Urbanisation: ‘One Chicago-size city to be built every year’
In the recently concluded Harvard India Conference in Boston, USA, Mukesh Aghi, CEO of US-India Partnership Forum (USISPF) commented, “The enormity of urbanisation in India requires one city of Chicago size to be built every year for the next ten years”.
Alok Singh, director Dell Technologies, who moderated this discussion, explains it with more details. Singh says that 600 million people, 40% of India’s population, will reside in the urban areas by 2030. This is a staggering growth from 17% in 1947 to over 30% in current times.
Singh further adds that such a growth in urbanization will require 700 to 900 square kilometers of residential and commercial space to be built every year for next ten years. This urban space to be built every year is equivalent to the size of Chicago city in the USA.
Singh also reminds that as per a McKinsey study 70% of urban infrastructure needs to be built.
In other words, 70% of water systems, housing, transportation network, etc. are yet to be built in Indian cities.
Based in Austin, USA, Singh grew up in Prayagraj and later studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Business School. Since then, he has been associated with India focused events at both Harvard and MIT. He believes that such conferences in world’s top educational institutions were like concert of new ideas for India’s success.
Singh is optimistic about the progress of Prayagraj like Kanpur and Varanasi. The cities have shown to be the part of top 20 performing cities under Smart Cities Mission. He appreciates the central government’s initiative of pairing top cities with laggard cities across India. He quotes John F. Kennedy, “We will neglect our cities to our peril, for in neglecting them we neglect the nation.”
In this year’s conference, the session on “Smart Cities in India: Challenges and Opportunities” on February 16 offered valuable takeaway. Singh highlighted India’s planned urbanization programs as the new deal of the 21st century. He recalled the massive infrastructure investments in the USA to come out of the Great Depression.
Amit Midha, president of global digital cities and APJ at Dell Technologies, highlighted the need of smart cities globally. He added that urban population of the world that would be 70% of the total population would live on 4% of the land mass by 2050.
On smart cities in India, Midha commented, “Transformation engine for the progress is slow but results have been positive. Indore and Mumbai have shown positive results such as a double-digit decline in communicable disease in hospitals and a double-digit improvement in crime cases because of the information available.”
Prof John Macomber, Sr Lecturer at Harvard Business School, whose research focuses on the future of the cities, described why different solutions are required for developing countries.
He argued that legacy cities of developing economies have an opportunity to create value by improving efficiency and livability. Mukesh Aghi further emphasized the need of a robust public-private-partnership for funding all Smart Cities projects following the success path of Singapore.
Explaining the 24 elements of smartness for the projects under Smart Cities Mission, NSN Murty, Partner & Leader (Smart Cities) at PwC, called this to be a universal template to be effective not only in India but anywhere in the world.
Murty cited the example of Bhopal being an innovator in Smart Cities by fusing physical and digital together to create revenue generation model around street lights.
Amit Midha complimented the efforts made by Kunal Kumar, joint secretary and director of smart cities mission. Midha highlighted that Pune was one of the few smart cities in the world which had a center of excellence to experiment and create innovative smart solutions.
“As the time progresses, the learning and experience will play huge dividends to the entire society built out of the digital nation,” Midha added.
The panel concluded that an enhanced people engagement and a better industry partnership will deliver the expected outcome for the people. As Shakespeare once said, “What is the city but the people.”