Section – 3

EVOLUTION OF THE PROPOSAL

Distributed Urbanization

The consensus among researchers in the field is that the developing world's future is urban. Accordingly, this study seeks to present a philosophic model for regional urbanization reform that could be tailored by all India states into structured programs for the development /renewal of urban-like facilities over the entire country. Such urban development is a vital enabler for sustainable economic growth and consequently is critical to improving the quality of life for all Indians.

Decentralization is an important aspect to be factored into the current world-wide sustainability initiatives. This proposal would therefore focus on distributing the effort among numerous geographical locations across the region/state considered as one eco-region, and to shift the focus away from existing mega-cities whose better, but limited, infrastructure is invariably subjected to great stress. Such distribution will help remove the urban-rural inequalities and encourage and enable people to sustainably pursue their chosen livelihood activity in a variety of geographically distributed urbanized areas, by minimizing the incremental economic gains that migration to a megapolis may offer. This strategy would also encourage traditional livelihood options in small towns and villages (in agriculture, handicrafts, etc.) and the local cultures to flourish.

This would simply mean this: Take urban facilities to people and not vice versa. This dominant theme, called 'Distributed Urbanization,' is at the core of this study.

The proposed model of regional development can be considered as a coordinating framework within which to conceptualize and implement various projects specifically designed in various developmental disciplines, including economics, social sciences, engineering, etc. This coordinating framework can be used to manage both current as well as future projects, avoiding conflicting or overlapping areas of interest and responsibility.

Previous Research/Studies

The issues concerning urbanization, migration, urban sprawl, etc have been well studied by many researchers. Although a thorough review of such research is beyond the scope of this presentation, the basic premises that shaped this proposal were authenticated and validated by an examination of a few of the publications by important policy leaders in this regard, like the United Nations, World Bank and Asian Development Bank. Appendix-A contains a few extracts from the documents published by these organizations and they provide a flavor of the current research and trends.

Highlights of the review

Roberts & Kanaly (2006), in an Asian Development Bank publication, believe that Asia's (as, indeed, the entire developing world's) future is urban. If the success of Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore is to be replicated elsewhere, the land use and land markets should be well-managed.

Hoornweg, et al. (2008), in a World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, suggest that while mega-cities may continue to grow [perhaps at a lower pace than before], the growth of smaller cities will become the focus of planning. This would indicate the disappearance of urban-rural divide. The best way to address a rural issue is through a nearby city.

Tibaijuka (2007), Executive Director, UN-HABITAT, states that like the Americas and Europe are already urban, the rest of world's future is urban. This reiterates the conclusion of ADB-Cities Alliance referred to earlier.

Broad Conclusions drawn from the research

Certain broad conclusions can be drawn based on the above highlighted research:

The entire developing world's future is urban.
Efficient management of land use and land markets is the key to success.
While mega-cities may continue to grow, the growth of smaller cities will become the focus of planning resulting in the disappearance of urban-rural divide.
The best way to address a rural issue is through a nearby city.

In addition to the compelling reasons above, developing countries will need to consider the following:

Sustainable development would call for decentralized and spatially distributed economic growth opportunities and human habitats that effectively meet the needs of the people. This would create small urban centers distributed all across an entire region.
The developing world should learn from the experiences of the Americas and Europe and should create sustainable smaller urban centers (or urbanize existing small cities), and not create cities like Atlanta, Los Angeles and Beijing.
Such smaller urban centers need to be networked by proving all necessary linkages. Development strategies would therefore need to consider a specific region as an eco-region and deal with it as comprising of several small urbanized areas, and not just as a few mega-cities.
In this context, the word 'region' takes on different connotations like state, district, etc., depending specifically on the size and geography under consideration.

As the old cliché goes, prevention is better than cure. The prime aim should therefore be to avoid uncontrolled urbanization in the developing world. But if it does happen, the consequences will be fully met and issues solved, in keeping with the indomitable human spirit on display in North America and Europe. But then, it would be wise to ponder over this question: should a developing country like India allow itself to come to such a pass?

Past Development Initiatives

A number of public and private initiatives have been undertaken worldwide with a view to developing better human habitats and livelihood options. Major aspects of some of these initiatives have been reviewed in Appendix-B.

All these initiatives represent commendable efforts at various levels. They were essentially economic or social policies and were limited in scope. While some address urban issues, some others deal with rural ones. Some programs are mere adaptations of successful foreign programs, without due consideration for the local conditions. Some aim at providing a link between urban and rural markets. And, in the current context, there is a growing urgency for such initiatives to be holistic in outlook and to address sustainability issues faced by our world today.

It is imperative therefore that all individual plans that India may draw up at various levels for economic, political and social development must be properly coordinated through regional perspective plans. Each such plan should be a multi-disciplinary and holistic program, incorporating state-of-the-art strategies for urbanization, infrastructure and sustainability. The model proposed in this presentation will hopefully provide the basis for such frameworks.

Evolution of the proposed model

Human migration in search of better economic opportunities happens both within a country and internationally. In some cases, such migration is supported or even sponsored by the government. For example, China sponsors rural to urban migration and several emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia support international migration, all for economic gain. Governments welcome outstanding skills and talents from overseas so they can boost their economy (USA's H1B and O-visa programs, UK's Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP), etc.). In an economic sense, even encouraging flow of FDI and FII is migration for 'capital growth'. These are common in the prevalent economic systems of the world.

But could initiatives like the Chinese Government-sponsored relocation of millions of rural (agricultural) workers to urban industrial areas be a sustainable strategy? Could agriculture, especially in fertile lands, be neglected as being a less-profitable economic activity?

In the wider context of global sustainability, such large scale shifts of workforce to urban manufacturing jobs in large cities would, metaphorically, be putting all the eggs in one basket. Mr Lee Kuan Yew's support for such planned migration (see the section on the PURA concept in Appendix B) makes economic sense. It is hoped that such migrant workforce would consist of surplus agricultural workers and would not jeopardize food-security. Furthermore, though economic development may currently be of overriding importance in developing nations, environmental and economic sustainability need serious consideration as well in the face of alarming global climate change. Being an illustrious leader and a keen intellect, Mr Lee Kuan Yew would certainly agree with ADB's call in this context (Asian Development Bank, 2007) for creating and locating manufacturing jobs more organically and its observation that the pursuit of geographically distributed industrialization and agricultural productivity growth requires significant resources to expand infrastructure.

These are among the thoughts that the proposed model is founded on.

Harris-Todaro Model of development economics and welfare economics explains some of the issues concerning rural-urban migration driven by expected income differentials between rural and urban areas (Wikipedia 2009). This is somewhat true in the case of international migration as well. As long as such income/opportunity differentials exist, the dynamics of migration cannot be contained, unless such increases in income are viewed as marginal compared with the influence of subjective lifestyle choices in favor of avoiding migration

If the 'impulse' provided by the income differentials is high, the resulting dynamics are bound to disturb the society. Although these differentials can never be removed altogether between various regions within any country (and, much less, between countries), a 'near-equilibrium' condition can be achieved only by managing these inequalities to remain at a socially acceptable threshold, thereby avoiding any tipping of the balance in favor of migration. This, of course, is a great challenge that all developing world is faced with.

It is believed that the essential first step in balancing the political economy of a region should be to decentralize economic activities to ensure geographically distributed growth potential across the entire region/state. In other words, take economic opportunities to people, and not the other way around. For this to happen, availability of proper and adequate public and private infrastructure that would attract investments all over the region/state is the key. Such infrastructure should also provide all necessary connectivity so that people can easily pursue their economic activities according to natural market selection and perform their societal functions according to their natural personal choices. Only such a decentralized economy, in complete harmony with the local eco-systems and social systems, can be sustainable. This does not mean developing all the villages, but developing urban-like landscapes, each sharing an urban-like center that provides an appropriate, scalable economic environment for the setting up of a marketplace for goods and services locally produced and consumed. Such a local landscape must have proper connectivity to the shared activity center.

There needs to be a plan for seeding this kind of development. The development model proposed here will, hopefully, provide that seed.

The proposed concept of planned development, with sustainability as a key element, will be known by the acronym PULSE, standing for "P aradigm for Urban Landscaping of States as Eco-regions." This seeks to incorporate the best aspects of some of the concepts discussed previously.

REFERENCES

Asian Development Bank (2007) Asian Development Outlook 2007: Growth Amid Challenge(ADO-2007). Last retrieved on January 17, 2014 from http://www.adb.org/Documents/books/ADO/2007

Hoornweg, D., et al. (2008) City Indicators: now to Nanjing (WB Policy Research Working Paper WPS4114) New York: The World Bank. Last retrieved on January 17, 2014 from http://econ.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64165259&theSitePK=469372&piPK=64165421&menuPK=64166093&entityID=000016406_20070117123154

Roberts, B., & Kanaley, T. (2006) Urbanization and Sustainability in Asia: Case Studies of Good Practice. Manila: Asian Development Bank/Cities Alliance. Last retrieved on January 17, 2014 from http://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/pub/2006/urbanization-sustainability.pdf

Tibaijuka, A. (2007) Foreword In 2007-State of the World: Our Urban Future. Washington DC: The Worldwatch Institute. Last retrieved on January 17, 2014 from http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4853

Evolution of the Proposal