The process of urbanisation is not new but their tunes are felt loud in recent times as today world’s majority of population are living in cities and towns.
The phenomenon too can’t be ignored in India where more than one-third of its one billion plus population are living in some of the tens of thousands of citiesand towns.
If Mumbai wants to be Shanghai then New Delhi too wants Yamuna to flow as Thames of london or Bangalore emerges as the Silicon Valley. But the hard reality is many of our cities’ urban indexes are far lower than the cities in some of the emerging economy.
The debate of becoming world class is not new to India as the syndrome is not limited to metro cities only; rather new towns like Bhubaneswar are too not left out of the race.
At some point of time, key decision makers after international visit wanted to transform Bhubaneswar into Singapore or Amsterdam or Seoul. There is no expenditure for talking and dreaming.
The question is why really Bhubaneswar or any other Indian city has to be like Singapore or Amsterdam or Seoul or Shanghai or Hong Kong and why can’t they move with its own legacies.
Perhaps in 1948 when Bhubaneswar plan was grounded as independent India’s first planned capital city it had everything in it that any world-class city desires to have in a city.
But sadly when the city grew over years its decision makers kept drifting away from its original plan. Result: Once a beautiful grid based neighbourhood city where every child would go to school on foot and playground and woman can easily walk to public health centers or market is now where a woman can’t even cross the road and no parents would like their children to go school on foot.
Then ultimately what Bhubaneswar gained from the mad rush of urban planning was growth of concrete jungle that does not have safe space for its kids and senior citizens.
The young generation is happy with shopping malls, swanky restaurant and expensive theater hall. It can perhaps never imagine how beautiful the city was some two decades ago with lots of trees and playgrounds.
Crime was rare and a majority of people rode bicycles. Some of the common ingredients of Smart City are fast and free internet access, cycling infrastructure, public transport, waste minimisation, five or less days of work, no official work after 6 pm, good sporting facility, preparedness and response mechanism in disaster management etc. Perhaps Smart Cities are hungry for innovation.
The road to Smart City is not that simple as it may looks from a glass door. However, Bhubaneswar has all the natural ingredients that are owned by Seoul or Singapore and proper decision-making by multiple institutions can push the process of emerging to be a Smart City.
In late seventies and early eighties both Singapore and Seoul worked to reinvent themselves from scanty town where rivers were carriers of pollutants and there were slums etc.
Just exactly what one sees in a lost city where governance is taken over by unplanned growth, crime and corruption etc. But in both the cities, decisive leadership within two decades transformed Seoul and Singapore.
The Mayor who led the initiative of river transformation later became the President of South Korea where as Seoul hosted Asian Games in 1986, Olympics in 1988, World Cup Soccer Semi Final in 2002 and demonstrated some of the world’s best innovative public transport system, use of technology and open space management etc. over the same period, Singapore changed itself from a Slum City to a Smart City.
So if Bhubaneswar wants be Smart then first it must bring a change in the way the city is governed.
The authorities must bring people to the core of urban development, make sure technology is designed inclusively, create a network of public space and neighborhood plan.
(Dr Rout is an urban planner and founder of the local Governance Network)