Think cities beyond urban walls

Augmented reality, off-grid energy, provision of hi-tech services all over, continuing improvements in communication technologies, and other technological advancements can make it possible to live urban life almost anywhere

There is no doubt that there are positives and negatives of living in cities of today. The lure of better lifestyle and bright economic opportunities has attracted people from rural settings to come and live in cities. In the present context, urban life does not necessary mean an improved living standard; yet rural to urban migration continues to rise. It is a general perception, with many researches and data backing it, that urbanisation is an inescapable and irreversible reality. Many research reports suggest that the world will be 70 per cent urban by 2050.What kind of cities will those be? No one really knows what the future holds for cities. But it is certain that if the current trends continue,cities will lose their charm. One has to see for how long the economic trends will outshine the discomforts of urban living such as congestion, severe pollution levels andsparse civic amenities.

Living in a metro might give people the best chance at career success but I think many urbanites, if given an option, would prefer living in small towns or villages if their basic economic requirements are met. Small towns and rural settings too have many perks to offer—clean air, connected communities, andlow-cost lifestyle. Crumbling infrastructure and poor ecosystem in our urban centres may reverse the trend. Policy makers need to create a suitable alternative by making villages the centres of employment using modern technologies.

Cities of Tomorrow

Thinking about the cities of the future is in itself a creative and adventurous ride. Seeing the speedy evolution of technologies, we can imagine that the cities of the future will have flying cars, robots cleaning the streets and other public places and doing lots of other odd works without any human intervention, but with robust digital infrastructure for seamless urban management. Another change we could see is in the physical manifestation of cities. In a more connected world, the line between the urban and rural settings will blur.

Providing employment and good economic opportunity to people in rural settings will become possible. They will have a choice whether they want to work in an urban environment or in a rural setting. The small towns or rural areas will aggressively compete with industrial pockets of metro cities. This will also change the existing financial distribution. 25 cities of the world account for almost 50 per cent of global wealth.  The distribution and generation of wealth from city centres are expected to diversify and the role of small towns could become significant if the urban development paradigm is corrected.

Cities are also well-known for providing vibrant social life. Designing of public spaces will also see a sea change.In the cities of tomorrow, the focus will be on the use of technology as a fundamental tool in the formation of social communities at the scale of the neighbourhood and the entire town. This will certainly be useful for the new habitation that will spring up in rural areas.  These urban centres may not be like ones with high-rise glass towers but with a well-connected intelligent township tailored to improve employability and bring economic prosperity in rural areas or say in those small townships.

Don’t raise your eyebrows. Traditional cities are not going to disappear into thin air. They will survive and thrive. The alternative model of habitation would definitely help existing cities recover from the ever increasing burden.

How can rural India leapfrog?

Many of our policies, tools and instruments are already delivering valuable building blocks for smart villages. Adarsh Gram Yojana of Government of India was a laudable initiative in which every Member of Parliament had adopted a village for its holistic development. The scheme was laudable but there are many components which need to be incorporated for making villages the hubs of employment other than agriculture and other traditional rural industries.

The perception of rural areas is among general public, simply a place to live, work and raise families. As of now, if we ignore the Zamindari system or those who own huge parcels of land in rural India, villages have failed to fulfil the dream of bright economic future of rural youth. This in turn resulted in migration of youngsters to cities and metros. This needs to change if we really want to empower villages and unburden cities. Our rural communities need jobs, basic services, connectivity and smart transport solutions as well as a favourable climate for entrepreneurship. The situation is not very different in small towns which cater to the requirements of cluster of villages.

We must enable new types of business models to emerge in towns and villages and the development paradigm should be regional so that each individual industry in a village can complement another one in the region. Another approach that could enhance the productivity and prosperity is portal-based services that assist existing rural businesses to connect, integrate and cooperate better with urban business. However, this will require extensive training of leaders in those regions. Skill India Mission of the Government of India will have to be tailored to the requirements of local industries in the region.

Another area that will require attention simultaneously will be intelligent logistics networks. Several rural markets are not able to reach out to the masses or say, their potential customer base because of non-existing logistics network. Can we create a system using today’s most advanced technologies that can allow rural India to leapfrog in the same way they’ve done with mobile telephones in the last 10 years? We have excellent telecommunications today without ever putting copper lines in the ground. Could we do the same for transportation? Drones could be the future. They can reach to the places where there is no road.  Electric autonomous flying vehicles will come into the picture after security concerns related to them are resolved.

According to Andreas Raptopoulos, Airborne Logistic Activist, “We’re using small quads. These are able to transport two kilograms over 10 kilometres in just about 15 minutes. Compare this with trying to trespass a bad road in the developing world, or even being stuck in traffic in a developed world country. These fly autonomously. This is the key to the technology. So they use GPS and other sensors on board to navigate between ground stations. Every vehicle is equipped with an automatic payload and battery exchange mechanism, so these vehicles navigate to those ground stations; they dock, swap a battery automatically, and go out again.” The technology is certainly in a nascent stage and has not been tried on a large scale. This can be a game changer for cities and villages both.

Cities are not going to disappear into thin air. They will survive and thrive. The alternative model of habitation would definitely help existing cities recover from the ever increasing burden.