Published in the book: Global Power Relations, Geo-politics, Economic Diplomacy and Foreign Policy Shift: A Post COVID 19 Scenarios and Implications. Chapter VI. 6.4. Sustainable and Self-reliant Urban Development.

 

Sustainable and Self-Reliant Urban Development in Post-Pandemic Nepal

Ambika P. Adhikari

Keshav Bhattarai

 

“Modern planning and civil engineering were born out of the mid-19th century development of sanitation in response to the spread of malaria and cholera in cities. Digital infrastructure might be the sanitation of our time.”- Ian Klaus, 2020

Overview

The current Covid-19 pandemic is impacting many aspects of the society, economy and the way people live. The pandemic is also affecting the process of physical planning and development in the cities. It will perhaps permanently change the way planners and policy makers think about the city, and plan for its development. The residents and visitors will also find the city different from the pre-Covid-19 era. The emerging situation would likely require new ways of moving, working and living in the city, and building the different physical components of the city.

Cities continue experiencing a variety of unexpected problems while tackling the crises created by the Covid-19 pandemic. Politicians, policy makers, planners and designers are devising tentative guidelines to minimize and possibly arrest the spread of the disease and improve urban public health permanently. However, some ideas for sustainable post-pandemic planning and development have already become apparent. For example, the urban centers must facilitate the safe and efficient movement of essential workers and residents using real time information. They should also provide open and safe spaces for the residents to gather for recreation, de-stressing and as the means of reducing the urban densities. Planners are thinking to develop effective transportation network that could be more efficient, sanitary and effective to keep urban areas safe if similar pandemic emerge in the future. Planners also are engaged in designing housing aiming to promote public health by the designs that help reduce the transmission of communicable diseases.

The unprecedented and indiscriminate diffusion of Covid-19 pandemic has warned economists and foreign policy experts to find diplomatic ways of self-reliance. To create self-reliance housing, proper planning for transportation, water supply, and sanitation are needed. Likewise, planners also are facing challenges how to sustain food need of the urban dwellers to manage future public health emergencies much better. Ways to promote local food production through urban farming and even roof-top farming need to be devised for this purpose.

The following paragraphs outline possible policies and planning that may be appropriate to some key elements of urban development to enhance sustainability and self-reliance.

Urban Density and Development Pattern

The world is urbanizing in an unprecedented manner fueled by increasing population and growing economy (Wang et al. 2029). The UN-Habitat has identified planned city infill, redevelopment and densification as three critical areas of global urbanization. As cities grow and densify, agglomeration intensifies (Shaker 2015; Kytta 2013). However, any unstructured nature of urbanization presents great difficulties for a sound land use planning. Unplanned urban expansion often causes a series of environmental and socioeconomic problems due to the loss of agricultural and natural land resources, shortage or unequal distribution of water resources and the lack of associated infrastructure and services. The goal of urban planning is to optimize the use of urban land, infrastructure and services to promote sustainability. However, poor planning with obsolete urban patterns can result into undesirable effects, such as gentrification or unreasonable increases in land prices even in the degraded areas making it difficult for the local residents to afford to live there. It is important to properly plan and manage urban expansion and densification to improve urban efficiency while minimizing any negative impacts on the residents.

Land use and cover database classifies urban areas as consisting of different categories of land use such as open space, low-intensity urban, medium-intensity urban, and high-intensity urban. These classifications are based on the percentages of impervious surface with the presence of a mixture of some constructed materials and green covers. These areas most commonly include large-lot single-family housing units, parks, and vegetation planted in developed settings for recreation, erosion control, or aesthetic purposes. Most Nepali cities lack efficient urban services as many are still served by the rural infrastructure despite these areas being legally classified as urban centers.

Managing urban densification is an effective tool for improving sustainability of cities. Using such tools, urban planning offices often forecast models to assess the sustainability indicators for a city. Taking into account the current and possible future urban densities, urban planners can predict the level of future urban population and required infrastructure and services. Proper planning and management for the rapidly growing cities requires improving the efficiency of land use, infrastructure, and services. According to the research of UN-Habitat, most cities in the developing world have forfeited agglomeration benefits and generated sprawl, congestion, and segregation in the last two decades. This process can be seen in many new Nepali towns and cities, which are systematically eating up fertile agricultural lands, and creating challenges to devise efficient transportation for the residents. In larger cities, such as Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Pokhara, housing in the form of multi-family development is required to create appropriate residential densities, to optimize access to infrastructure and the provision of services. 

Compared to single-family housing, multi-family development also is more affordable as it uses less land per dwelling unit. As the intensity of development has increased, and the urban population has grown. For example, Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Pokhara have seen growing multifamily development in the form of mid-rise and high-rise apartment buildings. While the increased residential densities promote sustainability and arrest urban sprawl, the increased densities can also become barriers to reduce transmissible diseases in the event of pandemics such as the current Covid-19.

City planners, architects and developers need to come up with creative solutions to balance the higher residential densities with public health-friendly buildings and unit layouts, and designs. The tenants of multi-family buildings should be able to maintain physical distancing protocols such as through the provision of separate entries, staircases, and entry and exit alternatives. They should also have access to common open spaces both inside the development and in adjoining areas which provide opportunities for passive and active physical activities for the residents.

Transportation, Virtual Work

With the pandemics, many office employees are now working from home. This has drastically reduced the movement using single-occupancy personal automobiles and personal two-wheelers. The impacts of the reduction in traffic have been dramatic resulting in clean urban air, increased visibility and reduction in time for the commuters to reach their destinations. Most people have seen this pleasant side effect of the otherwise dangerous pandemic.

As the vaccine and reliable medicine for the Novel Corona Virus is at least several months away, working from home for many will likely be a new norm. Even when an effective vaccine or some form of relief medication for the Corona virus is found, it is likely that the virus will mutate and render the newly developed medications less effective in curing the emerging disease. According to reports, some forms of mutation have already been noticed. Earlier, it was assumed that the virus will become inactive or go away with the increase in temperature, but the viral infestation has multiplied in many warm places around the world. That means the virus is likely to mutate very quickly and policy makers and planners have to overcome these challenges with new urban planning and design approaches.

As the virus spreads, the beginning stages were very uncomfortable for office goers. However, with the improvement in virtual working environment, remote working is gradually getting better. It is hoped that the new routine for virtual work will further open up many possibilities for the cities to become self-reliant, sustainable and environmentally improved. Walking and bicycling will positively impact on public health. An improvement in public transportation will drastically enhance the self-reliance of the cities. It will reduce out-of-pocket travel costs for the employees, and in fact, help to improve public health by encouraging more physical activities. 

Public transportation must be designed to carry a smaller number of people per vehicle and the vehicles must be cleaned and sanitized regularly. While ferrying a smaller number of people, using high occupancy vehicles will increase the cost of commute, but fewer people will use them safely with needed physical distancing. Many residents may prefer walking and biking to their destinations as these alternatives may become more popular over time. Central and local governments have been subsidizing public transport in most countries. Transportation planners will have to find innovative approaches for the public transportation to make them efficient and cost effective while maintaining the lower passenger capacity per vehicle, and absorbing the additional cost of enhanced sanitation. An alternative is to utilize dedicated bus lanes that will help to increase the frequency of service. Also, as congestion is eased by the reduced number of single occupancy vehicles, public transportation should enjoy reduced commute time and the per-trip costs. The reduction in traffic congestion will likely reduce the overall fuel cost by 20-25 percent (Bhattarai et al. 2019).

Office vs Home Space Needs

All over the world, the amount of living space per person has been increasing over time. This growth is driven by the increasing per capita income, decreasing rate of population growth, and increased awareness of sanitation and personal hygiene. For example, currently, the per capita residential space in the US is estimated to be around 1,000 square feet. This compares to about 150-250 square feet per person in Japan, and about 120 square feet in India and Nepal. As more people will begin to work from home, the per-person residential space will perhaps increase even as people will need more space for home office and other activities in their homes.  Expanding residential spaces per person might not be a problem in countries like the U.S. where the population density is low due to the possibilities of horizontal expansion of settlements. However, for the European and Asian countries where the population density is already high, creating bigger space per person could become very expensive. Improved construction technology, more efficient building materials and better sub-division and neighborhood planning can help in keeping the home prices in check.

As a result of the pandemic, the amount of office space per person will likely begin to decrease as a smaller number of employees will physically work in the office. The remote-working arrangement will reduce the total amount of space needed in the office. For most offices in the US, the estimate for office space need is calculated at about 125-225 square feet per person.  In Nepal, it is perhaps less than 100 square feet per person. In addition to the personal office space, office facilities devote spaces for meetings rooms, break rooms, storage, equipment, bathrooms and other services. As more and more people start working remotely from home, the total amount of office space can be reduced to save expenses and utility costs. The reduction in the total amount of office development will help communities to become more self-reliant, as the land and resources needed for office construction can be devoted to residential development, open spaces, and urban farming.

Open and Public Gathering Spaces

Nepali cities and towns are notorious for the visible lack of public and private open spaces. Building new houses on any available lot size and infilling even small open spaces has resulted in a significant decrease in public open space in the cities (Adhikari 1998). Given the Kathmandu Valley’s seismic vulnerability, planners in the valley recommend adopting 40:60 ratio for built-up and non-built-up land by 2021 (Bhattarai and Conway 2010). There are virtually no public parks in many cities of Nepal. Today, Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has less than two square kilometers of total public green space, including Ratna Park, Balaju Park, Tribhuvan Park, and Sankha Park. These parks are smaller in sizes and their locations make them less useful for the residents. Many cities in Nepal’s neighboring countries India and China are maintaining urban greenery despite high urban population and rapid rates of urbanization. For example, Bangalore and Shanghai are emerging as green cities. In India, in the last decade, awareness for the need of green cities has established ‘Park & Garden Society,’ which is assimilated in urban planning. ‘Park & Garden Society’ makes it mandatory to maintain greenery in all new urban development. In Delhi, currently about 297 square kilometers area is green, and it is estimated that 10 square meters of green space is available for each individual on average. Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat, has 57 percent of its area devoted to greenery. Similarly, Bangalore, the city of gardens, has more than 700 parks. Singapore has no water resource of its own, and buys water from Malaysia. Despite such limitations, it conserves almost all rain waters, and used such water to develop “Bay Gardens.” Singapore has been the greenest city (roads, terraces, roofs and bay areas) of the world, which follows a maximum energy efficiency approach, resulting in reduced carbon emission, and preserved biodiversity. 

In Nepal, the developers, land brokers, and owners of residential, commercial or private office properties try to maximize every square foot of the site area for development, do not leave any extra open space for sidewalks, public and private plazas, urban parks or pocket parks and plazas in and adjacent their development. As a result, public spaces and publicly accessible amenities where residents, workers, and visitors can relax and enjoy passive or active physical activities are rare in Nepali cities. This not only lowers the quality of urban life, but also robs the residents of the availability of any safe space in times of disaster. Especially, in times of public health crisis such as the current pandemic or natural disasters such as earthquake, the residents have nowhere safe to go.

Open spaces and public gathering spaces are vital amenities for urban areas. In the downtown and office areas, the need for open spaces is calculated based on the number of people who live and work in that area. The space needs should be recalibrated based on the reduced number of employees that will occupy the area on any given day. However, as physical distancing might be needed to minimize the potential transmission of any contagious diseases such as Covid-19, the design and total space requirements for public spaces might be different from how they are provided currently.

Open spaces, especially in the form of urban parks and gardens can also be important locations for relaxation for the residents. Singapore has successfully deployed “Therapeutic Gardens”, which residents can visit to enjoy the beauty and therapeutic ambiance created with water, landscape features, flowers, seating areas and views. These gardens are great amenities for the residents to help them de-stress their daily lives. Especially during the pandemics, these gardens can become important reservoirs of amenities to promote public health and mental state of the individuals.

The Residential Density Conundrum

A denser settlement is generally more desirable to promote sustainability, and reduce per-capita cost of utilities such as water supply, sewerage and road and communication network, and health services. Especially, in cities such as those in the Kathmandu Valley, a dense settlement also protects the existing fertile agriculture land and greenery in the area.

Some of the densest cities are in Asia. Kathmandu has a density of about 52,000 residents per square mile as compared to Mumbai (77,000), Seoul (43,000), Mexico City (22,000), Singapore (22,000), London (13,000) and New York (27,000). We see that in Singapore or London, city-dwellers have adequate personal space for themselves. Edward Glasser in his 2011book Triumph of the City wrote that “all of humanity could fit in Texas—each of us with a personal townhouse”. Thus, it is a matter of how one designs for adequate personal spaces, avoiding overcrowding, and providing sufficient public space for the urban residents to ensure good public health.

During the pandemic, it appears that people prefer lower density in the settlements. News reports indicate that some urban residents in the US have begun to move to the rural areas. However, such horizontal expansion is not an option for the densely populated Nepal. The important element is not how dense a city is to cope well with pandemics and transmissible diseases, but how well the city is planned and designed to allow for safe physical distancing between individuals, and to provide for secured and uncrowded access to the residential units. Urban density should not be confused with overcrowding inside residential units. Inside the dwelling, overcrowding will not be good for public health and the mental health of the residents.

Urban Farming to Support Local Food Production

Worldwide, policy makers and planners are realizing that the total dependence of cities on imported food creates many problems, and exacerbates the production of greenhouse gases as the food has to be hauled long distance by trucks, ships and rail. Also, the quality of food suffers as freshness is lost in the long-haul transportation. If at least a portion of the urban demand for the food could be met locally, I will help in improving urban sustainability, reduce greenhouse gas generation, and make fresh food available locally. More importantly, as at least a part of the food can be produced locally, it can enhance self-reliance. In times of public health crisis, the local food supply can provide security to the residents.

As most of Nepal gets good amount of rainfall, enjoys tropical/subtropical and temperate weather, and has fertile soil, urban farming is highly feasible. In the past, cities of the Kathmandu valley produced adequate amount of food within the city limits or nearby. It is only recently that Nepal has forgone this practice, and the cities have become totally dependent on imported food.

While the urban buildings these days have only a limited land space on site, roof gardening, growing plants on balconies, and vertical gardening can help in local food production. Also, community gardens in public open spaces is another possibility. Urban residents can enjoy gardening and landscaping in their own lots. The variety of landscape could consist of edible landscape such as potato, tomato, cabbages, cauliflower, beans, eggplant and flowering herbs that have both aesthetic qualities and food value.  

Distributed Energy Production: Solar and Wind

Energy production by rooftop solar photo-voltaic (PV), and on-site wind power can supplement the residential and office power need, enhancing self-reliance and sustainability. This can be achieved by promoting the installation of solar PV panels on the rooftops, parking garages, and other locations. Nepal is already encouraging the dissemination of the solar PV technologies such as through the government sponsored Alternative Energy Production Center (AEPC). This process needs to be accelerated with possible subsidies for a while to encourage as many home owners and property owners as possible to retrofit or build new for PV installation. The unit price ($ per/ Watts of installed PV power) has gone down drastically in the past decade so the amount of subsidy needed is only minimal and as the PV prices continued to fall, the subsidy period can also be only for a few more years. The PV Magazine (May 19, 2020) predicts that the cost of solar power could be around 1 to 2 US cents/Kilowatt Hours within 15 years. The subsidy or initial grant needed to the residential property owners is perhaps more for the initial installation costs, which can be high.

In addition, many parts of Nepal, especially the towns in the hills, can also benefit from the wind potential, and can install on-site wind turbines to generate electricity. Wind power complements well with solar power, as solar power is available during the day, and most mindpower generation increases during the night. Cleverly installed combination of solar and wind power can provide continuous flow of power during day and night. If solar and wind power generation plants are installed in most urban areas, the need for fossil fuel decreases, and Nepal can achieve improved self-reliance in the residential urban power sector.

On-site Water Harvesting

Most areas in Nepal receive a significant amount of rainfall. For example, the Kathmandu Valley enjoys about 60 inches of rain per year, and Pokhara gets between 130 and 150  inches of rain per year.  This makes on-site water harvesting feasible and economical in these areas. The technology used for on-site water harvesting is simple. It consists of basically installing collection pipes for the rainwater on the roof, letting the first-flush go to the ground, collecting the cleaner water in above ground or underground storage tanks made of PVC, metal or concrete and having a simple plumbing and pumping system to use the collected rain water for irrigation, personal shower, bathroom flushing and cloth washing. With a simple filtering system, the collected rainwater can also be made potable.

The system of collecting and using the on-site harvested water will save on water cost for the owners, make the water more readily available and drastically enhance self-reliance and sustainability. Municipal piped water can then be used only as supplementary source for limited uses, especially, for drinking purposes, and a reserve for the times when the collected rain water is not available or sufficient. 

Some Policy Recommendations

The discussion above provides several perspectives on how Nepali urban centers can become gradually self-reliant and sustainable and can help the cities better cope with the current and any future pandemics.

Based on these discussions, some policy recommendations and planning and design guidelines proposed are as follows.

 

1.            Urban residential densities are important to promote compact development. They encourage walking and biking, support mixed use, and public transit, and make more public space available in the area. From a public health perspective, proper space configuration and design of buildings is important to maintain high densities while creating enough physical space for separation to reduce the spread of communicable diseases.  Lower density area may seem attractive for minimizing the transmission of the virus, but higher densities make it possible to locate close-by medical facilities for the urban residents.

 

2.            To manage medical care in the midst of a pandemic, urban centers with higher densities should provide access to nearby public and human services that are critical during public health emergencies, including the ability to conduct tracking and testing, and providing medical care.

 

3.            Multifamily residential buildings should be designed with multiple communal staircases offering the residents options to use the stairs closest to their units while allowing individuals to physically distance themselves from others.

 

4.            Providing strategically located public spaces, walk-up residential units when feasible, touchless technologies in elevators, and multiple routes for the flow for the residents in and around the building is important. Designing the common exterior walls and floors with washable materials that can be easily disinfected and washed, will help in stopping the spread of any communicable diseases.

 

5.            Open spaces provide important areas for people to seek recreation, fresh air, and to ease their mental health burdens. Open spaces could be used for public gathering in case of emergencies, and also as possible staging sites for make-shift medical facilities such as testing, vaccination and distribution areas when necessary.

 

6.            Nepal can also consider providing therapeutic gardens in its urban centers. Note: Singapore has successfully utilized “Therapeutic Gardens,” which have flowers, greeneries, water elements, and seating areas to provide a relaxing and stress-reducing ambience for the visitors.

 

7.            Nepali urban areas already have self-sufficient local neighborhoods, which provide the majority of day-to-day necessities for the nearby residents. This is an important planning principle that can be valuable especially in times of a pandemic such as the current one.

 

8.            As public transit is an important element of the cities, the Covid-19 pandemic has forced the urban authorities to ensure that the public transit is operated with superior hygienic standards. The transit system must utilize frequent disinfecting, washing, passenger load reduction, hand washing facilities at transit stops, and other sanitary protocols such as requiring masks for all passengers.

 

9.            The Nepalis towns and cities already have strong walking and biking culture. The cities must improve the walking and biking infrastructure. This would provide a safe and healthy mode of transport and help counter the spread of communicable diseases.

 

10.        The need for delivery vehicles, curbside pickup, and providing room to queue outside essential businesses has become more important. Planning regulations and practices must help achieve increased spaces for the parking of delivery vehicles.

 

11.        Municipalities must provide handwashing stations throughout the city in areas such as parks, public bathrooms, public and private plazas, and public plazas. As water supply remains problematic in most Nepali towns, on-site water harvesting can help store water for the handwashing stations, public bathrooms and public gardens.

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Authors:

Dr. Ambika P. Adhikari is a Principal Planner at City of Tempe, Arizona, USA. Earlier, he was a Research Professor at Arizona State University.

Dr. Keshav Bhattarai is a Professor of Geography at Central Missouri University Warrensburg, Missouri, USA,

References:

 

1.      Adhikari, A. P.  Urban and Environmental Planning in Nepal: analysis, Policies and Proposals. IUCN-The World Conservation Union, 1998.

2.      Bassett, M. T., “Just Because You Can Afford to Leave the City Doesn’t Mean You Should: It’s a mistake to blame density for the spread of the coronavirus”. New York Times, May 15, 2020.

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4.      Bhattarai, K. and Conway, D. Urban vulnerabilities in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal: Visualizations of Human/Hazard Interactions. Journal of Geographic Information Systems, 2010. 2: 63-84.

5.      Glaeser, E., Triumph of the City, The Penguin Press, 2011.

6.      Greca, Paolo La; Barbarossa, Luca; Ignaccolo, Matteo; Inturri, Giuseppe; Martinico, Francesco. 2011.  The density dilemma. A proposal for introducing smart growth principles in a sprawling settlement within Catania Metropolitan Area Cities. Dec2011, Vol. 28 Issue 6, p527-535. 9p. DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2011.06.009.

7.      Hooper, M., “Pandemics and the future of urban density: Michael Hooper on hygiene, public perception and the “urban penalty””. Harvard Graduate School of Design Newsletter. April 13, 2020.

8.      Klaus, I., Pandemics Are Also an Urban Planning Problem, City Lab, March 6, 2020

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10.  Miller, G., “Density can work post-COVID-19, with good urban planning.” Policy Options, IRPP, Canada, June 8, 2020.

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