OPINION Asia's urban rot is deeper than it appears Fifty-four per cent of the region will be reduced to a stinking mess by 2020, says Barun Roy We know the big picture: By 2015, there will be 27 mega cities in the world (those with populations of 10 million or more), and 17 of them will be in Asia. We read about Bangkok's traffic mess and the slums of Klong Toey with their dark alleys and dingy shacks. We hear of the rivers and esteros of Manila and how they have been turned into clogged, stinking sewers.
We learn that virtually all the major cities in China and India, along with Bangkok and Jakarta, have at least 100 days in a year when concentrations of suspended particulate matter in the air far exceed the World Health Organisation's standard of 230 micrograms per cubic metre.
But what about the other picture, that of the lesser cities and towns of Asia and the quiet spread of the urban rot beyond its known confines? That story is little told but equally worrisome, perhaps more, because it's a clear reminder that licking the wounds in mega cities alone won't be enough. Small-town Asia is getting scarred as well.
In Sri Lanka's smaller towns, where most of the country's urban population lives, half the households don't have flush toilets of their own. People share toilets or use pit and bucket latrines, open fields, or rivers and canals. Drainage is inadequate and solid waste is commonly dumped on unsanitary sites. In the entire country, only two piped sewerage systems exist.
In Nepal's rapidly expanding urban areas, hotels and industries dump their wastes into streams, untreated. The Bagmati, the largest river in the Kathmandu Valley, and both its two major tributaries, the Bishnumati and the Manohara, are heavily polluted with chemical and toilet wastes from factories producing cotton fabrics, shoes, cement, and carpets.
Municipal distribution of drinking water in Cambodia's provincial towns is in a terrible state, and 60 per cent of what is supplied leaks to waste. People are forced to depend on private water vendors, who get their supplies mainly from rivers and streams. Waterborne diseases are rampant and infant mortality is high.
Ruined by war and negligence over the past two decades, the country's urban infrastructure is a shambles. One-third of the Laotian capital of Vientiane is still not served by a drainage system. There is no piped sewerage, flooding is frequent, and over 55 per cent of the city's roads are unpaved. Those that are paved degenerate into slush and puddles during periods of heavy rainfall.
In Hanoi, the celebrated bicycles are giving way to motorcycles, cars, and traffic jams. Traffic in Ho Chi Minh City is already so bad that the authorities have begun working on plans for a $213 million overhead railway, a $300 million cable car network, and even a $1.3 billion subway system. Water pollution in this southern Vietnamese city, formerly known as Saigon, is extensive. Many of its sewers are partially or fully blocked. Only 30 per cent of its urban households are directly connected to sewers. Fifty per cent have no connection at all and discharge directly into the ground.
In Bangladesh, urban air all over the country is under severe attack from an enormous proliferation of diesel-guzzling vehicles. To get a measure of the problem, here's a revealing bit of statistics: of 490,806 vehicles registered in the country in 1998, only 86,708 were motorcars. The rest were jeeps, buses, minibuses, taxis, trucks, auto-rickshaws, tempos, motorcycles, and tractors that gulped only diesel and belched noxious fumes. Lead levels in Dhaka are higher than in many other cities in the world.
These smoldering fires indicate that the urban challenge is much bigger than is commonly thought and requires a more comprehensive response. Experts say that, by 2020, some 54 per cent of Asia will be classed as urban, against 34 per cent in 1994. It means that, unless we act soon enough, 54 per cent of the region will be reduced to a stinking mess.