JOIN USIn the year 1569 CE, the Mughal emperor Akbar decided to build a new imperial capital. Some of the best architects of the time strove to translate Akbar’s vision into a utopian city raised on a rocky sandstone ridge not far from Agra.
Fourteen years later, the city of victory (Fatehpur Sikri) lay abandoned, as a nearby rivulet — the city’s primary source of water had dried out. Clearly, it takes much more than imposing sandstone buildings, spacious courtyards and grand gateways to make a city.
A city’s ecosystem is much more than a source of water, food and energy — it regulates air quality, temperature and waste decomposition, among others. While some of these services, referred to as ‘ecosystem services’ are derived from within the city, many of these are sourced from elsewhere. For instance, a substantial portion of Delhi’s water and electricity needs is met by the Tehri dam, which is 350 km away.
Often, we don’t recognise those benefits that cities derive from their ecosystems that aren’t so obvious. Bengaluru owes its fabled salubrious climate not only to its elevation but also to a green belt formed by Bannerghatta National Park. Locally produced ecosystem services such as avenue trees, parks, rivers and lakes are equally crucial for the health of a city. Most urban stormwater drainage systems are built over pre-existing water channels.
Urban metabolism
Abel Wolman, an American civil engineer, conceptualised a city as an organism that consumes resources, grows and generates waste. Continuing with the physiological model, he initiated the study of ‘urban metabolism’. This is an analysis of the
supply, circulation and consumption of materials and energy in the city as well as a study of the various kinds of waste it discharges. The multiple, interlinked circuits of metabolism enable a city to function smoothly.
The metaphor of metabolism is particularly useful to holistically understand some topical challenges such as those of water supply or garbage disposal. It draws our attention to oft-ignored questions such as ‘where do we derive our resources from?’ and ‘what happens to them after we consume them?’ The concept of urban metabolism puts the spotlight on the changing relationships between the city and its ecological support systems; necessitating a study of their interconnections over space and time. For example, any interventions towards Delhi’s smog problem that don’t address the practice of burning agricultural residues in Haryana and
Punjab are going to be futile.
Another example is Mumbai. Not many people in Mumbai had heard about a river called Mithi till the evening of July 26, 2005, when unprecedented rainfall of nearly 980 mm in the northern parts of the city brought the city to a standstill. Media reports blamed a breach on the Mithi as the primary cause for floods. Mithi is a small coastal river that originates near the Sanjay Gandhi National Park and it makes its way to the Arabian sea through the Mahim estuary.
Almost 16% of Mumbai’s area falls within its catchment. Extensive encroachments of mangroves in the Mahim estuary, ‘reclamation’ of vast stretches of wetlands for real estate development and years of solid waste dumped along the river have obstructed its normal drainage. Furthermore, the river had been diverted multiple times to expand the runway at the Chattrapati Shivaji International Airport. All of this resulted in floods that submerged the airport, with over 700 flights cancelled. The deluge of July 26 affected almost 13 million people, claiming nearly 1,000 lives.
This is just one among the many examples that highlight the prevailing attitudes towards infrastructure development in Indian cities. Urban centres are growing at the expense of metabolic processes that sustain them. Instead of working with an appreciation of the ecosystem elements, infrastructure development is treating them as hindrances or dispensable commodities.
It is precisely this sort of thinking that recognises a ‘steel flyover’ in Bengaluru as ‘infrastructure’ but not the 812 trees that it will wipe out. The agency that initiated this mega infrastructural project in the face of widespread opposition elaborated on how they intend to compensate the felling of trees: by planting 60,000 ornamental plants! In the current paradigm of urban development, the only purpose of nature seems to be cosmetic — as strips of ‘landscaping’ between concrete megaliths.
We are living in an increasingly urbanising world. Estimates suggest that by 2030, 60% of the world will reside in cities. Much of this transition is projected to be in parts of Asia and Africa. The resource requirements for this scale of transformation will be massive and will have global ramifications. As it is, cities consume the bulk of the world’s resources and most modern cities evolved in a world that had abundant resources. We do not have that choice anymore.
Changing city landscapes
As a first step, we need newer ways of looking at cities, ways that present a commitment to understanding the natural realities. In this sense, the concept of urban metabolism will help us make better sense of the rapidly shifting contours of urbanisation in the 21st century. It places the ecosystems’ health and associated metabolic flows at the core of the urbanisation process which has been relegated to the margins currently. It is no coincidence that fiction set in with dystopian futures are invariably set in cities bereft of everything natural.
Cities are currently reeling under a medley of problems such as shortage of basic services, traffic congestion, pollution and social disparities among others. These problems are only going to amplify in future, given the scale of ecosystem degradation and the projected impacts of climate change. A metabolic lens would provide vital apparatus to steer cities to enhance their socio-economic potential in harmony with their wider ecological support systems. In order to appropriately realise urban metabolism, there is a greater need to re-align urban governance institutions around ecological principles.
This, of course, is going to be difficult and would require quite a bit of imagination and political will. Besides, it is not enough for cities to grow efficiently, but also take an active role in conserving their ecological support systems that are beyond their boundaries. Deforestation in Kodagu that happens to be the catchment of River Cauvery should concern Bengaluru’s urban policy makers.
With all this talk of ‘smart cities’ in India, it is important to realise that there is a great deal of smartness in being sensitive to the ambient ecosystems. The aristocrats of Fatehpur Sikri at least had a choice to migrate elsewhere, a luxury that we won’t have.
(The author is a researcher with McGill University, Canada)