Storm warning of the collapse of a megacity

The unexpected spell of heavy rains lashed Chennai on December 30, 2021, setting off a season of repeated monsoon floods and urban paralysis, coming as a warning to political leaders that they would be forced to leave the city due to extreme weather events. Underestimating the risk of collapse.

Tamil Nadu’s capital, with an international airport and a major seaport, gridlocked after heavy rains at the end of the northeast monsoon, paints a dystopian picture of ambulance sirens still screaming in traffic, people pouring indiscriminately rain. We leave vehicles to go to the rail terminals. The laborers could not return home till late night. The nightmare brought back memories of the Great Flood of 2015, although the death toll was not comparable. Suburban gated communities on the city’s IT corridors and inner-city residents alike were affected, and COVID-19 was momentarily forgotten, as rail and metro lines were quickly overwhelmed.

a non starter

The devastating 2015 floods, an unprecedented event, raised hopes of a major shift in priorities for urban development. That deluge was akin to the horrific 2005 Mumbai floods, which also raised hopes that policies would be reworked. Despite huge community support and active mobilization for change, both cities saw a regression, as informality prevailed, laws were only on paper, and unsustainable changes were made to the urban environment. Sustainable, elite constructions were favored at the expense of ecology.

The 2021 monsoon in Chennai, with its black swan evening of 24 cm of rain, raises a question: will urban development be more sustainable and equitable if the guiding principle is climate change? This new approach would prioritize ecological and sustainability concerns over aesthetics, and reject market-oriented ‘fantasy schemes’, as some scholars describe an increasingly appealing vision of urbanism. While green roofs, electric vehicles and solar power would be welcome, they will not replace the protection of natural floodplains, rivers, mangroves, marshes and gardens. It will be future proof that India’s cities need to prevent sudden stagnation due to climate events.

report inputs

In its report (https://bit.ly/3frSElV) on ‘Improving Urban Planning Efficiency in India’ (September 2021), NITI Aayog cites the COVID-19 pandemic as a revelatory moment for all cities. Underlines the dire need. Be a healthy city by 2030. Climate impacts are sure to affect cities even more fundamentally and permanently.

In line with the current central government approach, NITI Aayog has recommended inclusion of 500 priority cities in a competitive framework, adopting participatory planning tools, surveys and focus group discussions to assess the needs and aspirations of citizens . Considerable importance has been given to technical tools, private sector talent and mapping strategies to identify and spatially plan city assets. There is a need for a central role for democratically elected local governments to ensure greater inclusion and a sense of community. In Tamil Nadu, elections to urban local bodies have not been held for a decade, while the state’s long coastline has been hit by cyclones that have crippled Chennai and other cities.

it is multidimensional

All dimensions of city development, starting with affordable housing, play a central role in adapting to future climate change. They can also reduce carbon emissions growth during infrastructure construction if biophilic design and green materials are used. Today, a large amount of new housing stock is being built in 7,933 urban settlements in the country, most of which are in a small number of cities of over a million.

Less than half of all cities have master plans, and even these are ruled by informality, as both the influential elite and the poor encroach upon commoners such as wetlands and river banks, as do Chennai and Mumbai have seen. After a devastating flood, the emphasis has been on removal of encroachments almost entirely directed at the less affluent.

A top-level department for climate change adaptation is best suited to serve as a unified, all relevant department in a state, such as housing and urban development, transport, water supply, energy, land use, public works and irrigation. to work with. Elected local governments that set priorities and become accountable. Neglect of city councils, lack of empowerment and failure to build capacity among municipal officials have led to repeated urban paralysis in extreme weather. In Chennai, the focus has been on the storm water drainage network after every flood, while in Pallikaranai, a natural sponge for the city, there is insufficient attention given to commercial encroachment of vast marshy land. The experience echoes the fate of encroachments along Mumbai’s Mithi River, where the Mithi River Development and Conservation Authority favored the removal of habitats after the 2005 floods, while sparing ‘permanent structures’ that were too hard to touch. She was big.

leaning on market forces

The encroachment of vital commons reflects an over-reliance on market forces for the supply of affordable urban homes. In Chennai, speculative prices have driven middle class and young workers out of the city to relatively cheaper suburbs, seeking their first home. Most of these suburban investments do not reflect their true value, even if they are ‘approved’ by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, as outlying town panchayats have little capacity or funds to build infrastructure such as water supply, sanitation and roads. Is.

For many residents, Monsoon 2021 was no different from the others before it. They may have lived in gated towers along IT corridors, but struggled to stay afloat, using boats or trucks to get supplies and travel. Such images are rarely seen in the media, as they represent the unpleasant reality of high home prices. Suburban home buyers will happily transfer some part of the price to build infrastructure, rather than have it completely turned off by speculators. Now that Chennai is working on a new master plan and a climate action plan, with planned investments in infrastructure including metro rail links to the western and southern suburbs, it should introduce regulation to ensure value capture.

a well-known story

Loose metropolitan boundaries with little control over neighboring local governments produce amorphous building regulations. In the case of Chennai, there is unplanned density in the three neighboring districts that are connected to the main city by local transport and are therefore part of a larger metropolitan area. Here, traditional natural assets such as wetlands, reservoirs and watercourses are being rapidly destroyed. This is also typical of other major Indian cities, where population growth on the periphery has accelerated due to skewed land and housing prices and the lack of adequate good rental housing.

India’s cities will continue to be drivers of economic growth with significant production and consumption, but that sunrise story is threatened by sustainable urban development in an age of climate change. The experiences of earlier Mumbai and more recently Chennai are warning of a storm, and greater centralization of governance can do little to address it. What is needed today is not attractive retrofitted ‘smart’ urban enclaves, but sound, functional metropolitan cities that can handle floods, heat waves, pollution and mass mobility to keep the economy’s engines running. Urban India would otherwise turn into subprime investment.

G Ananthakrishnan is a Chennai based journalist