Prof. Brian Roberts
Director
Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute
Queensland University of Technology
<b.roberts@qut.edu.au>
By 2025 the United Nations
estimate a further 1.4 billion people will
live in urban settlements in Asia. The
rapid growth of Asian cities will place
great pressure on financial markets to
raise capital for infrastructure, housing,
community and other investments to support
the economic and social needs of people
living and working in cities, and to ameliorate
serious environmental problems already
experienced in many cities. In 1997, Asia
cities experienced a major financial crisis,
from which it has been slow to recover.
Asian Cities are heading for a new crisis
in urban management. This paper examines
some key issues related to urbanisation
and management of Asian cities, and discusses
some priorities and future opportunities
involving partnerships for urban management.
The enormity of the problems
facing Asia cities, now and in the future, leads to the inevitable question:
is it possible for the urbanisation and growth in Asian cities to be made more
sustainable? The answer to this is yes, but it requires greatly improved approaches
to urban management. The problems being experienced with the rapid urbanisation
in Asia cities have their parallels in 19th Century Europe. Fredrick Engles (1848)
description of environmental pollution in Salford in Manchester could apply equally
to some of the conditions experienced in many modern Asian Cities - with the
exception of motor cars. It was not until local governments were empowered to
address environmental issues through massive local and city wide infrastructure
programs, tightening and enforcing of regulations and minimum development standards
related to the built environment, improvements to local tax and revenue collection
systems and land reforms that some of the horrendous environmental conditions
prevailing in European for almost a century were finally eliminated. With improved
environmental and social conditions came greater prosperity to local and national
economies.
The situation in Asia is more
difficult. Few cities in Europe had populations exceeding 1 million. Resources
for the development of major public works programs drew from the wealth of vast
colonial trading companies headquartered in Europe. Resources and economic growth
were thought to be limitless. This is not the case today, in Asia or any other
part of the world. Resources are becoming finite, with world oil reserves expected
to be depleted within 50 years. New technology will play a major role in addressing
management issues, but ultimately it is the mobilisation of local communities,
backed by government and large corporate investments that will solve the problems
of Asian cities. Current forms of urban governance have failed. The highly centralised,
powerful autocratic bureaucracies that control public and private sector investments
are no longer sufficiently flexible to meet with the requirements of managing
cities in a global economy.
The future development of Asian
cities, indeed all cities, lies in multiple levels of partnerships between governments,
business, communities and many other types of organisations, enterprises and
individuals. Such partnerships range from land development, provision and operation
of municipal services and other public utilities, and the development of local
capital markets. Partnerships offer flexible systems of governance, ensuring
a rapid response to change and change factors. A key to urban management issues
for the future is the integration and coordination of multiple systems of partnership
to achieve positive and sustainable outcomes for urban and economic growth. Economic
development in Asia can no longer be sustained on the basis of absorbing the
full environmental costs of production. The role of urban management must be
to place all forms of development: economic, social and physical, on a more sustainable
footing. International assistance and regulation will be essential to stop unnecessary
transfers of environmental production costs to lesser-developed nations in Asia
in the future.
The demand for urban management
services presents major business opportunities for the developed nations of Asia
and the Pacific. Unless Asian cities are managed more efficiently and effectively,
the more advanced economic countries are at risk from a global deterioration
in air and water quality, and epidemics which are no longer confined to national
boundaries, and over which there is little control. Improved urban management
in Asia will require increased international assistance to develop new partnerships
and twinning structures. It will also require innovation on behalf of governments
at all levels in Asia to develop competitive alternatives. Governments will need
to enlist business and communities to supply and manage basic services and facilities
for the poorest communities. It has been done in the past in Europe and America,
it can be done in the future in Asia. However, it requires much smarter and more
sustainable approaches to urban development and urban management than that practiced
over the last century. |
