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A few cautions & suggestions

Is India's 100 smart cities project a recipe for social apartheid?

‘People key, not technology’

NEW DELHI: All states, including the capital, are likely to take up the Centre's smart city challenge.

While the idea of building 100 energy-efficient, ICT-enabled, transit-oriented cities sounds promising, experts at the recently concluded Smart Cities India Expo have called for focus on making these people-oriented and socially inclusive because, even with excellent infrastructure, several global cities have failed to retain people and businesses.

The ambitious eco-city projects of Masdar in UAE and Dongtan, Huangbaiyu and others in China have largely been abandoned, experts said.

"Creating new cities is always more difficult than working on existing ones. Governments can go bankrupt investing in them and, if there are no economic opportunities, nobody will live there. Also, new cities can drag the life and vitality out of old ones," said Ton Venhoeven, an Amsterdam-based urban planner who believes in developing polycentric cities with excellent public transport connectivity.

Rather than a central business district driving migration from suburbs and ratcheting up real estate prices, polycentric cities—like Amsterdam and Barcelona—are basically a cluster of economically self-sustaining sub-cities.

"Technology is important but so are the economy and people. Research states 60% jobs can be generated within these sub-cities. There can be many opportunities for decentralized production and related services. They should act like a sponge where money comes in and keeps circulating," Venhoeven said.

Townships like Dongtan near Shanghai, Masdar in UAE, Songdo in South Korea and even Brasilia are considered failed projects due to mobility glitches, economic unsustainability and even antiinclusivity, Venhoeven said.

As Mili Majumdar, director of sustainable habitat at The Energy and Resources Institute, put it, "There has to be a business model. It also requires citizen's participation in planning. Melbourne is one of the most livable cities where footpaths have been widened to reduce space for cars and a vibrant economy created in the prime real estate of the city's central business district," she said. Citing Yokahama and Singapore as successful smart cities, she said, "Look at Singapore, and how it has managed to do away with cars, automatically moving people to public transp ort."

DDA will develop Karkardooma as a sub-city with smart features, especially transit-oriented development, vice-chairperson Balvinder Kumar said. The other two smart sub-cities are likely to be in Mayur Vihar and Dwarka.

Amit Bhatt, strategy head, urban transport, EMBARQ India, opined that smart mobility would be the "wheel" for smart cities to function. As in Curitiba, Brazil, "focus should be on walking, cycling and public transport and not widening roads or flyovers", he said.

The expert committee on investment estimates in urban infrastructure has calculated a per-capita investment of Rs 43,386 for a 20-year period, according to the smart city concept note of MoUD.

Lessons from Brazil for Smart Cities

The inclusiveness is part of their action plan in which poor people have opportunities of free internet connectivity, pro poor housing and recreation facilities. Public transport is almost free, with less emphasis on private transport. The plastic bottles or wastes can be collected and exchanged for public services.

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