Reinventing cities

Context: Prime Minister’s call for a reimagining of urban planning and development in post-COVID-19 era, reflects the reality of broken-down infrastructure aiding the virus’s spread.

Weak Urban Infrastructure and Impact on Virus Spread:

• Densification and inability to practise distancing norms: has resulted in rapid transmission in metro cities of India. - Top 10 cities affected worldwide accounted for 15% of the total cases.
  • Low viral impact in Dharavi (densest slum) can be attributed to screening and herd immunity.
• Inadequate measurement of the social impact of the pandemic: especially among the poor quintiles.
• Flawed approach to urban mobility: Laws on air pollution, municipal solid waste management and water quality are hardly enforced, and tokenism marks the approach to urban mobility.

Way Forward:

• Ensure well-designed rental housing: instead of relying on speculative housing investment for protecting migrant labour and other less affluent sections.
  • For E.g. Mumbai have added only 5% of rental housing (1961-2000) led by private funding.
• Affordable housing schemes: like Affordable Rental Housing Complexes, on the lines of the post-world war reconstruction in Europe, Japan and South Korea.
  • The Ministry of Housing could digitally aggregate and transparently publish data on demand and supply for each city.
• Strict enforcement of environmental laws: Past scourges such as cholera and the plague has push towards waste handling, social housing and health care that reduced diseases.

Conclusion: Governments must show political will for resetting the mindset, processes and practices for safe urban living/reinventing sustainable and healthy city.