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Urban
Environments Peri-Urban Issues
Prof
David Simon
Cities are dynamic human
artifacts undergoing changes
which influence their relationships
with the surroundings. Initially
the rural-urban interface was
conceived as characterised by
distinctly different land-use
patterns and human behaviours.
However, growing urban population
and increasing rural-urban interdependencies
have not only changed this perception,
but have also brought attention
to ensuing environmental problems.
Cities
constantly undergo changes influencing
their relationships with their
outskirts. These outskirts,
neither urban nor rural, are
variously known as rural-urban
(rurban), peri-urban or transitional
areas and the process peri-urbanisation.
Earlier, this interface was
primarily conceived in terms
of neatly identifiable dichotomous
rural-urban divide. Implicit
in this construct was the idea
that urban and rural areas were
characterised by very different
land-use patterns and human
behaviours and that the boundaries
between these spaces and places
were easily discernible and
clear cut. Given the differential
rates of growth of urban populations
across the globe and growing
rural-urban interdependencies,
this perception has changed
and the attention has now shifted
to treating the peri-urban areas
as dynamic mixes of functions
and land uses - residential
and recreational; population
densities; sources of urban
food, construction materials,
as urban waste disposal or treatment
sites etc.
This change has occurred following
the major deindustrialisation
of the 1970s and early 1980s
which has witnessed two spatially
opposite effects. While the
middle class and higher income
groups lived in fashionable
inner districts or older suburbs,
the integrated transport and
information and communications
technology (ICT) revolutions
enabled electronics industries
to locate in the outskirts.
Since the ICT professionals
could rely on computerised communications
to work from home, they lived
in rural or semi-urban localities
which were also well equipped
with high amenities.
As their role within the world
economy changed during the 1990s,
Southeast and East Asia underwent
a new form of metropolitan urbanism,
reflecting some of the same
transport and technological
changes, rapid industrialisation
and dramatic increases in standards
of living. Dubbed extended metropolitan
regions (EMRs), these areas
were characterised by rapid
urban growth and polycentricity
as well as the spread of urban
activities and land uses into
rural areas. Earlier seen as
incompatible, rural and urban
activities juxtaposed to create
complex mosaics. This gave rise
to concepts such as 'kotadesatie'
(city-villagisation), quickly
superseded by what is termed
as 'desakota' (city-village).
Elsewhere in Southeast Asia,
in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa,
Latin America, and the Caribbean,
rapid and spatially polarised
urbanisation under neoliberal
conditions has created often
wide and persistent, if dynamic,
transition zones that combine
various rural and urban conditions.
Moreover, their importance for
the cities that they surround
in absorbing urban migrants,
as sources of food and other
resources and as key areas for
the disposal of urban wastes
was increasingly appreciated.
They are also typically zones
of mixed land use and livelihoods.
On account of these characteristics,
and the interactions between
such areas and the cities, these
transition zones came to be
known as peri-urban zones or
interfaces (PUIs). In other
European or Europeanised languages,
the PUI concept is expressed
somewhat differently.
Even as the peri-urbanisation
assumes different forms in different
localities, the process is not
new. It is just that it is gaining
significance from the viewpoint
of environmental implications
and management which have generally
been severe and are increasingly
recognised as unsustainable.
The problems relate to river,
soil, and groundwater contamination
from toxic waste posing health
hazards, severe agricultural
contamination, chronic air pollution
not just in large cities, but
also in peri-urban and rural
areas usually marked by outdated
technologies and lack of controls.
Ironically, increase in ground
water availability through reduced
evapotranspiration and increased
runoff in urban areas can be
harvested only in relatively
unpolluted or pure water conditions.
In case of China, industrialisation
at any cost during the last
few years has resulted in loss
of prime agricultural land to
urban activities in the major
river deltas, a loss that cannot
readily and sustainably be compensated
for by bringing lower-potential
land elsewhere into production
or by intensifying existing
production. The realisation
has led to pollution abatement
measures and greenhouse gas
emission reductions as well
as China's change of attitude
to the climate change debate
and acceptance of the implications
of the Intergovernmental Panel
of Climate Change's Fourth Assessment
Report in 2007. Consequently,
there has been recognition that
a few dam projects have been
environmentally disastrous.
These attitudinal changes, if
carried through and implemented
broadly, also have international
and political implications in
terms of negotiations on climate
change and a successor to the
Kyoto Protocol.
Environment related changes,
however, remain a low priority
in other rapidly urbanising
and industrialising poorer countries.
The processes of peri-urbanisation
and the nature of PUIs here
are diverse. The following section
elucidates the various categories
of development-environment issues
that have received attention.
Issues of poverty and the struggle
to survive and find adequate
livelihood activities amid rapid
change loom large. PUIs reflect,
as defined earlier, highly dynamic
interfaces between urban and
rural relations involving forces
and pressures that are national
and even international in terms
of human mobility, commodity
and financial flows and their
valuation and claims on environmental
resources. These interlinkages
have necessitated an ecosystem
dynamics approach to solving
issues related to peri-urban
environmental change.
Land
conversion One of the most intractable
environmental issues everywhere
is the inevitable conversion
of agricultural and forested
land to urban uses, particularly
catering to affluent sections
of the society. This reflects
the vulnerability of larger
tracts of relatively undeveloped
and cheaper land for potential
abuse-combined with the ability
to site disturbance causing
or polluting facilities away
from wealthier and/or dense
urban populations. In other
words, negative environmental
externalities may be imposed
on the PUIs.
Peri-urban
agriculture and environment
Usually agricultural activities,
whether in urban or peri-urban
areas, are assessed together
because of their common role
in feeding cities. Conceptually
also, it is difficult to distinguish
between the two. And yet peri-urban
cultivation becomes more difficult
and precarious as loss of cultivable
land to a combination of sale
and land degradation reduces
local food self-reliance and
the ability to sell any surpluses
to urban dwellers. On the other
hand, however, greater proximity
and accessibility to the enlarged
urban market can create new
opportunities to intensify peri-urban
agriculture and to specialise
in higher value horticultural
crops that require greater husbandry
- and hence financial outlay
and perhaps risk.
Waste
disposal and contamination
The widespread location of polluting
infrastructure in the PUI imposes
negative externalities on local
residents. These comprise disturbance
from large numbers of dump trucks,
sewage tankers, and livestock
transporters; smell and potentially
disease carrying vectors; and,
contamination of soil and groundwater
by leachate. The associated
inequity and distributional
issues are underscored by the
general absence or gross inadequacy
of sanitary facilities and other
services for peri-urban residents,
mostly reliant on pit latrines
-the inappropriate silting of
which also often contributes
to groundwater contamination.
End
note
This review explores environmental
issues and problems at the PUIs
or urban fringe in diverse contexts
in order to illustrate some
of the differences and similarities
between groups of countries
defined in terms of historical
political economies. However,
these groupings are not internally
coherent or homogeneous. On
the contrary, their diversity
is profound and the connections
across groups are increasing.
Despite this, the evidence shows
that many processes, concerns,
and problems are similar, notwithstanding
withholding varying severity
and likely impacts due to the
differing resource bases, median
living standards and institutional
capacities. With the coming
up of new technologies in the
future, such categorisations
may change.
Crucially, fringe or PUI areas
should be treated as integral
elements of urban systems in
both functional and planning
terms because they and their
environments are integral to
the growth and operation of
growing cities; their integration
into urban planning systems
would facilitate holistic and
systems oriented planning. This
is likely to be achieved, however,
only when the challenges of
urban management and planning
constraints on resources, capacity,
and political priority, as well
as a multiplicity of administrative
boundaries are overcome.
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