Carlin Carr, Mumbai Community Manager
Mumbai’s commuter woes are as oft discussed as scores to the latest cricket match. They are griped about daily and exchanged with fervor. Gridlock, overcrowded trains, non-existent east-west routes dominate the discussion and so do the controversial solutions on the table: sealinks, flyovers, monorails. Transportation activists such as Rishi Aggarwal, a research fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and member of the Mumbai Transport Forum (MTF), says that one of the major issues is that there is no integrated approach to planning, leaving commuters with ad hoc, disconnected systems.
Yet a solution from Chennai offers a comprehensive example for Mumbai on how to move toward sustainable, comprehensive mobility. In August, Shreya Gadepalli, of the Institute for Transportation Development Policy (ITDP), presented her work with a new initiative, the Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA), at the ORF to share the progress Chennai has made and how it might apply to Mumbai.
Importantly, CUMTA members include a cross-section of all different government authorities responsible for transportation, centralizing collaborative decision-making to move the organization’s goal forward. And the goal is ambitious: to achieve a modal shift away from car-centric transport to public transport, focusing on walking and cycling as dominant modes.
CUMTA held a workshop in January 2013 to move forward its efforts. The members divided into four working groups, focusing on:
- CUMTA as an agent of change
- Developing an integrated, high quality bus and BRT network for Chennai
- Improving streets and public realm
- Management of road space and travel demand
Since then, the group has already taken important steps to reclaim road space for pedestrians where there was little or none in the past. In fact, a large-scale cycle network strategy is part of the plan. The main cycle path will take advantage of Chennai’s seaside location, stretching for miles up the coast with connecting points to many neighborhoods and the stations along the way. There will be an extensive cycle-sharing program with less than a 300-meter walk to a cycle sharing station in the network.
“We are always keen to learn from New York and London, so for a change, we will learn from Chennai,” says Aggarwal, who has also founded the Walking Project in Mumbai to promote better walking conditions and sidewalks in the city.
One of the biggest achievements from Chennai, says Gadepalli, who emphasizes that there is “nothing on the ground to show right now,” is that there is a consensus from the highest levels in the city on implementing more sustainable approaches: “If you speak to people, there is a sea change in how they perceive things. If you go and ask anyone, the only thing they are talking about these days is how to create better facilities for pedestrians and improving public transport.”
To watch Shreya Gadepalli’s full presentation, click here.
Photo credit: Satish Krishnamurthy
It is widely accepted today that cities are a positive force in global development and that the future of the planet depends on the future of its cities. But experience shows that there is often a 20-25 year time lag between new ideas and their incorporation into public policy. For example, in many countries it has taken decades for policy makers to stop looking at slum neighborhoods as problems, and instead see them as solutions developed by families seeking a better life for themselves and contributing to economic growth through the cities’ informal economy. Only then have appropriate policy responses followed, where policy makers focus on providing land-tenure instead of bulldozers. But not every city is at this same juncture, and many individuals and institutions throughout these cities are hungry to learn how they can advance their own solutions. Read more.
Several years ago in Beyond Smart Cities, I wrote about cities on the prowl. By the thousands, cities from around the globe are flying every which way, searching like so many hunters and gatherers to learn and share information. By one estimate, the 1,000 cities on the planet that have more than half a million people are engaged in many thousands of exchanges every year. Why so much prowling? It’s much cheaper and less risky to pick up the secrets of success by examining innovations at close range in other cities, where new practices have been tried out, than to reinvent the wheel back home. Nothing has slowed that pace, but some of the consequences of so much international inter-city exchange is smartness that is now appearing in three flavors. Read more.
Upon exploring how just and inclusive cities can emerge a key component of analysis is social life — how people act in cities, the complex character of sociability, and the factors designing urban life. Multiple concepts have been raised to define what a city is — and has become, and further, what kind of life materialises within urban spaces. Over time cities have been conceptualised as ‘misanthropic’, expressing disorganisation, violence, and a dense concentration of people whom adopt different mentalities and motives. Such urban personas are expressed through space. Read more.
As competition for land intensifies in Africa’s rapidly growing towns and cities, planning laws assume a fundamental importance. They determine how urban growth is managed and directed. In most countries outdated, inappropriate and unintegrated laws are exacerbating urban dysfunction. Read more.
With urbanisation becoming a rising topic on the research agenda it is interesting to see how new models for urban planning, and laws, are being constructed. Recently, an event by the African Research Institute raised such ideas. The speakers introduced how the contextual diversity across Africa required exploration, and consultants need to focus on adapting a checklist of rule making, rather than make the rules, in planning Africa’s emerging cities. Current African cities were presented as ‘un-planned’, or in need of a re-visioned approach to become inclusive and equitable. Urban planning was the solution — a means of enabling tax reform, effective management, and equal rights to the city. However, urban planning law needed to be re-written to work for ‘African cities’. Read more.
The trend towards experiential travel will be the major force shaping the future of the travel industry, and there is significant potential to create sustainable travel economies in developing nations with the rise in popularity of this form of travel. All one needs to do is look at the rise of sites such as Yelp and Lonely Planet to understand that people no longer necessarily want what is easy to access and convenient, but seek unique attractions that make travel more varied and interesting. Read more.
Last week, the New Cities Foundation’s Executive Director, Mathieu Lefevre, wrote an article for Ashoka’s Next Billion on the results of the Foundation’s E-health project in Rio de Janeiro. The project was the first major study looking at the impact of integrating e-health technology in low-resource, densely populated, urban settings. The New Cities Foundation is currently looking to dramatically extend the project with the city of Rio to cover most of the city’s favelas. Read more.
The sharing economy, which really took hold in in the US following the 2008 Financial Crisis, looks to expand into the developing world as increases in mobile penetration are driving people to use the internet for more daily activities. The central idea behind the so-called collaborative consumption trend is to capitalize on underutilized capacity and give both “lenders” and “borrowers” the chance to benefit in the process. Read more.
Kenya is no exception to this trend: it is estimated that every day the port of Mombasa receives thousands of electronic devices. These subsequently get sold on to businesses and other institutions, but their shelf life is approaching its end and most of this equipment lives out its final years in the country and is subsequently not adequately disposed of.
Since 2009, the technology giant Hewlett-Packard has been operating an e-waste recycling plant in Mombasa. Initially the only facility in East Africa to dismantle, separate, and recycle e-waste components, the company has since 2012 opened a branch in Nairobi as well. One of the consequences of establishing this recycling plant has been the recognition that there are significant financial benefits to be accrued from the recycling of e-waste.
Working in close collaboration with the National Environmental Authority, WEE have successfully created a series of different sustainable approaches to electronic waste management. Of these, one that has received a lot of attention is a scheme made in collaboration with Kenya’s telecommunications provider Safaricom. The initiative involves a caravan that for five weeks makes the rounds of Nairobi’s many street and informal markets, in order to collect electronic waste and exchange it for branded items and other promotional materials.
En Bogotá hay varias iniciativas en marcha en el sector del transporte público. Los planos para el metro están entrando en la última fase de los estudios geológicos, que estarán terminados a lo largo de 2014, lo que permitiría que en 2015 se adjudicara la construcción de la mega obra. En la superficie se está avanzando en la ampliación del sistema de Transmilenio por una avenida aún por definir. 200 autobuses híbridos empezarán a circular por la Avenida 7ª, sustituyendo a las contaminantes busetas privadas. Si a esto sumamos la reciente inauguración del Transmilenio a Soacha, 2014 puede ver una mejora significativa en los problemas crónicos de transporte público en la capital colombiana, aunque aún serán necesarios ingentes esfuerzos en esta área para llegar a tener el sistema que necesita una ciudad tan grande y extendida.
The urban poor in the Global South lack access to banking and financial services, and women are disproportionately affected. They are less likely than men to hold a bank account, to take out a loan, or to borrow money. This is a detriment to development, since women are more likely to spend extra funds on their family, thereby improving food, education, and health. This series of articles profiles approaches to bridging the financial inclusion gender gap in São Paulo, Mexico City, Nairobi, Bangalore, and Dhaka. Read on to learn more, and then join the discussion below.
Tendo em conta a situação descrita pela Ministra, uma das principais prioridades do governo brasileiro durante vários anos, tem sido a redução de barreiras de informação e o desenho de produtos financeiros adequados para a população de baixa renda. Um dos principais mecanismos de promoção da inclusão financeira, especialmente para mulheres, tem sido Bolsa Família, o programa de transferências que beneficia a 13 milhões de famílias. O programa transfere mensalmente dinheiro para todas as famílias dependendo de seu nível de pobreza e número de crianças. O 93 por cento dos beneficiários direitos são mulheres, o que contribui no seu posicionamento e influencia dentro do núcleo familiar.
En el estudio del Especial de Inclusión Financiera de Nextbillion y Ashoka Changemakers, CrediMUJER de Perú afirma que la inclusión financiera está relacionada con el reconocimiento de los derechos de las mujeres, el refuerzo de su autoestima, autonomía económica y control de su vida.
Over the past decades, Chamas have increased in popularity: women have embraced them not only to send their children to school, undertake household maintenance, and weather them through major events and crises, but also as engines with which to forward their entrepreneurial skills and invest in income-generating activities.
Samasta started in Bangalore in 2008 and in just the first two years reached nearly 77,000 clients with a 99.97 percent repayment rate. Originally focusing on India’s southern states, the institution’s goal is to expand north and reach 1.8 million people by the end of this year. The bank’s focus is to “bridge the gap between ambition and achievement for the working poor across India, by providing financial and non-financial services in a sustainable, long-term relationship to enable them to achieve a better quality of life.” Samasta has had to expand its range of products in order to keep its clients as long-term customers.
ঢাকার বস্তিতে বসবাসরত মহিলারা সাধারণত অর্থনৈতিক ব্যাবস্থার ব্যাবহার সঠিক ভাবে করতে পারেন না; অপরুন্তু ডোনার এবং এন জি ও এর কাছ থেকে যে পরিমান অর্থ আসে তা এই বস্তির মহিলারা পান না, কারণ ডোনার এবং এন জি ও এসব বস্তি মূল্যায়ন করে না। এসব মহিলারা কোন ধনশম্পত্তিও পান না এবং তারের কোন ভুমি অধিকারও থাকে নাহ। বস্তুত, খাদ্য এবং কৃষি জরিপ অনুযায়ী বাংলাদেশে কেবল ২% মহিলা ভুমির মালিক, যা প্রতিবেশী দেশগুলোর তুলনায় অত্যন্ত কম। মহিলারা পার্লামেন্টে এবং অন্যান্য কর্মক্ষেত্রে এখন কাজ করলেও ভূমিমালিকাধীন নারীর সংখ্যা এখনো অনেক কম, যা অর্থনৈতিক নিরাপত্তা রক্ষায় অত্যন্ত গুরুত্বপূর্ণ।
Hortelões Urbanos is a recent initiative that aims to expand urban agriculture in São Paulo. It offers a platform for exchanging experiences and lessons learned on urban agriculture, local food production, recycling, and healthy urban lifestyles, and currently has more than 5,000 followers on Facebook. The initiative has also, in less than a year, developed seven community gardens in public spaces throughout the city, promoting joint work among community members toward more sustainable neighborhoods. The gardens are located in public spaces, so careful attention is paid to ensure that the gardens respect public space norms and ensure the proper flow of pedestrians, their pets, and bicycles.
The second initiative is called Festival Cultivar, an annual event that aims at creating awareness about sustainable lifestyles and the importance of preserving São Paulo’s natural resources, including its water sources and trees, which are present throughout the metropolitan area and even reach the rural areas. The event was established in 2010; since then, it takes place in a public park each September, the same week as Tree Day (September 21) and International Car-Free Day (September 22), to reinforce some of the priorities aligned with a sustainable lifestyle.
একটি বিদ্রূপাত্মক কিন্তু বিনোদনমূলক ভিডিও থেকে বুঝা যায় কিভাবে একজন আন্তর্জাতিক সাহায্য কর্মী এবং একটি আফ্রিকান গ্রামবাসীর কাছে দরিদ্রের সংজ্ঞা ভিন্ন হতে পারে। যদিও এই ভিডিওটি কিছুটা গতানুগতিক এবং ক্ষতিকারক, এটি পরিষ্কারভাবে দেখায় যে কখনও কখনও ঘটনা এবং পরিসংখ্যান ভুলে, দারিদ্র্য দূরীকরণ এবং উন্নয়ন আসল লক্ষ্য স্মরণ করা প্রয়োজন। বাংলাদেশে ২৫ লক্ষ চরম দরিদ্র আছে, যার একটি গুরুত্বপূর্ণ অংশ ঢাকা শহরে বাস করে। কিন্তু, তাদের স্বতন্ত্র চাহিদা সংক্রান্ত কোন ব্যপক গবেষণা এখনো হয় নি। দরিদ্র আখ্যান প্রায়ই গতানুগতিক ও ভুল ভাবে উপস্থাপিত এবং তাই, দারিদ্র দূরীকরণে দরিদ্রদের নিজস্ব গল্প শোনা অত্যন্ত গুরুত্বপূর্ণ। আর তাই, দারিদ্র্য দূরীকরণের জন্য চিন্তাধারা “হস্তক্ষেপ” থেকে “সহযোগিতা”য় পরিবর্তন করতে হবে। Read more or discuss.
Atlanta, Georgia
Homelessness in Nairobi is not always apparent to the passer-by. By night the streets of central town are not full of people sleeping rough as is often the case in affluent “developed” cities. Even in slums, homelessness is quite contained, with people cramming into tiny huts but not on the beaten paths outside. There is, however, one part of the population that makes a living in the shadows of Nairobi’s streets. These are youth, constantly on the run from the police, many of whom make a bed for themselves when night falls wherever they can. Read more or join the discussion.
In the early hours of Monday 11 February, as Kibera residents set off to work, they were treated to the sight of a brightly painted train passing through the heart of their slum. This was the Kibera peace train, a collaborative effort of members of the community-based organisation Kibera Hamlets, Nairobi’s celebrity graffiti writers Spray Uzi, and many other Kenyan artists who turned up at the city’s railway station the previous Sunday to paint the entire side of a train with messages of peace and unity. The project, which was endorsed by the Rift Valley Railways, is another episode in a long line of political artistic campaigns targeting Kenyan citizens and politicians in the run-up to the elections this coming 4th of March. Read more or join the discussion.
Muungano wa Wanavijiji, a Kenyan partner of the Slum Dwellers International network, is battling it out in court to protect the residents of Mukuru kwa Reuben slum from being evicted from land they have occupied for more than thirty years. In a landmark court case, a legal team representing Muungano is attempting to sue a series of high-profile politicians — including the ex-president, a presidential aspirant, and prominent entrepreneurs — on behalf of the community. If successful, the case will be one of the first to effectively use the new constitution as backing for a community’s land claims. Read and discuss.
In July, the Lagos State Government razed the homes, businesses, and livelihoods of more than 20,000 residents of the waterfront community of Makoko, a major slum in the megacity. The recent destruction of homes and livelihoods is not a new phenomenon in this waterfront community: Seven years ago, in April 2005, the government led a similar exercise, demolishing houses, churches, shops, and community health clinics, and displacing more than 3,000 people. The trend of these demolitions, and similar ones in Lagos State and across the country over the past few years, highlights the insecure position of land tenancy and title for residents in informal communities and slums like Makoko. Read and discuss.
Masalah tanah masih menjadi masalah utama bagi warga miskin di ibukota Jakarta. Meski intensitas pemberitaannya kian berkurang, penggusuran tetap merupakan momok yang menghantui masyarakat miskin Jakarta, khususnya pendatang. Sejumlah organisasi non pemerintah dan lembaga swadaya masyarakat telah lama menyuarakan keberatannya dalam praktek-praktek penggusuran yang kerap kali tidak mengindahkan hak asasi manusia (HAM). Human Rights Watch (HRW) adalah salah satu organisasi yang menyoroti hal ini dan mengusulkan solusi.
