The UN observes the month of October as ‘Urban October’ so as to underscore the challenges and opportunities of urbanization and sustainable urban development. It starts with the World Habitat day and ends on 31st October with the World Cities Day. More than ever before, discussions around urbanization and cities are very pertinent as the pandemic has changed how people interact and experience the urban environment. COVID crisis has raised questions globally on how cities will adapt to the post-pandemic new normal. Like in every other big city affected by the pandemic, the question is as relevant to Kathmandu and other major cities of Nepal as COVID crisis has made people think of their safety and livability in cities.
Also it is important because Nepal is in midst of urban transition which has been very fast. Until 2013 only 17 percent of Nepal’s population lived in urban areas which grew to 40 percent in 2014/2015 and 56.5 percent in 2019. This rapid increase in urban population,however is the result the administrative restructuring which redefined areas with rural agrarian characteristics as urban, based simply on population size without considering the availability of urban infrastructure and amenities. Nevertheless, as one of the targets of the SDG 11, the government of Nepal is set to develop 60 cities around Nepal by the end of 2030. If it goes as planned, by 2022, more than half of the future cities would be already developed. In case of Kathmandu valley, the Kathmandu Valley Development Authority (KVDA) is in the process of developing four new cities spanning over 130,000 ropanis of land on all four directions in Kathmandu valley circling the present settlement. Like elsewhere in the country, these open spaces with rural agrarian characteristics have already become ‘cities’ administratively back in 2017 with the state restructuring. The urban infrastructure will follow in these hinterlands of Kathmandu Valley with the ‘Satellite City’ projects. With all these plans underway guided by newly reformed National Urban Development Strategy-2017, we are not very late to raise the question – how do we make our cities inclusive, equitable, safe and resilient?
Having lived most of my life in Kathmandu valley, I can say that the city cannot be called any of the above. My experience can resonate with anyone who is not ‘able bodied male’ belonging to upper echelons of the city. Gender identity, class and any forms of physical disability brings a stark awareness of the precariousness and sheer nuisance of everyday movement in Kathmandu- from non-existent sidewalks, unlit narrow alleys, inadequate irresponsible and unreliable public transport and a general indifference towards traffic rules, inaccessible overhead crossing, and the roads that turn into river with heavy rain! In a country where development, both urban and rural is synonymous to road construction, the state of the roads in the national capital belies the notion of urbanity. In addition to the roads, what little urban infrastructure that exists in this city has not been designed to make them inclusive.
COVID crisis has also foregrounded the exclusion and the inequality already prevalent in cities. Lockdown and other restricted measures taken by the government to contain the virus have severely affected the urban poor. While referring to urban poor in the cities, we tend to think of slum and squatter settlements on the banks of major rivers in Kathmandu. However, also hidden in plain sight are daily waged workers and informal sector workers, who live, crammed in less than hundred square meter rooms, in dilapidated old buildings in the old settlements in the heart of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts. With multiple families living within the overcrowded buildings, lack of running water and hence a common tap for water, shared toilets aren’t the condition where physical distancing can be maintained. Lack of affordable housing, rent regulation and minimum criteria for the quality of rental housing have made the urban poor more vulnerable compared to poor people in the rural areas. While governments in the past have recognized the plight of the slum dwellers and have made (unsuccessful) efforts to resettle the squatters to government owned housing ( in Ichangunaryan), there has not been any concrete steps to ensure make urban living conducive to low income families. Excessively expensive (and diminishing) land and high cost of construction has made having home a distant dream for urban dwellers with low economic means. Our present cities are a very bad model for the cities that will be developed in the near future. The civil society spotlight report on SDGs-2020 has cautioned the government to rethink its plan for the new cities as they can go against the sustainable development goals.
Future Cities
It is important for us to expand our imagination on how cities should look like and it can be started with a simple question- who are these future cities designed for? When the diversity of the population residing within a city is recognized and made the foundation for planning- then we can aspire for urban inclusion. Inclusion in cities entails not only spatial but also social and economic factors.
In case of Nepal, urban development so far is limited to spatial restructuring (land development through road construction). Since, land is a private property and the government owns very little land to carry out planned development, it is important to consider how the approaches taken by the government like land pooling, affect the affordability of land and private housing for the urban poor. Similarly, if urban development is narrowly focused on converting land into serviced plots (as is happening now), it is also important to consider the gender and caste differentiated land relations. Women and Dalits are the groups that have been historically landless, former because of lack of inheritance right and the later due to caste based labor division that categorized Dalits as menial workers rather than farmers. Therefore, in the narrow approach taken by the government for urban development, it is vital to think how people who are historically landless can equitably benefit from urban development.
Many female urban planner and geographers have been envisioning ‘Feminist Cities’ which they define is more than just city free from violence but a place where people irrespective of their gender , caste , class, and ethnicity can exercise their fundamental freedom to access the city and the opportunities it provides. While this vision seems like a distant cry living in present day Kathmandu, nevertheless, it does give a general direction to aim our efforts for the future cities.
(The author works as a researcher at Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies specializing in urban risk and resilience)
“Views expressed here are personal and not associated with any affiliated organisations”
Published on 9 December 2020
