Municipalities all set to issue smart city bonds
Unplanned migration needs ‘smart’ city planning
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Social infrastructure: A city needs social infrastructure for making it habitable, and most of this social infrastructure needs a critical mass of population and consumption to be viable.
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In developed countries, a Smart City is one where existing infrastructure is augmented, monitored and controlled, leading to highly sustainable development. In the Indian context, the approach is necessarily different. Since many cities lack basic infrastructure, institutional frameworks and proper governance, a Smart City initiatives will first and foremost involve providing basic civic requirements and making the infrastructure robust and scalable. They have to learn to identify new and smart ways to manage the complexity of urban living. These challenges can be met in two ways — building new (Greenfield) cities or transforming existing ones.
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Major challenges: Regional plan: The city must be envisaged vis-a-vis its existence as a member of the region, and the interactions and impact must be carefully studied. The region’s planning must augment the city’s plans to be able to provide a uniform experience Economic drivers: A clear plan of vibrant economic growth of the city based on multiple economic drivers must be the focus area of smart city.
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Apart from regional plans what India needs is a Long-Term Smart Plan for entire country designed to achieve optimum economy, environment, social results which is equitable. We should develop a city versus population placement/distribution pattern which is optimized with resource availability across India, marine resources and imports. The states have to have 'Regional Smart Plans' which are based on 'Smart India Plan'. India & states should know which type of population distribution will give them optimum economical and environmental results. For example, states economical corridors should be integrated with countries economic corridors. On population, I think a city with more than say 5 million population is unhealthy as it has exhausted all resources available nearby and has to depend on far away places for raw materials, water, electricity, etc. In this case it is better to upgrade a small city in the vicinity of resources to support more population than burden a overpopulated city further with satellite towns. It is not green field cities but brown field small cities should be converted to big cities of reasonable size in proportion to availability of resources. The population of these cities & surrounding suburbs should be enough to support physical & social infrastructures for example an airport with reasonable connectivity.
'Indians aping US in over utilization of energy'
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Mark gave a brief overview of the development of the world economy and said that during a time of affluence and less inequality, we tend to destroy much of the natural resources and that is what happened with the great American dream. He pointed out that unfortunately Indians are trying to copy the Americans in terms of economic resources, wastage or over utilization of energy. The great renowed Gandhian economist Kumarappa in his book The Economy of Permanance talks about the free will of man which should be used wisely to coordinate human resources to strengthen the natural economy but using it foolishly can disturb the natural economy and destroy man himself.
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The Smart Plan for India should strengthen natural economy.
From hinterlands to high-rises: Satellite cities emerging as magnets of urban convergence
The cost of satellite cities around huge metros is further strain on road infrastructure to their backyard hence environment.
How realistic is India’s Smart Cities Mission?
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A new city’s mobility system must be integrated with the regional transport system. For example, Lavasa as a city requires external transportation links, which implies that smart cities cannot plan and invest in matching regional infrastructure. This would devolve on the state or national infrastructure planning authority.
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Economic planning a must for smart cities
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It is important for job creation to be part of city planning. For that, city agencies need to be empowered, say experts. In most cities around the globe, powerful mayors have been effective changemakers. In India, cities are governed by states, which have other priorities. Ideally, mayors should be empowered to decide on the economic planning of a city.
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Breathing 'Soul' Into Smart Cities
The overrated urban spinoff
94 cities haven't met air quality standards in 5 years
Self driving cars won't work in India: RC Bhargava