Managing Prevailing dualities & Contradictions in Urban Areas

Managing Prevailing dualities & Contradictions in Urban Areas?????????????????????????????????????

??????????????????????????????????***Jit Kumar Gupta; [email protected]

Cities, as spaces for human living and working, are known for number of dualities and contradictions, positivity and negativities .

·???????Cities have been valued for ?the reason that ?they ?have large number of positivities in terms of ; being areas of future growth and ?concentration of large population; determinants of future of communities, states and nations; ?promoters of ?industrialization ; promoters of majority of ?employment, generators of wealth; ?working as engines of economic growth; ?making provision of state of art infrastructures; promoters of innovations and technologies; ?producing and providing large ?variants of goods and services; ?providers of higher quality of life; ??creating supportive environment for mixing ?of different cultures; promoting globalization, liberalization of economies; ?operating as centers of trade and commerce and consumers of minimum land resource.

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Despite these positivities, cities are also known for its negativities in terms of promoting poverty, pollution, poor quality of life, exclusion, lack of capacity and willingness to service majority of ?its population, depriving large population from having basic amenities ?of life ; serving the elites and rich while ?making life of majority of its ?poor population miserable; promoting disparities between haves and have nots ;widening gap between rich and poor and promoting poverty and exclusion; ?making majority of population vulnerabe; responsible for consuming large ?natural/manmade resources; generating large amount of waste, consuming majority of energy and water; ?responsible for majority of ills facing planet earth in terms of climate change, global warming, rising temperature, increasing carbon footprints, increasing pollution; besides damaging/destroying environment, ecology, flora and fauna. ??

Positivity and ?negativities of cities can be enumerated in terms of;

·??????If Cities are known to create ?space for new opportunities for employment, growth and development, they?also remain responsible for creating and promoting adverse social, economic, and environmental challenges.

·??????If cities are known to be?powerhouses of economic growth, they ?also remain responsible?for large proportions of ?global carbon emissions ,climate change, disaster risks and ?irrational resource use

·??????If Cities create wealth, they are known to promote?poverty , inequality, social exclusion, violence and fragility.

·??????If cities house state of art buildings , they also house large number of ?buildings, without ?having basic services; constructed with waste/poor quality materials- in terms of ?slums and shanty towns.

·??????Cities are known to ?create spaces where prosperity and poverty rub shoulders.

·??????Cities also represent classical examples ?where planned and unplanned development rub shoulders.

·??????Despite being centre of power and authority, cities remain areas prone to high degree of crime and cruelty.

·??????Despite having all resources at its ?command, cities make majority of its population ?vulnerable – old, children, physically challenged, destitute

·??????Cities remain most hostile and in-hospitable spaces for majority of population

·??????Despite ?requiring ?large manpower for manning services; cities don’t believe ?in welcoming ??migrants

·??????Cities remains least tolerant and most hostile

·??????Despite making large contribtion to economy and employment, cities have no space for housing /working ?the poor.

·??????Despite having state of art technologies and services, ?cities still remain highly susceptible to natural and man-made disasters.

·??????Despite having large resources cities, don’t believe in equity/equitable distribution ?leading ?promoting /widening gap between rich and poor.

·????Urbanization and global warming remain positively related, making urban centres?warmer/vulnerable than?surrounding areas ,led by urban heat island , transportation, hard surfaces etc.

·??????Urbanization and?environment remain negatively related with Increasing urbanization contributing to greater ??loss of biodiversity, increased material consumption, and ?rapid climate change

·??????Urbanization/size of city and ?number of slums remain positively related.

·???????Urrbanization and natural/manmade disasters ?remain positively/closely?connected.- adversely impacting cities by repeated cycles of natural?calamities and violence.

If cities have to be made more livable, sustainable, inclusive, effective, efficient , productive, consumers of least resources, generators of zero waste ?and promoters of environment and ecologies; then architects , planners ?and policy makers have to redefine their strategies of planning cities and designing buildings, failing which cities will become more of a liability rather than a valuable asset.