The avenues of urbanisation
Since 2007, more than half of the World’s population live in
cities. In 1960, according to the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, it
was one third. In South Asia, the growth has almost doubled from low 17% to 31%,
in half a century. The average growth rate of the South Asian urban population
has consistently outpaced the World’s suggesting that the 50% milestone will be
reached in much less time. Noticeably, it was already reached by China in 2010.
According to estimates 60%
of the area to be urban in 2030 has still not been built. We are, therefore
in a juncture where there is an opportunity to think about how to build these
new urban territories in a sustainable and more equitable way. To do it, we
need to understand why and how cities are growing.
Urban – the “close unknown”
In the conference we faced a hard to admit truth. Some of
our research instruments, tailored to work so well in the structured spaces of
formal urban neighbourhoods or in the relatively stable rural spaces, fail in
the organic space of fluid, hidden and many times deemed as illegal residence
of urban slums. Politicians themselves fail to acknowledge this reality. After
all, rural areas are far, urban areas, namely the ones in the capital are just
there, close!
However, we heard how easy it is for poor urban children to
be unseen. We heard about street children, deemed as outlaws to be controlled
by police forces. We heard about working children, also outlawed themselves,
hidden and underserved, for the policy cannot risk to ease the life of those
whose cares chose to engage in a banned activity. Finally, we heard about slum
children, unreached and therefore “invisible”. Yet, probably, children are the
measure of a capacity of a city to sustain a dignified and aspirational human
existence.
Urban children – the measure of human friendly cities
In the context of a UNICEF conference, nothing would make
more sense than to place the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) as the
benchmark of what a city has to meet to be, not only a child friendly city but
one that properly responds to all of those most vulnerable. Andrea Rossi, UNICEF Social Policy
Adviser, encouraged us to build cities as if it were for our daughter, son,
nephew or niece… (someone we care) and
think: as s/he is living here, what does the city need to allow or provide so
that s/he has the wellbeing s/he deserves?
In identifying the answer to these needs, we would build not
only a child-friendly city, but an accessible city for all. It would be a city
that would require us to address and look into the power structures surrounding
the cities in all their territories and components.
Power to exclude, power to transform
So how can we provide for the children of these growing
cities? Well, the resources exist. If cities are spaces of opportunities, it
became clear throughout the conference, that proximity isn’t a direct precursor
of access. The decision of planners (or the lack of planning, a political
decision in itself), the power of local authorities, the powers inside the
slums (sometime illegal powers, such as drug-lords capable of command the
organic map of a slum so as to assure that only one entry exists to it),
mediate and (sometimes purposefully) exclude the access to otherwise close
services.
Those same powers hold, however, the key of transformation.
We were reminded of how in the first municipality the Brazilian Worker’s Party
was elected to administer, a radical project endowed the residents of a favela
(the common name for a slum in Brazil) the property of the tiny plots of land
where they each had their residence. It then called and mobilised them to,
collectively, renew not only the public spaces but their own private spaces so
that electricity, water and sanitation became accessible to each of them.
Another power was fought and probably conquered, at that
moment: the power of an idea that constructed those living in the favela as
outlaws or irrational, as “lesser people”
in need to be convinced or forced to leave those spaces. The moment they were
acknowledged as equals, with personal aspirations and desire to contribute to a
better living space, both private and public, some good change happened.
In the conference we were called to look at the legitimate
aspirations we, off almost all the countries in the world (safe the USA and
Somalia), bestow in our children through the CRC. In the Asian cities of today
and the urban territories to plan in the future, these can be the benchmarks
for better cities. The resources, the powers, the opportunities and perhaps the
capabilities to plan, with those that live there, already exist in the urban
settings. It is time to learn how to tap into these and transform the cities.
As they say: “the future starts now”. So I can only repeat
the question posed by Andrea at the start of conference – what’s our idea
for Asian cities?
By Ricardo Santos (IDS PhD student and conference rapporteur)
