Rethinking cities in times of pandemic & after

It’s time to rethink our approach for an inclusive future. Among others, COVID-19 has also exposed stress of underinvestment in our cities. This also provides an opportunity to kickstart a fairer, stronger, safer and cleaner country. By doing so, we can not only rebuild resilience to any future pandemics but to other risks such as climate change, extreme flood situation and ecosystem destruction

We don’t know as yet, how long the pandemic is going to last but one thing is clear that this is an opportunity to set things right. We must find the courage and the vision to seize the moment for what it is- an opportunity to reset, to rethink the governance models for our cities. Indian cities are home to about 461 million people and contribute 63 percent of the GDP, yet they are at the frontline of this pandemic crisis. Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi alone have two thirds of all COVID positive cases. The images of makeshift hospitals in stadiums, clubs, and banquet halls are stark reminder of lack of health infrastructure even in our big cities, leave alone smaller towns and the hinterland. The population density in these cities has made it difficult to control the spread of the virus. That is why the COVID-19 crisis demands rethinking about Indian cities in particular.

Stark reality of urban inequality

Let’s look at some pointers of the stark reality of these times. India has 152-216 million people living in dense informal housing where access to piped water is often restricted. Given these dense living conditions, it’s impossible to stay in self-isolation and practise frequent hand washing or social distancing. Naina Lal Kidwai, Chair, FICCI Water Mission says ‘access to clean piped water will make or break the best-laid plans for tackling COVID-19. That’s why the government must prioritise the basic needs of the most vulnerable, including improving drinking water and sanitation services. The FICCI Water Mission is focused on the reuse of wastewater and greywater which deserves much attention as we look to conserve scarce resources’. She says that the urban poor have to risk their lives to survive. Food and nutrition are crucial for any individual. She adds ‘It’s time to rethink food and nutrition. Food insecurity is rapidly intensifying. India is home to 15.1 per cent of the world’s undernourished population, causing informal workers to face impossible choices between risking contracting the virus or losing their income, housing, and sustenance. That’s why the government must continue to provide legal entitlements for food and nutritional security and expand efforts to ensure food is available at affordable prices (or even free) for poorer families’.
There is a need for improved working and living conditions. It’s time that policies and finances follow the people. Thriving cities make a prosperous country; we need targeted emergency assistance now, to help communities weather this storm. Finance must also be targeted to restoring and rethinking cities after the pandemic.

Survival takes pole position

Till yesterday, countries across the world were chasing profits; the pandemic has changed it all. Today survival has taken precedence over economic gains and convenience. We have been debating and lamenting at the same time in which way we were taking our city designing. Traffic congestion, crowded communities, urban migration, pollution, dying rivers were all the result of our indifference and government’s neglect of what needs to be done in so far as city planning was concerned. We kept ourselves preoccupied with the harsh demands of a life in the city. COVID-19 has suddenly changed our perception, and that too, drastically. Whether we like it or not, it is high time that we rethink our cities and do what is right in our cities.
Thomas Tim Orbos of McCourt School of Public Policy of Georgetown University says “the way we have lived in our cities ……we have become the biggest ally of the virus. Though there is that nonsensical theory about the virus being made in a lab and not in the seafood market in Wuhan, it nevertheless cannot be argued that the city—and it could have been any city globally—provided the conducive environment for hostile viruses to emerge and prosper.
As cities became the centres of commerce, urban density grew exponentially. People had to live close to where they work. And that does not only refer to those in the higher tiers of employment who bought the high-rise condos but more so the battalions in the blue-collar sector that crowded the many informal settlements in most cities. We had to feed them, hence, time and volume demand on food led to a lot of environmental damage”. He further adds “transport had to address the unprecedented commuter demand, resulting in levels of pollution that has made respiratory illnesses the leading cause of deaths worldwide. Our urban planners have been telling us to open up space and review the proper use of our lands. Part of this would be to strictly regulate commercial and industrial areas. All over the mega-metropolis, pocket communities need to be self-sustainable. Places of work and community commerce are better to be within proximity of residences together with schools and health centres. As experienced during lockdowns, such a design would complement well the needed travel restrictions”.
The call for rethinking our urban way of life in the wake of this pandemic cannot be ignored. It is not just for a sustainable quality of life we all desire, but more so for our survival.

Pandemic: a crisis of the city or of a certain kind of city?

There are many, including domain experts, who believe that the COVID-19 pandemic is not a crisis of the city, but the crisis of a certain kind of city, where decades of “market-oriented” policies have imposed severe limits on the public planning system – health care, food distribution, housing, transport, services – to respond meaningfully to the pandemic. The public sector because of decades of neglect and starved of resources has been robbed of inspiration, knowledge, and institutional ability to come up with progressive action. Social distancing in Indian cities, if not impossible, is a difficult task to achieve because of dense population. Take the example of Mumbai- it has a population density of 31,700 per square Km, one of the highest in the world. Some have argued phase-wise decongestion of the city without specifying how. It can only mean get rid of the poor, throw them out quickly. One fears that urban life after COVID-19 may well accelerate current trends: dispossession and segregation, unemployment and insecurity, intrusive personal surveillance, aggressive policing of physical and social boundaries, and gated enclaves for the rich to ‘socially distance’ themselves from the ‘dangers’ of urban life. Or, perhaps, COVID-19 may teach different lessons, some good ones.

Market-oriented planning

In the post-liberalisation era, the idea that has dominated the policy discourse is that markets should be allowed to determine every aspect of social life. Public utilities began to be privatised. Government started dismantling regulations for public health, environment, labour as they were seen as barriers to growth and prosperity. Public health and sanitation, that provided the justification for public intervention in the pre-liberalisation era, began to be seen as constraints on market activity.
Hussain Indorewala and Shweta Wagh of Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture and Environmental Studies observe in an essay that ‘as the private sector was handed over the responsibility of implementing plans and producing housing for the poor, public health regulations came under persistent attack. To ‘incentivise’ the private sector and to make urban development projects ‘viable,’ they were relaxed almost into non-existence. Once a regulator, the state was now a development enabler and promoter. Public goals could only be fulfilled by giving more incentives to developers. Since the authorities captured a slice of what developers produced (rehabilitation units, open space, built amenities) – to enlarge the slice, the cake had to grow. They further add ‘the most conspicuous manifestation of this are the city’s slum rehabilitation projects – that allowed developers to squeeze more people into smaller areas, pack buildings closer than ever before, and skirt providing common facilities to gain more land for construction. Health practitioners began to notice a high rate of infectious disease among the occupants of these buildings. Planning in Mumbai came full circle. What began as a means to forestall epidemic outbreaks and preserve public health, ironically, turned into its opposite: market-oriented ‘planning’ in post-liberalisation Mumbai made the city more vulnerable to public health crises. Public stewardship was no longer the business of government. They had themselves – along with the developers they facilitated – become “speculators in human misery.”

Planning of a different kind

Indian people have paid a heavy price in socio-economic sphere because of the lockdown with countless people at the brink of starvation. Any city’s ability to limit the damage from any crisis or disaster depends on popular control over decision making that should include the level of social equity, the quality of our public infrastructure, and the responsiveness of our planning system. Indian cities are vulnerable because over the years their ability to anticipate, prepare and respond to any crisis have been consistently weakened. The lessons that we must draw from COVID-19 is that to recover from the present crisis and prepare for any possible future one, we must strengthen our public system rather than depending on the private sector. No one can predict the next epidemic, flood or earthquake but we certainly cannot let the market determine our fate.
The broken system needs to be fixed, and fixed on an urgent basis. We must commit ourselves to promote public health, conserve and improve natural systems, redistribute wealth and opportunity, and protect human populations from climate events. In the words of Indorewala and Wagh, ‘This would mean a well-funded public healthcare system and a universal Public Distribution System (PDS). It would mean investing in public transport and public housing. It would mean progressive climate action plans and conservation and restoration of ecosystem services. It would mean job guarantee programmes and basic services. And much more’.
We risk almost everything if we don’t make these commitments and good popular ideas even now.