spending money to fix broken pipes, and build something that would help deliver clean water to the slums.
By looking at this data we concluded that there is a problem with the mindset of many rural immigrants who have moved to the city which must be tackled for any real change to take effect. We identified the problem as, the immigrants not thinking in a long-term manner and being rather myopic about what the government should do. For example, the interviewees believed that spending their time receiving training would decrease their time spent working, and since many work in low-skill jobs where they are often paid hourly, this would affect their wages. This is a short-sighted view since these workers are only concerned about the immediate future and not long-term effects of not learning about proper urban planning and helping cities grow in a sustainable manner. To implement change, this mindset is one of the things the government should tackle. We propose that they do this by raising awareness through grassroot campaings in both rural areas and slums in cities. Also, local authorities should work on a plan to re-imburse workers for a day's wages or so for the time they spend in training programs. This would encourage particpiation and while it would be a sizeable investment, it would pay off in the long run.
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We could organise campaigns that provide people with information about the advantages of planned urbanisation and compare it to rapid urbanisation
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By using social media sites (instagram), we could make our friends and family aware of the causes and effects of rapid urbanisation to prevent it from happening
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By making videos, we could interest people in the different ways to reduce problems of rapid urbanisation like traffic and overcrowding
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By using alternatives to cars when possible could help reduce traffic situations all over the city
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Planned seminars and assemblies could be carried out in our school, as well as other schools to inform the people about urbanisation and the drawbacks of rapid urbanisation
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For people to promote planned urbanisation, they are required to know about it first therefore basic information can be provided to our fellow classmates and close friends
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Planned Urbanisation V.S Rapid Urbanisation debates can be carried out, making people more aware of the two different types of Urbanisation.
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We could organise a day where all the people living close to school either walk or cycle (NO CAR DAY) > reducing the traffic and noise outside school
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Engaging and interesting posters and pamphlets can be made with relevant information about the topic.
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A day in school can be dedicated to promoting Planned urbanisation and preventing Rapid urbanisation. By using the information gathered, the entire school can be informed about the pros and cons of the above forms of urbanisation