Mercado: Squandering tomorrow

Saturday, November 5, 2011

THE future is city-centric,” says a new Asian Development Bank study on today’s “urbanization avalanche.” So, are bickering Cebu City officials squandering our grandchildren’s tomorrows?

Look at Friday’s walkout of City Hall department heads. The 20 vamoosed, as the council discussed the P11.8 billion budget proposed by Mayor Michael Rama.

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“Please don’t shoot the messenger,” pleaded City Administrator Jose Marie Poblete on handing councilors a letter from the mayor. It read: Until further orders, department heads were to “refrain from and suspend their participation in budget hearings.”

Ignore justifications in this inexcusable parody. They doll up the latest in the no-quarter brawl between Rama and Rep. Tomas Osmeña and their camp followers.

Osmeña spends every waking moment on gutting Rama’s administration. He morphed into a failed second district congressman in the process. Rama’s day is devoted to derailing Osmeña’s bid for a 2013 comeback. Essential programs, as a result, are wrecked.

Metro Cebu showcases the dramatic “demographic transition” from rural to urban society. A torrent of migrants and the slow decline in birth rates crammed 2.13 million men, women and children into 13 cities and towns. Yet officials never crafted an overall economic plan.

See that people “implosion” in context. Asia’s urban population will bolt by another 1.4 billion in the next 40 years, projects ADB in “Asia 2050: Realizing the Asian Century.” By 2025, most Asians will live in cities.

Even tiny Laos must find space for 3.6 more people as urban population doubles. That calls for dramatic different approaches to urbanization. One must not only cope with major risks but also make better use of resources.

The strain, meanwhile, appears everywhere. City streets were built for another age. Private cars crowd out ad-hoc transport. That’s Magsaysay awardee Antonio Oposa’s beef in "Road Revolution."

Today, about 25 to 30 percent of city populations crowd into makeshift shacks. Think Pasil or Carreta. These are short of water, without latrines, drainage, health services--and sometimes surplus of drugs.

Yet the outcomes are different for cities that think ahead. In the 1970s, Singapore clamped on the world’s first ever levies on vehicles entering the business district. That provided funds for infrastructure. The Singapore levy is copied in London and Stockholm.

“Inattention to urban policy” leads to social tensions. Latin America urbanization is roughly 65 years ahead of Asia.

“Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela were unable to manage rapid growth of illegal and unserviced settlements. Many of their cities became hotbeds of violence. “Delayed action to improve living condition results in zones of modernity co-existing with zones of misery.”

Cebu’s business leaders urged local officials to think beyond city limits and 30 years ahead. ADB echoes that theme. Urban mega regions are tomorrow’s drivers of the economy. Look at Busan in Korea or the growth triangle linking Medan (Indonesia) Penang (Malaysia) and Phuket (Thailand).

Many, however, will remain in the countryside. “Rural development is not an alternative to urban development.” Most Cebu rural land is denuded and over-plowed. It must provide jobs for larger populations as city policy falters.

“Delays contribute to further distortions that will have to be undone later,” ADB warns. “Asia needs city leaders who are visionary. (They) create new ideas of what modern cities should be. They take advantage of the current wave of urban growth to implement that vision.”