Urban Dilemmas

The term urban pertains to the structures and ways of life of cities. Most of us think that anything urban offers special attraction. In same fashion, we see urbanism, or the ways of life associated with living in cities, in positive light. This is often because an urban place offers more diverse and dynamic activities than in a rural area; it has dazzling malls, high-rise buildings, automobiles, stadiums and other impressive features. More importantly, many are attracted to urban areas because it serves as manufacturing and commercial centers and thus provides jobs to the population. The employment opportunities that urban areas offer remain the primary reason why the population flock into the urban areas. Since the structures for the delivery of basic services such as water, power and communication are well integrated in management of urban areas, people choose to live here also because of the accessibility of such basic services making life more convenient (relative to rural areas). In the Philippines, the term urban brings to mind Metro Manila. As early as 1970s, Metro Manila’s level of urbanization was already at 100% (Ballesteros 2000). In global statistics, it ranked 18th among the largest urban agglomeration in the world in 1990; it is expected to rank 20th of the 28 identified megacities in the world (Mercado 1998). Despite many attractions of an urban area, it also faces tremendous problems. Alongside urbanization are urban dilemmas and challenges that pose serious threat to the development goals of that urban settlement. These urban problems have been well studied and documented elsewhere. Finding solutions to urban ills arising from the industrial revolution, such as pollution and overcrowding, led to Ebenezer Howard’s concept of garden cities. Sharing with Ebenezer in drawing inspiration from the English industrial laboratory was Freidrich Engels who documented the ills of industrial urbanism with a socialist lens, arguing that the inhumane condition of physical infrastructures and hypocritical city design is just a reflection of the exploitative economic relation between the capitalists and the working class.
Metro Manila experience is a glaring evidence of the negative consequences of urbanization. Urban planners in this region delve on issues of urban poverty, in-migration, traffic congestion and urban blight. Below are some of the remarkable urban dilemmas in the Philippines.
Congestion in urban areas
The urbanization process of Metro Manila was accelerated by rural migration to Manila. Rural migration is still rampant these days, rural folks may be lured by the opportunities and brightness of the city; it has malls, restaurants, glamour, fashion and answered dreams. However, it also has crimes, pollution, traffic, and expensive living; these are the things that rural folks do not take into account when they decide to migrate since their perception of the positive things in the city almost always outweighs the urban ills and so, there is the perennial problem of rural folks migrating to the cities in search for improved life (PIDS 2000). These rural migrants are now partly the cause and at the same time victims of urban dilemma in Metro Manila. This migration has caused the congestion of region with an average density of 15,617 persons per square kilometre. The congestion in turn created urban dilemmas, water pollution, slums, traffic jams. As victims, these migrants are usually the poor seeking opportunities in Metro Manila but urban problems, say as water pollution, directly hurt them. Whereas the rich can afford to buy distilled water, the poor can ill afford to pay the costs incurred by water pollution. The cityward migration is a result of concentration of economic activities in the urban center results to regional imbalance.

Transportation failures
Deterioration of the traffic condition has always afflicted Metro Manila since the 1950s. Traffic woes stem primarily from insufficient road system, rapid increase in car ownership, lack of quality public transportation services, defective administration of traffic regulations as well as undisciplined motorists and pedestrians (Mercado 1998). Traffic congestion that we are currently experiencing is caused by the presence of vehicles with low acceleration performance due to aging engines, furthered by the long on-street dwelling time of buses and jeepneys so as to wait for passengers and the frequency of lane changing due to driver behaviour in Metro Manila (Vergel and Rai 2002). These phenomena are tolerated not only by the current transportation but also by the existing road infrastructure.

Alteration of urban landscape
The rampant cityward migration caused indiscriminate land-use mix in Metro Manila and this is partly because of the weak efforts to rationalize relationship among various land use plan (Mercado 1998). Urban deterioration is another facet of the land-use problem in Metro Manila with its dilapidated buildings, timeworn and environmentally deteriorated areas. On top of that is the increased number of squatter households. Embryonic settlements (more euphemistic term to squatter) remain to be a pervasive problem in the third world.

Urban Heat
There are studies confirming that Metro Manila is getting hotter. One of which is the study conducted at at the Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology, College of Science, University of the Philippines, scientists from UP have found that temperature in the region increased compared with its adjacent rural areas (Lagmay 2007). Urban Heat Island, as its name suggests, is an urban phenomenon caused by the dominance of asphalt, concrete, bricks and stones in lieu of vegetation and natural land.

These urban problems probably arise from the lack of planning. With the absence of planning, described as art and science of ordering use of land so as to secure maximum practicable degree of economy, convenience and beauty, the process of urbanization follows it natural way of just occurring inevitably and carries with it the determined urban problems. In such way, industries, houses, markets in a city may just be constructed independently without regard to its relationship with one another; it is far from harnessing the maximum net economic and social gain (that can be attained if buildings and routes are ordered according to development goals, assuming that the goal includes maximum economic and social gain. If urban planning is present, urban problems persist because of the wrong emphasis of the planners. The community deviates from the goal embodied in the plan because planners care more about beautifying communities and helping individual businesses than addressing social urban problems. The Metro Manila also suffered from this dilemma. The Philippine’s premiere metropolis developed far from the grandiose plan originally envisioned by the colonial government because planned development was seldom implemented and town planning was valued mainly for aesthetic reasons rather than for the management of land and urban growth (Ballesteros 2000). But if equipped with a vision for general welfare, city planning, through spatial principles, can sensibly solve urban dilemmas. This was proved by the enduring concept of Sir Ebenezer Howard in his Garden City movement.
The glaring urban blight and urban dilemma led to construction of ideal settlements. Alongside the social, economic and political framework, most of the conceived ideal urban settlements include substantial discussion of the physical layout of the proposed settlement. The physical layout of their proposed ideal settlement provides concreteness to their ideas, giving the proposal high chance of being realized into actual settlement. Many have framed their social ideals within spatial layout principles including Ebenezer Howard with his Garden Cities. Since congestion is perceived to be the primary problem in urban area, decongestion is necessary. Congestion is inevitable because the city forms are economically biased to centers. Taking off from growth pole theory minus its spread effect, majority is likely to move towards the center (in this case, Metro Manila) because economic activities are concentrated here. In my proposed utopian framework, decongestion measures will include development of secondary growth pole in rural area adjacent to Metro Manila, creation of new road system with rail transit as major mode of transportation, balancing mixed use area inside in major blocks, designing inner roads that will make the major blocks walkable, creation of urban green spaces, and establishing the industrial sector at the edge of the city. Below are the details of the proposal.

Development of secondary growth pole
Rural migration is caused by poverty and lack of opportunity in rural areas. Hence there is a need to locate some industries in these areas to create opportunity for the rural folks. It is a measure to prevent further in-migration and displacing urban settlers to rural area, making the measure both preventive and positive check to congestion and regional disparity. To realize the proposal, infrastructure connecting the urban and rural area is necessary. Rail system will be the mode of transportation. In case natural features such as mountain will make the construction of rail system impossible, underground rail system will be built. The vision here is to make over the relationship between an urban and a rural area. With urban greenery integrated in the city and some industrial facilities situated in the rural area, arguments on rural versus urban development will end and balanced growth will be ensured.

Building of public transit system within the city
As an effort to mitigate traffic jams and more importantly air pollution, the new road system is designed so that the people will not rely on private and public automobiles. Major roads in Metro Manila are no longer sufficient to accommodate the rising traffic volume due to dominance public buses and jeepneys along major routes and increase in private car ownership. There is a need to design a road system that will lessen our dependence on automobiles because there is a faster way to get to other part of the city and in the internal section of the city, there is no need for vehicles in minor roads since it is walkable. There has been an increase in the demand for quality public transportation system that delivers quality service in terms of travel speed, riding comfort and in-vehicle air-quality. Urban rail transport is still limited as to date. As such, the city will require a construction of extensive light rail system. Rail transit will be the major mode of transportation and will be a key feature of the city. The rail transit will divide the city into major blocks; these major sections will be comprised of settlement, commercial and special use areas. For instance, block A will be composed of residential units, some shopping stores and restaurants while block B will be composed of residential units, schools and convenient stores. All the blocks will be mixed used area and there will be careful planning on the combination of areas established in a section. Industrial area is not included in these blocks. The selection of the transit station/terminals will be based on the location of the commercial and important special use areas (i.e., schools and hospitals). Thus each transit station will be associated with a certain commercial area, school or hospital.

Urban renewal and careful land-use mix
Since we will make way for urban green spaces, we have to carefully plan the composition of the major blocks. Number and size of commercial areas in each block were considered. The nature of commercial activity, major shopping and luxury goods, convenience goods that will be mixed with the residential units were considered. The type and grade of residential areas and the appropriate location of areas servicing the residents such as education and worship facilities were considered. The location and combination was planned with due consideration to provision of open green space for each block. For each block (minus the street), 60% of the land use will be devoted to the mixed use and 40% will be provided for open green space. Industrial areas will be located at the edge of the city. Industrial firms will remain at the edge because of the industrial risks that it can afflict to residents of the city. This design reflects the cease of subservience of the population to the machineries of capitalism. The industrial firms will defray the transportation of the industrial workers by way of provision of shuttle services. Wide roads leading to industrial site will be built to ensure ease of access. The design is biased on striving towards a humane city and not on driving economic investments. Underlying assumption is there is already a stable economic activity in the city. The goal now is to create a city where its residents will enjoy the basic amenities of decent urban living. Employment security will not be a problem because of the economic stability.

A cooler city
It was found out by the similar UP study touching on Urban Heat Island that the hottest place in Metro Manila is the Central Business Districts. Likewise, Ortigas commercial area, Port area and NAIA are hot places. While Wack Wack golf course, Camp Aguinaldo, Manila Seedling Bank and UP campus are relatively cool. Thus the nodes of the urban area are the hotter places while areas characterized by wide open spaces and vegetation are the cooler places. The process of urbanization has deprived Metro Manila of green space and bare land. The combined percentage of green space and bare land in Metro Manila is less than 10 percent (Hoyano, Yoon and Iino 2002).
Another key feature of the proposed design is its spaciousness that is, creation of open space with vegetation. This is to acknowledge the role of urban green space in contributing to ecological integrity of urban systems and the psychological and social effects of spacious green space to those living in areas. Outdoor shadings will be created including shading spaces from trees with large crown and from the design of buildings. Like Howard’s Garden Cities, every housing unit will have its own backyard. Major buildings like government halls, shopping centers or schools will have a veranda to use it as an outdoor living space and a rooftop where planting will be carried out to prevent solar radiation.

The conceptualization of alternative urban forms seems to be an effective measure to address urban dilemmas. With the futility of policy alternatives, creation of new urban forms directs people to live in accordance to the built paths and structures aimed towards maximizing economic and social gains. Urban dilemmas are deeply rooted on economic problems that is, the unequal access over the scarce resources of those who have less buying power or the poor. The provision of physical infrastructures and organization of urban space and forms facilitates the localization and accessibility of these resources and complements the shortcomings of aspatial economic models in resource allocation. However, alternative urban forms should be anchored on understanding of poverty, offshoot of which is urban dilemmas. In general, conceptualizing alternative urban forms must be directed toward creating a community that will foster holistic development and will advance the common good.

References:

Ballesteros, Marife (2000). Land Use Planning in Metro Manila and the Urban Fringe: Implication on the Land and Real Estate Market. Discussion Paper Series, 20, 1-4.

Hoyano, A., Yoon, S., & Iino, A. (2002). Southeast Asian High-Density Habitation and the Formation of a Comfortable Outdoor Thermal Environment. In T. Ohmachi & E. Roman (Eds.), Metro Manila: In Search of a Sustainable Future (135-147). University of the Philippines Press.

Lagmay, A.M.F., (2007). UP study confirms Metro Manila getting hotter. Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Mercado, Ruben (1998). Megalopolitan Manila: Striving Towards a Humane and World Class City. Discussion Paper Series, 30, 1-10.

Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) (2000). Urbanization in a Decentralized Framework: The Lure of the City. Development Research News, 18 (2), 9-11.

Yai, T., & Vergel, K. (2002). Outline of Microscopic Road Traffic Simulation. In T. Ohmachi & E. Roman (Eds.), Metro Manila: In Search of a Sustainable Future (135-147). University of the Philippines Press.