Abstract
Less developed nations represent over 80% of the world’s population. Population growth in the Global South is nearly double that of industrialized nations. The Global South, dominated by Asia, not only contributes nearly 40% to the world’s gross domestic product, but its economic growth rate also is higher than Europe or North America. Besides, the Global South is the driver of global urbanization. Bangladesh, Brazil and China have been the fastest-urbanizing nations in the world. However, studies on developed nations overwhelm the academic literature.
The 17 chapters of this edited volume, spread over four broad themes, attempt to fill the gap in urbanization literature, focussing on the Global South. A reader must start with Chapter 1, where Kala S. Sridhar and George Mavrotas have set the tone for the reading and introduced each chapter as they see them.
The volume’s first part (chapters 1–4) deals with the relationship between urbanization and its impact on economic growth, poverty, food and livelihood security. This part explores if it is possible to ‘control’ migration into cities by ensuring livelihood security for rural farmers.
Sachita Yadav asks what links urbanization, economic development and urban poverty to identify the importance of urbanization using econometric modelling. She examines the association between gross domestic product and its effect on reducing poverty. Adebayo Ogunniyi et al. cover the different aspects, namely, urbanization, livestock ownership, food security and child nutritional outcomes in Nigeria. The authors link the above indicators to suggest emerging policy challenges with econometric models that show a positive association between livestock ownership and food security. However, the study cautions that rapid urbanization without asset ownership does not provide food and nutrition security for the urban poor, especially children. Raveesha S. and M. G. Chandrakanth discuss the impact of tanks and canals on livelihood security and its implications for migration into Bengaluru. Their study highlights the impact of urbanization on the income and livelihood security of farmers. It concludes with a suggestion that irrigation tanks and water bodies must be carefully maintained and managed by linking canal systems.
In the second part (chapters 5–11), the book offers a peek into the challenges of making the cities engines of economic growth. The section also covers water management, sewerage, sanitation and solid waste management in Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Bengaluru.
Inderjeet Singh Sodhi shares his views on the financial status of megacities in India, namely, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai, and their emerging issues and challenges. The author presents how the major cities face a financial crunch due to limited revenue and exceeding expenditure, particularly on the salaries, pensions and other related expenses of urban civic bodies that are primarily government-funded. Moreover, the revenue and capital expenditures are not distinct, unlike the Union Government. K. S. Sridhar et al. discuss suburbanization and spatial inequality in the distribution of urban services in Bengaluru and how the sprawl and suburbanization of the metropolitan area have affected the delivery of essential services. The authors report that central wards are better than their peripheral counterparts in providing essential and social services such as water supply, health and education. In their contribution, Ramakrishna Nallathinga and K. S. Sridhar talk on urban civic service delivery and norms: A pilot study in Pune and Hyderabad explains the necessity for improving quantitative and qualitative dimensions of urban civic services(e.g., water supply, sewerage, waste management, roads and drainage) and establishing norms for these services.
Dhaarna and Varuvel Devadas discuss water resource management by using system dynamics in the city of Ahmedabad. The authors say that water is a huge societal enterprise and estimate the cost of serving households with piped water and other non-piped water techniques. They apply cost component analysis to suggest that positive people’s participation is required not only in the water supply but also in water conservation to make it more sustainable. Ranjana Ray Chaudhari et al. address the water reuse and groundwater recharge in Delhi to reduce the water footprint. The authors present the case of Delhi to suggest that cities must treat wastewater to become sustainable. They suggest that the treated water provides a safe, dependable quantity of water independent of climate variation and hydrological constraints and, therefore, can be built into an essential tool for drought risk management.
S. Mansi and N. Latha studied the slums of Bengaluru to analyse the sanitation, hygiene and health implications. Both structured and semi-structured survey instruments were designed for stakeholder group-level meetings to do the research. Their results find a positive circumstance in which households with access to individual toilets feel less beleaguered than those that use public or shared toilets. They conclude that as all water-borne, faecal disposal-related diseases and water-based diseases depend on infecting agents from human excreta, it is significant to work towards providing adequate sanitation and making the city free of open defecation.
Shiva Raj Adhikari raises an important question: What does it mean to open space? He describes rapid urbanization in Bhaktapur, Nepal, and suggests that the emergent policy agenda of creating urban green spaces is attributed to unmanaged urbanization that is a powerful driver for economic, social, political and cultural transformation. He concludes that the open space strategy is the result of collaboration between many partners, including the public sector, community organizations and private entities.
The book’s third part (chapters 12 and 13) considers ecological aspects of urbanization and highlights some negative externalities. The scarcity of public and green spaces with increasing built space for human dwellings is alarming. This part argues that better governance and a multi-pronged regional approach can be helpful.
Ashish V. Prabhakar sets the agenda in environmental policy and the politics of solution-making for the air pollution conundrum in Delhi. The author highlights the megacity externalities: the impact of sand mining on groundwater depletion in India and deteriorating air quality in cities like Delhi with increased vehicular usage to access jobs. Haimanti Pakrashi highlights the ecological importance of Dhapa, a wetland in east Kolkata, and how historical blunders threaten the livelihoods and homes of vulnerable women workers.
The book’s final part (chapters 14–17) argues that government intervention can bring governance and overcome urbanization’s externalities. Citing Indian, Chinese and Latin American countries, it concludes with possible policy interventions.
K. S. Sridhar and K. C. Smitha raise an alarm about the state of local governance and urban development problems in Bengaluru with crippling management and people’s participation in the water sector. They do an evaluation using system dynamics to focus on the challenges of local government, and how institutional arrangements can solve them. Zhumin Xu discusses citizen participation in Shanghai’s urban redevelopment under state-led neoliberal urbanism. He primarily examines the role played by the district government and community residents in transforming the structure of the metropolis. However, they are concerned that the new compensation schemes launched to accommodate relocated residents in Shanghai should have addressed the crucial aspects of an effective participation mechanism. Vahini Aravind revisits the challenges of the urban poor in the context of health and immunization in Bangalore. She argues that the communication strategy deserves more emphasis than resource allocation. Cynthia Goytia talks about enhancing the benefits of agglomeration in Latin American megacities. The author describes how to keep the costs of urban amenities in check by better planning for central and peripheral areas.
Critique
Chapters 2 and 3 present rigorous inferential studies. Five chapters (3, 5, 6, 11 and 17) present national or regional perspectives covering India, Nepal, Nigeria and Latin America. Other chapters focus on specific issues in cities across the globe (Shanghai and several Indian cities). Chapters (4, 10, 14 and 16) on Bengaluru offer a rich commentary on diverse but relevant topics such as migration, slums, local governance and immunization. Two chapters (9 and 12) discuss environmental issues in Delhi, such as groundwater recharge and pollution. One chapter (15) describes how citizen participation is associated with urban development in Shanghai. Other chapters discuss water resource management in Ahmedabad (8), the ecology of the megacity and the peri-urban poor in Kolkata (13).
While the book covers a wide range of geographies and topics, it carefully maintains a common theme related to urbanization in the Global South. With multiple chapters on selected cities, it offers a holistic perspective on numerous challenges that espouse urbanization in the Global South. Further, the book reflects adequately on the sustainable development goals, making it topical and relevant.
Poverty, governance, climate change, food and nutrition, intra-urban spatial inequalities and public health are broad themes in the book. The book also offers an analysis of and commentaries on some critical aspects of urban life such as availability of drinking water, accessibility to green spaces, the status of sanitization, hygienic behaviours among people of different economic strata and level of air quality. It emphasizes goal 6 of the UNESCO Sustainable Goals plan on water supply, sanitation and hygiene.
The book weaves a lot of knowledge from different parts of the Global South to curate a worthwhile reading. Many city or country-level case studies can be extrapolated for a more significant application. For example, growing competition among cities like Mumbai and Bengaluru is relevant to many emerging markets witnessing a rise in megacities. The book cautions that the number of urban poor is poised to rise, and poverty will increasingly be an urban phenomenon to be tackled.
Limitations and Conclusion
It would have been helpful to highlight that a relatively disproportionate attention to some cities (Bengaluru and Delhi) or India is aimed at presenting generalizable case studies that can help the Global South. The Global South has often been ignored in social sciences research. A reason for the limited research coverage is the need for more data. Thus, if good quality data are available in specific locations, analysing these could benefit a much larger audience beyond those locations.
While the book presents a well-rounded and global commentary on many important aspects of urbanization in the Global South, it would also have benefitted from including some discussions on how various issues raised are related to the sustainable development goals of the United Nations. Themes such as infrastructure and gender, smart cities and the functioning of local democracies are some important omissions.
Overall, this book presents valuable and rare comments, analysis and commentary on urbanization in the Global South. It facilitates debate and suggests the need for further research by academics, policymakers and practitioners.