In this report, ESCAP explores the future of urbanization in Asia and the Pacific, focusing on the dynamic shifts in the region’s urban landscape. It highlights the region’s demographic transformations, including population ageing, and the persistent challenges of urban poverty and inequality. The analysis covers urban areas of all sizes, …
ONE of Habitat Ws - the next mega UN conference (scheduled for June 1996) - primary emphasis will be on the future of cities worldwide. What will be the future city like? Will it resemble one of the 'science cities' being developed in Japan and the Republic of Korea, or …
High on a massive rock, 200 metres above the surrounding plain and 10 km from Colombo, are located the ruins of a magnificent ancient city called Sigiriya. Asia's oldest landscaped gardens flower here. It is an accepted theory that urbanisation could emerge only because of complex environmental, social, economic and …
Fifteen thousand years ago, when human-hunter gatherers decided to settle down to an agrarian lifestyle, they took the first plunge towards a sedentary existence that has now made hypochondriacs out of the entire human race. The gradual growth of urbanism and the Industrial Revolution marked humankind's final dive towards ulcers …
Modern civilization appears to have it all wrong. The yardstick used to measure the progress of a town, city or village is the status of its physical development. More shops, busier bazaars and crowded roads are taken to be signs of prosperity. There's little or no laying out of well-planned …
TODAY, the gloomy scenario of blurred faces framed in countless tenement windows seems to have wafted right out of an Eliotsian elegy into the equally foggy reality of urban existence in the developing world. As the concrete jungle raises its teeming head, so does the clamour for its attendant needs: …
FROM EXCELLENT vegetable growers to taxi drivers -- that's the transformation the Jyapus of Kathmandu valley are undergoing. The agricultural practices of the Jyapus, a farming community that produces most of the fresh vegetables sold in Kathmandu, exemplifies the benefits of traditional farming methods. Indra Raj Pandey, an official in …
The wetlands of Bangalore are falling prey to rapid urbanisation, according to a paper prepared by a group of researchers. The report says urbanisation is also affecting water quality. It notes the number of water tanks within the city limits has declined to 16 from 140 in 1931, primarily because …
THERE is something very beautiful about lakes -- not just aesthetically, but also intellectually. Lakes do not just mirror their environment. They also mirror the society around them. Clean water in a lake is either the result of an absence of humanity or the presence of very disciplined human beings …
You have been sharply critical of census methods in different parts of the world, in particular India. Why are you unhappy with the Indian census? Starting from 1881, we have had a census every 10 years, except during the war in 1941, when we had a restricted census. Frankly, I …
Metropolitan municipalities can now heave a collective sigh of relief. The Centrally-sponsored scheme for infrastructural development of megacities has brought them a welcome respite, burdened as they were by huge fiscal deficits. Infrastructural development in Calcutta, Bangalore, Bombay, Madras and Hyderabad is to take place through innovative institutional and financial …
IN A SITUATION where material on environmental law is by and large scattered, the bringing together of case, statutory and analytical material, through careful selection and critique, is of significance to teachers and students of environmental law. The value of this book is greatly enhanced by the fact that besides …
IN INDIA'S Industrial Cities, Nigel Crook seeks to correct the growing imbalance in the reigning debate over the ills of technology-wrought urbanisation. In a given situation, where most works of authority tend to focus on the problem of labour supply and the negative role of excess migration, Crook's short but …
THE BOOK focuses on a new environmental agenda for cities, followed by details on environmental problems in the home, workplace and neighbourhood. The treatment of the subject makes interesting reading of a much debated topic. For a change, concrete suggestions emerge for tackling environmental problems, especially health problems. Despite the …
ENVIRONMENTAL planning, generally considered a luxury for developing countries, is becoming an integral part of Egypt's economic strategies. The country's parliament has been debating a comprehensive environment protection law in which stiff prison sentences have been urged for polluters -- even if they are heads of state-owned industries. Egypt's environment …
AN INDICATOR of a society's level of development is the quantity and quality of the energy it consumes. This is made clear by the wide disparity in per capita energy consumption in industrialised and developing countries. USA consumes more energy annually than Africa, Latin America, India and China put together. …
WESTERN urbanisation began with the Industrial Revolution and was accompanied by both economic and social development. But in India and most other developing countries, urbanisation does not reflect development. India's urban population increased from 10.84 per cent in 1901 to 25.72 per cent in 1991, but the majority of Indians …
THE FILM City Life is about everything that the title suggests. But it is so extraordinarily multifaceted and so exuberantly diverse, it defies all description. Twelve film-makers with highly individualised styles have each made a short film on a city the film-maker's choice. Their common theme is urban society. What …
CALCUTTA maidan -- at 294-ha, the largest public ground in the teeming metropolis, is in danger of being developed as commercial property by the Indian army. The maidan belongs to the army's eastern command which has its headquarters in the adjoining Fort William estate. The move, prompted by the army's …
WEAVERS of Tibetan carpets in Nepal have been named the primary polluter of the Kathmandu valley. In a May notification, the government demanded that it set in place the mandatory pollution control measures or pay a fine of NRs 50,000 (IRs 30,300) or face closure or both. Started as a …
GIRISH CHANDRA REGMI THE ORIGINAL inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley were the Newars, whose culture was distinct from other Asian cultures. The Newars developed unique building methods, resulting in high, narrow houses quite unlike the architecture of other societies. The Newars were master builders, especially skilled in handling space and …
