Urbanisation is making Indian cities exclusive ‘brick and mortar’ real estate entities rather than vibrant human settlements of inclusive urbanism, said M G Devashayam, the managing trustee of Citizens Alliance for Sustainable Living (Sustain).
Delivering the First Dattatri Memorial Lecture on Urban Sustainability, he said on Monday that as cities grow, inclusive urbanism got abandoned, giving place to commercial commodisation.
“This is the hallmark of real globalisation-driven urbanisation, which is both exclusive and expansionist, keeping a majority of citizens away from the development stream and allocating scarce economic and environmental resources to a select few. This must change if urban India is to be sustainable,” he said during the lecture that was organised to pay tribute to former Chief Planner and recipient of the UN Habitat Scroll of Honour Award, Gangadhar Rao Dattatri, who passed away last month.
He said that the effects of urbanisation and climate change were converging in dangerous ways which threatened to have unprecedented negative impact on quality of life and economic and social stability.
“The urban areas that are growing faster are those that are least equipped to deal with the threat of climate change. These areas often have deficits in governance, infrastructure and economic and social equity,” Devasahayam explained.
He said cities consumed over two-thirds of the world’s energy and accounted for 70 per cent of global carbon-dioxide emissions, which means that as a result, climate change would be felt in these areas.
“In the quest for economic growth, Asian cities have not paid sufficient attention to environmental issues and climate change. Making cities sustainable in the future is one of the greatest challenges faced by governments, civil society and the business sector in Asia,” Devashayam said.
Apart from Shekar Dattatri, son of Gangadhar Rao Dattatri and wildlife filmmaker, V Suresh, former chairman and managing director, HUDCO, K Saraswathi, secretary general, Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Prof Abdul Razak Mohamed, HOD, Department of Planning, Anna University, A N Sachithanandan, Dean MEASI Academy of Architecture, Deepal Karthikeyan of Athena Infonomics and K P Subramnanian, former professor, Anna University were present.
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