The India of today is aspirational. It will continue to be so at least for the next 20 years. If we do not plan our cities correctly, growth will contra-intuitively lead to squalor and economic efficiency will be the first casualty. Therefore, our political system has to wake up right now.
To win: we must do elegant urban planning, have clearly laid policies, heterogeneous transportation architecture, leverage on smart city infrastructure, and engage closely with the citizens.
History records that economic development and per capita income accelerate when more than half of a nation’s population is urbanised. Such population agglomeration unleashes creativity and efficiency.
At the dawn of the millennium, India’s urban population stood at 28 per cent. By 2020, it is expected to hit 40 percent. Not only is India one of the fastest urbanising nations across the globe, Tamil Nadu, now surging past 48 per cent, is among its leading states. If historical evidence is reliable, this bodes well for accelerating economic development.
Like urbanisation and per capita income, there has been an equally strong correlation between per capita GDP and personal mobility. The post-war years of economic expansion in USA, Europe, and Japan were marked by a linear increase in personal mobility measured by vehicle ownership. 1980, India’s transport demand has grown by 800 per cent!
In short, India’s aspiration for a spurt in economic development over the next two decades will be accompanied by growing cities with increasing population density and at the same time, a marked increase in transport demand.
Without proper planning and without the adoption of the right technologies, these trends can lead to squalor, defeating hopes for better human development. Unplanned agglomeration often leads not only to slums that sap human dignity but also unchecked sprawl of city boundaries, resulting in inadequate transport infrastructure and erosion of economic efficiency. Mobility patterns become both car-centric and personal vehicle centric. Neither of this is good for the country. In the car-dependent US, the sprawling expanse of cities is estimated to erode 2.6 per cent of GDP. Globally, economic losses arising from the combination of air-quality degradation, road fatalities and traffic congestion are anywhere between 6 and 10 per cent of GDP. Heeding these dire warning signs, cities are rightly rushing to address remediation.
PERSPECTIVE FROM CHENNAI
Noting that India can ill afford to travel down this road, Tamil Nadu has flagged a comprehensive set of actions to transform urban movement. As a port and industrial hub, the capital city of Chennai blessed. A focus on grooming educational institutions and promoting industrial development had allowed Chennai to host a concentration of auto and electronics companies. These factors have been responsible for its population doubling to over 11 million since 1995. This growth has unfortunately caused the city to witness unbridled sprawl.
This sprawl, accompanied by slow and inadequate investment in infrastructure, had caused modal share of transport to shift from public transit to personal vehicles. Chennai’s vehicle population has surged eight-fold since 1995. Worse, its vehicle density was the highest among large Indian cities: 2093 vehicles per km of road in 2015.
A comprehensive set of initiatives has been recently launched to prepare Chennai and Tamil Nadu for the future.
Urban planning is a critical first step
The formation of the Greater Chennai Corporation has been a much-needed step towards a more holistic and effective administration of the metro-city, now measuring 426 square kilometers. For the future, the mandate encompasses environmental actions, reclamation of water bodies and improving the resilience of the city to natural calamities. The Chennai Smart City project has identified 37 projects that will induct “smart technologies” to address safety, mobility and quality of life.
Design cities for people!
Cities around the world have realized that for much of the 20th century, we have been designing cities for cars instead of developing cities for people. As they attempt to correct the error in this millennium, they have discovered the vital role played by policies and regulations. Starting from planning for densification to stem sprawl, meaningfully tailoring strategies to improve liveability and mobility are being pursued. In Chennai too, transit-oriented development is now adopted, recognizing the symbiotic relationship between urban development and urban movement. The FSI index that governs how much vertical growth is allowed is being revised in city-centre areas and those near high-density metro rail corridors.
