Kochi-Pathways towards Sustainable City Futures

The unprecedented urbanization presents a need for a novel way to facilitate the futuristic demands of cities on short notice. Challenges faced by Asian cities becomes a serious topic of discussion as their scale has global consequences. Get to know more on the case of Kochi and urbanization challenges with the third post of the article series.

Embracing identity, nature and transformation for sustainable Asian cities (thevagabond-tales.com)

III. Kochi - Pathways towards Sustainable Development

The article-part three provides an overview on current development concerns of Asian cities, the challenges in the Indian context and provides strategies to guide the city transformation. Case specific analysis and recommendations for city of Kochi is illustrated to represent how the strategies can be localized.

3.1 Asian cities-why are they more risk-prone?

In the population projections, wide variation is seen across geographies and within countries in cases of most populated ones like India, Indonesia, and China. The evidence on the population growth of urban centers suggests that medium-sized cities in the order of 500,000 to 2 million will experience the highest urbanization rates in the future. The emergence of peri-urban cities and their land availability flexibility in planning might lead to restricted inner-city development. These areas are mostly the historic cores of cities with high socio-cultural values and encapsulate a sense of place. The challenge is to how to successfully guide this decade of unprecedented urbanization, climate, disaster risks and population growth, retaining the identity of cities.

3.2 Case of Indian cities:

India has been at the forefront of developing Asian countries along with China, with 14% of the population living along the coastline with Mumbai, Kochi and Chennai as the fastest urbanizing cities. With the pace of urbanization lesser than in China and Indonesia, Indian cities are unique with their high density. Most of the urbanized cities of India are also places with layers of evolution with multiple cities embedded in one with built and socio-cultural history. ex: Delhi-the city of seven cities; Mumbai with its Maratha, colonial and post-independence era; Kochi, Kolkata being others.

Among many, it has been the former port towns that thrived with trade during the colonial era that has sustained the phase of transforming, post-independence and adapted change to a globalized market. Governance shifts, policies, and new demands have been challenging to the port towns. Sustaining has happened not in a planned manner or with reflection to the futuristic demands, but rather organically in the piece-by-piece model. The 1990- liberal economic policy and the IT boom of the 2000s are some major determinants of the further transformation.

Concerns:

a. Identity: The pace of urbanization has raised concern over the loss of identity in our urban centers and cities. Along with the benefits of globalization, this phenomenon has penetrated and is transforming places into identical models, which is quite evident in most of the CBDs (central business districts) and commercial streets. The old core of most lies abandoned as ghost towns, transformed to slums, crime zones trapped in the heart of the city. There is a risk of heritage and past vanishing if not addressed sensitively (Sarga,2017). Limited rules and regulations with inadequate assessment criteria of heritage (buildings, streets, built fabric and character zones) has been a limiting factor in assuring preservation and positive interventions.

b. Ecology: As urbanization continues in Mumbai, Chennai, Kochi, and Kolkata, they face challenges in ecology and environmental quality, Basic services and amenities, land availability and disaster risks. While in Mumbai the land management for the incoming migrants was an issue, Kolkata faced an urban blight in Howrah. Chennai has been most impacted by climate change and disasters (cyclones, tsunamis and floods), threatening the city and its people.

c. Institutions and governance: Urban infrastructure and development schemes in India are funded by direct budgetary allocation. The prime source of the budget is tax streams. It is distributed based on the order of ‘separation’ by the central government between national and state bodies allotting sectors to one of them. In case of wide disparity among collected state funds, finance is allotted to poor rural regions from affluent state taxes.

This division directly divides responsibility between the Centre and state resulting in the blame game between institutions further aggravated by the change of ruling party. When preferences and ideologies of a particular party/cabinet decide macro-level visions, post change of power at times projects are left incomplete. Lack of transparency also limits trust and engagement from citizens and communities towards development projects. An integrated participatory approach with multi-disciplinary professional and institutional engagement is necessary for holistic development. Independent bodies are essential to guide and coordinate the Centre and state bodies to regulate funds and policies and act as a mediator with no regional, political preferences.

d. Economy: Most Indian cities have a general direction towards economic stability or modes to create new streams. Still, it’s a long challenge with the lack of local financial sustainability. A gap exists between idea and execution, with poor institutional frameworks and capacity and a slow project implementation pace. Lack of required funds as the sole stream is budget exists, and only a few institutions in the nation have managed to create new streams of funds for development projects. (Prakash,2006, UDB). Strategies to derive funds locally, nationally and by global bodies should be explored.

3.3 Case of Kochi:

Kochi is the largest agglomeration and nerve center of commercial and economic activities in Kerala. The city constitutes a population of 6.11 lakhs (As per the 2011 census) and a density of 6300 persons per sq. km in its coastal areas. Kochi is home to diverse communities, architectural typologies, historic urban fabric, backwaters and canals with small and large islands. The central Ernakulum commerce area, Mattancherry –Fort Kochi heritage zones, and Willington Island are the major regions in the city.

Even though the city is in its early phase towards a metro city, it has been facing the impacts of insensitive and haphazardous development. The city growth phase and the sociocultural context make it an ideal regional example to evaluate. Trade and commerce form the catalysts for Kochi with other port-based activities such as international transhipment terminal and LNG projects. The IT boom has also catalyzed urbanization creating peri-urban centres. Tourism and allied services are a significant contributor to the local economy. Another economic generator and spine of the regional tourism economy is Kochi Biennale conducted yearly at Fort Kochi-Mattancherry region. It is one of the most successful Biennales internationally. Biennale resulted in 5.82 lakh visitors in 2019 and created global recognition for the destination Kochi. (KPMG -2019 report)

Governance and Institutional sectors:

The civic authority governing the city is the Kochi Municipal Corporation formed in 1967. Statutory bodies that oversee its development are Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA) and GIDA, The Cochin Smart Mission Limited (CSML). CSML is a Special purpose vehicle (SPV) formed in 2016 for the implementation of the smart city mission. SPV holds responsibility for planning, approval, fund release, implementation, management, operation, monitoring and evaluation of the development projects. Its initiatives include the first metro project of the state tackling city-level mobility to great extent.

The vision stated by CSML is “To transform Kochi into an inclusive, vibrant city of opportunities with efficient urban services, sustainable growth and ease of living”, envisioned with citizen consultation. CSML is built on themes of connectivity, identity, a Clean green city and an inclusive Smartly Governed City (CSML,2016). A major success to be mentioned is the timely intervention of the Kerala State government in 2015 by submitting a request for the Smart India Mission and securing the number 5 priority among 100 cities in the country by 2016. This has been a milestone in improving infrastructure and services at the macro level through resource mobilization and fund allocation.

The theoretical approach with the siloed nature of projects (CSML and CDP-City development plan) presents conflict in recommendations. The projects with potential for creating a sustainable economy for Kochi have limited on-ground impact with the systemic disparity to vulnerable groups. New initiatives such as Walkable streets, The Kochi water metro are breakthroughs towards livability and provide hope towards the city's future. The smart city focuses on a data-driven city model, while sustainable cities encompass compact and eco-city models. An ideal solution would be working on practical context-based solutions with a Smart +Sustainable framework. The existing theoretical gap needs to be addressed by practitioners to bridge project gaps and ensure integrated approach that work towards the city vision.

Along with the urbanization of Kochi, the city has been facing some serious concerns:

3.4 Strategies to Enhance Sustainable Urban future:

The city is for all regardless of age, gender, economy, caste, creed, nationality and for nature too. The concerns presented further stress the need of rethinking the future of our cities-towards resilience and sustainability. Global economic growth is closely related to urbanization and cities are growth engines for the same. Striking a balance between growth and context responsiveness has become a challenge due to various interpretations on sustainability and the gap between theory and practice.

To achieve a globally sustainable future ensuring city-level sustainability thus becomes very essential. Among three pillars the spatial dimension that strengthen the identity of cities is often overlooked. Place branding with a sense of place and identity should be considered, as it acts as an economic generator and strengthens the image of the city globally. It is recommended to include a plugin fourth pillar for sustainability-' governance', along with ecology, social, economic dimensions.

Policy consistency and equality is another factor to be considered. “Urban policies have to be cognizant of the widely disparate groups that comprise the urban community and incorporate and balance the various interests involved. Three important methods suggested are improving the enabling environments, decentralization and devolution, capacity building via urban governance and management.” (ADB,2016)

3.5 Recommendations for Kochi:

One major challenge is to meet present-day needs and futuristic projections. A crucial challenge where Kochi falls short is to address present critical needs, including access to water, sanitation and ecology, in its journey to achieve smart growth.

Solution towards sustainable growth:

3.6 Conclusion:

The unprecedented urbanization in Asian cities demands framing innovative and result-oriented solutions. Developement policies should be context driven and address specific local needs. Integrating ongoing short and long-term projects towards a collective city vision with devising new funding mechanisms is required.To bridge the theory, policy and practise it is suggested to include 'governance' as a plug-in pillar towards sustainability. Introducing new tools for participatory design/planning can address prime issues of ecology, WASH, housing, disaster risks, and heritage management and ease the implementation of projects.

Research, Investigation, and dialogues should be an ongoing process with the city evolution for transforming Asian cities towards resilient-sustainable futures celebrating their identity.