Building Sustainable Cities in Sri Lanka
The world we know is changing, and it has been so for the past couple of decades. More people are leaving the village in search of better employment and a better quality of life in the city. As the population living in the city grew, so did the cities; and thus began the urban revolution. As the country’s cities grow larger, there isn’t any sign of this slowing down in the future.
With this comes a number of struggles for society, the economy, the environment, and so forth. One of the major concerns that has arisen recently is the impact of climate change, and the need for building climate resilient cities. Another major concern that has arisen is the importance of creating a truly inclusive city that doesn’t ignore the needs of the common man in pursuit of developing luxury property. Such a city would create a dissonance among the people, only increasing the socioeconomic challenges faced by those who are connected to the urban lifestyle.
In the effort to highlight awareness on such challenges and bring attention to these pressing needs, each 31 October marks the commemoration of World Cities Day. This year, the spotlight was placed on adapting cities for climate resilience, as the world continues to experience first-hand the daunting truth of climate change and its impact on peoples’ lives.
Why?
You might wonder if the concern surrounding urban environments is only limited to the developing nations. While this is a concern for many of such cities located in developing countries, the importance of building climate resilient cities is more widespread than what we may initially think.
As climate change escalates, so will the frequency and severity of natural disasters. With a significant number of a country’s population living in cities, having poorly planned urban environments that are not resilient to climate change will only result in damage to people’s livelihood, more spending by governments in disaster relief and reconstruction, as well as loss to the economy as cities shut down after natural disasters.
In their statement for World Cities Day, the United Nations points out that, “Creating sustainable, climate-resilient societies involve addressing a range of issues including poverty reduction, ensuring basic services, livelihoods, the provision of accessible, affordable and adequate housing, investing in infrastructure, upgrading informal settlements and managing ecosystems. Successful, well-governed cities greatly reduce climate-related risks for their populations.”
The Sri Lankan perspective
With Sri Lanka being a country that is undergoing urbanisation at a rapid pace, Ceylon Today wanted to obtain a Sri Lankan perspective towards the quest to develop a more sustainable urban landscape in its cities. As such, we spoke with Assistant Director of the Sustainable Development Council (SDC) of Sri Lanka, Nadeeka Amarasinghe.
Established under the Sustainable Development Act of 2017, the SDC is responsible for coordinating, facilitating, monitoring, evaluating, and reporting on Sri Lanka’s implementation of its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As such, the council coordinates with a number of Government institutions and is heavily involved in policy making and planning of Sri Lanka’s sustainable development.
“Building sustainable cities is only one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that the SDC is involved with,” she explained. “We operate with a number of Government institutions such as the Urban Development Council (UDC), the Road Development Authority (RDA) and the Mahaweli Authority, and coordinate with them for this purpose.”
Building sustainable cities
“Many aspects have to be considered when developing cities to become more sustainable,” Amarasinghe continued. “In fact, there are a number of indicators which we use to pay attention to when developing cities sustainably.”
While you may think that sustainability pertains to purely the environmental aspect, it is only one aspect of a larger picture.
“Having the proper infrastructure in place such as access to clean water, public transportation, electricity and basic amenities, human settlement planning, waste management, and disaster resilience are some of the main characteristics we consider when developing policies. When planning the development of cities, we also pay attention to details such as how easy it is to travel between locations within the city and availability of adequate public recreational areas among others.”
Needless to say, the development of sustainable cities is primarily evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. Amarasinghe explained to us that once policies are developed with these aspects in mind, development projects are planned and implemented by relevant Government institutions while any construction projects and development by private organisations are regulated according to the policy in place.
“For larger cities such as Colombo, this is managed with strict adherence, with each individual zone given due attention. However, the regulation is more lax in less urbanised regions, in smaller towns and cities.”
Not a new concept
Although SDGs are an arguably recent development that has started to be implemented in Sri Lankan policy making, the concept of developing sustainable cities have existed without being identified for some time.
“The Anuradhapura town is a great example of a city that has been developed with characteristics of a sustainable city,” Amarasinghe explained.
Development trends
“This is especially evident when you look at the city from a bird’s eye view,” she elaborated.
“It may not be perfectly developed, but its development is more organised compared to other cities.
“Cities develop in different patterns. For example, the Kurunegala town has expanded in a linear pattern along the main road. On the other hand, the city of Kandy has developed in a star-like pattern. There are many trends and patterns on how a city develops over time, and when taking into account the overall development trend of Anuradhapura, although it wasn’t developed with the concept of sustainable cities in mind, it has the characteristics of one.”
Beyond Colombo
You might already be aware of the fact that urbanisation is a major aspect that should be considered during the development of a country’s economy. For many years now, people from across Sri Lanka have gathered in the country’s economic hub, Colombo in search of better employment and pay. This has led to Colombo developing at a rapid pace at the expense of the development of rural economies. Big cities absorb wealth as they develop, sucking rural enterprises and their economies dry. As people migrate towards the city seeking better opportunities and establish homes, populations in the rural regions decline, robbing them of skilled workforce and potential entrepreneurs, causing a cycle of decline.
Heavily urbanised nations such as Japan are facing the result of this process, with rural villages steadily declining in population or abandoned entirely for decades.
Assistant Director Amarasinghe spoke of the importance of developing urban areas outside of Colombo to ensure that the country’s wealth does not accumulate to only one region and how Sri Lanka has decided to tackle the challenge.
“Having a balanced growth is extremely important. Implementing a policy that focuses all its development efforts around Colombo and its surrounding area isn’t what we would consider as being sustainable.
“A number of projects are already underway to promote balanced growth outside of the city of Colombo which is a joint effort by a number of Government institutions,” she continued.
“For example, the RDA has been working hard on developing proper infrastructure to develop a good road network. We are in the process of distributing electricity and clean drinking water facilities to more rural households as well.”
We learn that the UDC has already identified key cities and towns across the country that it hopes to engage in urban development. As these projects come to fruition, it is believed that positive change will occur, and fewer people will have the need to migrate to Colombo, relying on their nearest city instead.
All about that space
There is another reason why emphasis has been given to developing urban environments outside of Colombo, across the country; to better manage space.
“There is very little room for urban development in Colombo,” she explained. “And any additional development or changes such as widening a road to reduce traffic would be extremely time consuming and expensive to do.
“That is not the case for many towns outside of Colombo, where there is more space to utilise, and execution wouldn’t be as time consuming or costly. For example, the city of Hambantota was a massive development project and we were only able to achieve what we had because of the vast empty land that was available to be used to develop.”
Amarasinghe also explained that even when urban developers have existing policies and plans in place, how the city expands, develops, and evolves from that point can be hard to predict.
“We can guess how the city will evolve and expand with urban development projects to an extent, but we will only be able to realise its efficacy after the project is completed,” she said.
“Let’s take the Southern Expressway as an example,” Amarasinghe continued. “A massive change occurred in that area once it was opened. People stopped using the Galle road for long-distance travel and started relying on the expressway instead, which diverted a massive amount of traffic. It increased the value of nearby land and we saw new businesses spring open.”
All according to plan
Although it may be difficult to accurately predict how a development project may affect a town or city, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a long-term plan in place for urban development in the future.
“We have a clear roadmap and plan that is developed by all of the relevant Government institutions collaborating together,” Amarasinghe confirmed. However, the plan does undergo change in tandem with how cities and urban environments evolve as time moves forward.
“Of course, it is also subject to change according to the political climate of the time as well.” she added.
She explained that such development plans are conceptualised after much research and analysis of the existing facilities of an area and what aspects are in need of being developed.
This is then taken into consideration by a panel of experts which include urban planners, engineers and architects, which is then presented to another set of experts such as environmentalists and economists for their input, which are then included in the plan.
“We then present this plan to the public to listen to their input. Because it’s not practical to speak with the entire population of an area being developed, we speak to the area’s business community, school principals, farmers’ associations, and other civil groups and community leaders in the area for their input and take them into consideration as well.”
Port City Connection
Because Port City Colombo will be a completely new city in Sri Lanka — more revolution than evolution so to speak — It has been easy for the Port City Project to apply all the concepts that pertain to creating a sustainable city from the ground-up, especially during the planning stage, according to Amarasinghe’s opinion.
“Applying sustainable city concepts to an entirely new city would always be easier compared to doing so with an already existing town or city,” she pointed out.
Building the future
Speaking with Amarasinghe, it was evident that urban planning and development is a discipline and science of its own; one that should be attempted with collaboration, good management, and a significant amount of foresight.
“The world is changing rapidly and this is true for Sri Lanka as well. But it’s clear that the future lies in developing infrastructure while having balanced growth throughout the country in order to ensure that wealth circulates throughout the economy, both urban and rural,” she emphasised in closing.
(Originally Published on Ceylon Today: Nov-6-2021)
