JUNE 2016 Building Resilience in Cities under Stress EDITED BY FRANCESCO MANCINI AND ANDREA Ó SÚILLEABHÁIN Cover Image: Skyscraper under ABOUT THE EDITORS construction near Dhobi Ghat in Mumbai, India, August 2, 2015. FRANCESCO MANCINI is a Non-Resident Senior Adviser at Paulprescott72/iStock. the International Peace Institute and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper represent those of the National University of Singapore.. authors and not necessarily those of Email: [email protected] the International Peace Institute. IPI welcomes consideration of a wide range of perspectives in the pursuit of a well-informed debate on critical ANDREA Ó SÚILLEABHÁIN is a Senior Policy Analyst at the policies and issues in international International Peace Institute. affairs. Email: [email protected] IPI Publications Adam Lupel, Vice President Albert Trithart, Assistant Editor ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Madeline Brennan, Assistant IPI owes a debt of thanks to all of its donors, whose support Production Editor makes publications like this one possible. In particular, IPI Suggested Citation: would like to thank the Institute of South Asian Studies Francesco Mancini and Andrea Ó (ISAS) at the National University of Singapore for its Súilleabháin, eds., “Building Resilience partnership on this project and for hosting the expert in Cities under Stress,” New York: seminar in Singapore to inform this report. In addition to the International Peace Institute, June authors featured in this report, particular gratitude for their 2016. guidance and contributions to expert seminars in Singapore © by International Peace Institute, 2016 and New York goes to Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury at ISAS, All Rights Reserved Filiep Decorte at UN-Habitat, Robert Muggah at the Igarapé Institute, Jennifer Salahub at the International Development www.ipinst.org Research Centre (IDRC), Jacqueline Klopp and Tatiana Wah at Columbia University, and Michelle Breslauer at the Institute for Economics and Peace. The editors are also grateful to Albert Trithart at IPI for his skilled editing support. The Institute of South Asian Studies would like to thank D. Parthasarathy, Professor and Head of Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Mumbai. CONTENTS Executive Summary . iii Introduction. 1 Andrea Ó Súilleabháin Inequality, Fragility, and Resilience in Bangkok . 4 Apiwat Ratanawaraha Dhaka: Stressed but Alive! . 13 Imtiaz Ahmed Mumbai: The City that Never Sleeps. 24 Chandrani Sarma and Amitendu Palit Impossible Possibilities: The Fragility and Resilience of Lagos. 38 Jane Lumumba Community-Based Resilience to Security and Development Challenges in Medellín . 50 Heidy Cristina Gómez Ramírez Conclusion. 57 Francesco Mancini iii Executive Summary Urbanization has become a central issue in global authors’ analyses suggest four guiding principles security, development, and governance. Experts for strengthening urban resilience: project that, by 2030, more than three-quarters of 1 Adopt dynamic and scenario-based urban the world’s population will live in cities. This rapid planning. urbanization can offer higher standards of living Scenario-based urban planning is a dynamic and opportunities for millions of people, but it can process that enables city planners to prepare the also come at a cost: cities that are unable to respond urban system to deal with internal and external to the needs of their growing populations face shocks and different potential futures. This rising violence, crime, and poverty. As a result, planning practice increases the ability of cities to urban fragility has emerged as a key issue for absorb change and disturbance while contin- national and municipal governments and for global uing to perform basic functions and deliver and local security and development actors. services, making them more adaptable and agile. This report aims to highlight diverse sources of This practice also allows for a long-term urban fragility and approaches to urban transfor- perspective on uncertainties, independent from mation, renewal, and resilience. Five city case changes in government leadership. studies explore the drivers of fragility related to 2 Optimize urban governance. security, development, and governance, before offering examples of policies and programs that All the authors focus on the need for leaner can build resilience. The case studies are: (1) government structures and clearer lines of Bangkok, where the effects of fragility vary greatly authority and responsibility. When urban areas among socioeconomic groups and are exacerbated expand, jurisdictions overlap, and planning fails by spatial segregation; (2) Dhaka, where poor to integrate populations across economic governance and lack of basic infrastructure—such divides, new models of metropolitan as sanitation and transportation—add to the city’s governance are needed. Urban governance can natural vulnerability to flooding; (3) Mumbai, engage and coordinate the efforts of multiple where a history of organized crime and communal stakeholders, such as local authorities, national violence continues to surface in one of the largest governments, businesses, and civil society metropolitan areas in the world; (4) Lagos, where organizations. ineffective and fragmented governance under - 3 Add voices to decision making. mines the city’s capacity to provide basic public Even in cities where recent improvements have services; and (5) Medellín, where the legacy of four been praised on many fronts, such as Lagos and decades of violence continues to dictate security Medellín, more can be learned from the liveli- and development policy, even while the city is hood strategies and responses of local residents. hailed internationally for its transformation. Those living in fragile neighborhoods often As these cases demonstrate, every city is fragile in show extraordinary resilience. To achieve more different ways. But within this spectrum of fragility, effective governance, urban decision makers can three common features of cities under stress learn from community-led initiatives and facili- emerge: socioeconomic and spatial segregation, tate community participation—from planning rapid population growth, and suboptimal to implementation. governance systems. The cases also highlight a 4 Focus on spatial segregation. range of policies and programs to build resilience, from community-led analysis of local resistance to Urban fragility and resilience are not evenly threats and stresses in Medellín to a set of princi- distributed across socioeconomic groups, nor ples to inform transformative policies in Bangkok. are these groups evenly distributed across cities. Segregation remains a key factor of urban The lessons emerging from these cases and the fragility, and some critics are justly concerned iv EXECUTIVE SUMMARY with the tendency to build safe and fully generally seen as the extent to which urban systems serviced neighborhoods for the benefit of the are susceptible to damage incurred by shocks, with wealthy few. The authors of this report are no urban systems including not only infrastructure exception, arguing that inclusiveness is a policy and ecological systems but also social, economic, principle central to urban resilience. and political systems. This broader definition of Urban fragility is created by an intricate mix of fragility is a crucial step in turning toward urban factors connected to a city’s geographical features, resilience, to determine how cities can manage, historical heritage, and current political and adapt, and recover from internal and external socioeconomic dynamics. But the cases in this stresses and crises. report demonstrate that urban fragility can be 1 Introduction Andrea Ó Súilleabháin* For the first time in history, more than half of the neighborhoods unofficially governed by non-state world’s people live in cities. By 2030, three-fifths of actors and groups—absent altogether. As a result, the world’s population will be urban, amounting to urban management and municipal governance are more than 5 billion people. The majority of this critical issues for human, national, and interna- population growth will be in impoverished city tional security. This crisis of urbanization places neighborhoods, with the global population of city cities at the center of debates on regional stabiliza- slums reaching 2 billion as soon as 2030. Alongside tion, prevention of violent crime and terrorism, this unprecedented urbanization, urban fragility economic development, public service delivery, has emerged as a central challenge in global and resource management. development, security, and governance theory and But urban growth itself need not represent a practice. threat to city and state security. When governed The world has entered a new era of megacities effectively, urbanization can improve the lives of and urban sprawl, unplanned and vast expansion citizens and bring growth to nations; where cities of urban areas, and increasing economic, social, thrive, literacy and education improve and employ- and spatial inequality. The world’s fastest urban ment opportunities abound. Many urban centers growth rates are in Africa and Asia, where the are home to creativity, innovation, and unparal- urban populations will, respectively, triple and leled opportunities for citizens. double by 2050. Urban centers in Latin America Where urban management fails, however, will also continue to experience rapid