Ring in the new, ring out the old

New Year is the time of resolutions. When it comes to a country it is the time to revisit past policies, course-correct or reset agendas and plan for the coming year. The 2023 wish-list for the Indian urban sector could be a long one, given that the past year was quite eventful. The World Cities Report 2022 has already highlighted that urbanisation will keep rising in the coming years, which in turn highlights the fact that the governments need to come up with strategies to deal with this. The imbalance in urban and regional populations will put extreme pressure on existing resources in the cities.
The world has rapidly developed in the last century. A large proportion of this development has to do with urbanisation, which has happened at the cost of environment. As a result of high carbon emissions, thanks to urban transportation, the climate is warming. Rapid urbanisation at the cost of climate will likely cause more disasters in the coming years. The tragedy of Joshimath in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand is the most recent one in a series of disasters which tell the story of natural environment under duress. Experts have blamed unprecedented construction activity in the region for the land subsidence that occurred, in addition to complete apathy of authorities to the multiple warning signs in previous years. The slopes in the area have become weaker as a result of the enormous drilling and excavating that was done there using explosives to build highways, dams, and other structures.
Apart from ecological imbalance, increasing population in urban centres could cause social imbalance in society. Rural-to-urban migration is only natural because of jobs and better amenities in the cities than rural areas. Japan is a good case study in this regard. Japan is paying people to move out of its crowded metropolis Tokyo. For years now, Japan has had a falling birth rate which means a rising ageing population. Due to a high cost of living in cities with lack of childcare support, people choose to not have children. Tokyo is also prone to earthquakes due to over-concentration of population. Starting in April, the Government of Japan will provide $7,700 per child to families which decide to move to lesser populated regions of the country. It is aimed at decongesting overcrowded urban centres while also boosting the falling birth rate.
Urban sector needs to be a major area of focus for the government. According to a World Bank research recently released, India has to boost its yearly investment in city infrastructure from an average of $10.6 billion over the past ten years to an average of $55 billion over the next 15 years in order to fulfil the needs of the expanding urban population. This should not be an impossible goal to achieve. After all, India is “a bright spot” in the world economy.