Challenges facing sustainable urban development

Lionel Wijesiri

As a country emerging from the shadows of terrorism into a bright, prosperous future, Sri Lanka has many challenges to face and many opportunities to exploit", stated Defence and Urban Development Ministry Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa recently.

He further added, “Although other cities such as Kandy, Galle, Jaffna and the fast emerging city of Hambantota also play important roles in the life of this nation, uplifting Colombo to a world-class city remains a key priority of the government. With its rapid growth over the centuries, the urban development of Colombo poses a diverse set of challenges.

Since late ‘70s, with the country’s more open economic policies, there has been a huge trend of youth movement from rural to urban for industrial employment. Export Processing Zones were the main attraction for this labour migration. Four decades later, Sri Lanka is in the midst of a very rapid urbanization process and the government has made urbanization a developmental priority.

Colombo City

Today, our cities are changing fast which involve a complex reshuffling of people, materials, capital and space.

Children playing in a crowded slum settlement. File photo

To avoid the urbanization take toil on our environment, the government has introduced the concept of sustainable cities on its agenda and is searching for novel ways to expand and develop urban areas while conserving natural resources.

How to manage Sri Lanka’s great diversity and physical restructuring while building liveable cities is a formidable challenge for our leaders. This transition is a multi-faceted process involving market formation, state intervention and spatial restructuring.

Anyone observing the re-developing Colombo City would realise that urban growth and development can be a sustainable process and that the concept of sustainable development can be applied in an urban setting. Alongside the central government, local governments, civil society and the private sector have also emerged as significant partners in Sri Lankan urban management.

Modern town planners emphasize that the goal when it comes to sustainability and urban development should not be a mere sustainable city; rather, it should be a city that contributes to sustainable development goals within their boundaries. By focusing merely on sustainable cities, the real goals of sustainability are often lost.

Urban Development Authority is well aware that by focusing merely on sustainable cities, the real goals of sustainability are often lost.

The Authority is working out ways from which it may mitigate some of the negative effects and create a sustainable urban development through innovative locally driven initiatives. The concepts behind this approach focus on compact urban design, integrated systems, and increased energy and resource efficiency.

The stakes are high. If not properly managed, urbanization could exacerbate environmental damage, congestion, lack of basic services, ill health and insecurity especially among the poor. Sound policies to manage urbanization are therefore critical. The role of city governments in developing and implementing key policies that affect quality of life has grown in scope and importance and perhaps become even more vital than that of national government.

Key issues

The major challenges for the coming years in urbanised cities will be, how to address the problems resulting from slow population growth and ageing, including shrinking cities and deteriorating buildings and infrastructure, how to address problems of urban sprawl and preservation of inner-city heritage buildings arising from the growing demand for housing and facilities by an emerging wealthy class and from international investors, how to address severe environmental pollution from the industries and from the rapid growth of vehicle ownership, and how to strengthen local authorities to whom many responsibilities have been transferred but without the necessary financial resources.

Throughout history, cities have been closely linked to the advancement of civilization in all world regions. It can be said, without exaggeration, that the history of civilization has been the history of cities. If properly planned and managed, cities are capable of providing solutions to the key urban challenges.

Along with the urbanisation, there are few other areas of concern that should be addressed to be able to enhance the productive capacity and the quality of life of urban dwellers:

* Creating enough jobs, especially in urban areas where population is growing fastest, is the single most important task that needs to be accomplished in order to significantly improve the quality of life of the citizens. Our urban areas have their competitive strength which needs to be fully utilized. These include continued English language competency, relatively high education level, and continued active civil society participation in governance.

* The government needs to quickly take actions to address weakness in some urban areas to enable them to be competitive in a global economy. These include, deteriorating urban environment, urban security concerns, low capacity at local government level in economic development and serious local government fiscal constraints.

* International best practice points to a series of actions that national and local governments can take to bolster the local investment climate and improve productivity and competitiveness. Many of these require cooperation between government, civil society and local business.

* The urban income and productivity is high on average, yet the inequality is also higher. This is not only socially problematic but raises questions about the sustainability of current development patterns. Furthermore, because the urban population is increasing much more quickly than the rural, the share of urban poverty in national poverty is rising sharply. Therefore, policies targeted at the specific problems of the urban poor have become more important.

* Significant proportions of the urban poor live in communities which lack access to basic services like piped water, sanitation, drainage, paved footpaths, electricity, etc. It is commonly held that lack of income is the reason why the poor lack basic services. However, this is not the case. Surveys indicate that low income slum and squatter communities have the resources and would be willing to pay for basic services if government programmes and policies were better designed to provide such services in these communities.

Framework

The importance of urbanization for both growth and poverty alleviation calls for a coherent national framework toward urbanization. The objective of such a national urbanization framework should be to develop the Sri Lankan cities into liveable and globally competitive areas which can truly serve as engines of growth for the country.

Such a framework should include the few key elements: (a) improving urban and metropolitan governance and management; (b) enhancing competitiveness of urban regions; (c) alleviating urban poverty; (d) developing infrastructure; and (e) managing rural migration.

The framework would call for a comprehensive set of actions and policies both at the national and local levels.

It is quite obvious that there is an urgent need for national awareness of urbanization including its positive and negative effects. More importantly, it is clear that urbanization issues need to be integrated into national development policies and strategies. Addressing all of the urban challenges will require pro-poor and inclusive urban planning, management and governance policies, as well as, effective institutions.

Urban poverty

The slums are the most visible manifestation of urban poverty. Addressing the slum challenge will partly entail in-situ upgrading, focusing on improving water and sanitation, as well as improving the supply of adequate but affordable housing for low-income households.

To achieve the latter, serious attention has to be paid to increasing the supply of affordable land, especially for the poor.

Finally, addressing all of the current and future urban challenges requires appropriate and robust financing systems.

If they are to succeed, such systems must not only be at a much larger scale than before, but must also recognise the progressive, or incremental, nature of house construction among the poor in cities.

It is in response to these requirements the government should place emphasis on innovative financing mechanisms and improved institutional capacity to leverage the contributions of communities, local authorities and the private sector, as well as of government and international financial institutions.