Making Cities Resilient

According to the results of many surveys, urban areas consume the vast majority of resources. Therefore, it is vital to make cities greener and more sustainable by providing them with improved and automated processes. The possible improvements enabled by sensing technologies are colossal: They include tools from the smart design of buildings to intelligent control systems. Omnipresent sensing poses numerous challenges of a technological or social nature. This chapter presents an overview of the state of the art with regard to sensing in smart cities, including sensing applications in smart cities, sensing platforms, and technical challenges associated with these technologies. A range of applications, technical challenges, and technologies belonging to different disciplines are discussed in this chapter in order to provide a holistic view of the crucial role played by sensing technologies in smart cities. The information presented here will surely help budding researchers create more advanced smart cities structured around sensors and the Internet of Things.

Cities play a prime role in social and economic aspects worldwide and have a huge affect on residents and the environment. Rapid population increase and expansion of resource consumption—combined with industrialisation, urbanisation, mobilisation, agricultural intensification, and excessive consumption-driven lifestyle—are seen as the principal contributors to degrading the quality of cities. To overcome these problems and challenges, cities have encountered many new concepts of city development, such as knowledge-city, eco-city, digital-city, livable-city, and low carbon–city. These concepts have provided new ways for city development. The concept of a smart city itself is still emerging, and the work of defining and conceptualising the concept is in progress. Therefore, there is neither an agreed definition of a smart city nor a set of indicators that could clearly distinguish smart and “less-smart” cities. To close the gap in the literature about smart cities and to respond to the increasing use of the concept, the present chapter reviews the status of research on smart cities and identifies the reasons why there is a need for smart cities in India.

Urbanization has become a universal phenomenon, which is evident from the fact that less-developed countries will experience a rapid pace of urbanization compared with developed countries. For instance, Africa, Asia, and Latin America will have more urban population than North America, Europe, and Australia by 2050. For the first time in the history of human civilization, the urban population exceeded the rural one in 2008. By 2030, it is also estimated that 70% of the worlds’ population will be concentrated in cities. In this regard, the smart city provides different advantages to different emerging new urban areas. Smart cities look to counter and decrease all kinds of challenges, such as lack of energy resources, inadequate health care facilities, poor infrastructure, irregular supply of drinking water, vulnerable housing conditions, etc. In 2015, to meet the growing aspirations of the city’s urban population, the Ministry of Urban Development selected Faridabad, among other 100 cities, to be first on the Smart City Mission list. The Smart City Mission has the basic objective to identify improvements in essential city infrastructure, provide a better quality of life, offer smart solutions to problems, and ensure sustainable development for the unified growth of the city. Analytical and descriptive methods were used in this study. For the collection of data, secondary data and primary survey were used. Qualitative and quantitative techniques were used to generate the results. Based on past experiences regarding the smart city and its role in the development of the city, a household survey was conducted in November 2016 in different towns of Faridabad, Haryana. There is an urgent need in Faridabad to deliver essential infrastructure in such a way as to fulfil the requirements of urbanization. Faridabad needs an inclusive approach to use the optimum potential of smart management because the inclusive approach is considered an efficient and effective tool to capture a healthy relationship among the environment, the government programmes, and the people. In this regard, awareness, public participation, and education can play a vital role in making Faridabad a smart city.

In the context of rapid urbanization in India, overpopulation in National Capital Territory of Delhi increasingly creates chaos, inequalities, poverty, environmental degradation, socio-economic sprawl. Sustainable and urban housing, one of the fundamental features of sustainable urban development, can be considered one of the largest challenges. The main objective of this study is to compare what should be performed with what is today commonly performed in urban-development planning and policy. The concept of a hazard infrastructure governance and socio-economic (HIGS) framework was applied in this chapter as a prominent methodology to obtain appropriate outcomes. It can be concluded that to achieve the goal of urban sustainability; it is necessary to make some structural reforms and progressive planning to create deep and fundamental changes at all levels of urban society, especially in the three levels of government and management, technology, and life standards. This chapter discusses pragmatic approaches to urban-planning decision, and strategies as a whole refer to the dynamics of management and well as the qualification to become and transformation into a livable city.

The process of urban growth is closely related to the size distribution of cities. The world is in the throes of a sweeping population shift from the countryside to the city. Underpinning this transformation are the economies of scale that make concentrated urban centers more productive. The distribution of urban population takes place among settlements of differing sizes along a continuum from small towns to giant cities. The study of urban growth by size class of towns will help to understand the changes of urban development in a region. The growth of cities has the potential for further growth and poverty reduction across many emerging markets. The present study describes the city size in Kerala and its growth rate. Analysis of the 1991 and 2001 census data shows that class I and class II towns dominate the urban system in Kerala in terms of their share of the urban population. Correlation between city size and city growth rate determined that the correlation for all types of towns combined is –0.0185. This shows a very weak correlation, and thus the hypothesis that city size growth is proportional to its growth population is rejected. If we look at urbanisation or urban growth using instantaneous method, the results are staggering. Whereas the growth of urban areas by this method is satisfactory for classes I, II, and III towns, it increases exponentially in the remaining three city categories. This anomaly in Kerala can also be possible due to the low population growth rate and high out-migration from urban areas to Gulf countries. The high literacy rate of Kerala is also responsible for this phenomenon.

Slums meet the housing needs of the weaker section of the society, which migrates to urban areas. Though neither do the slums house all the poor, nor are all slum dwellers poor, slums are areas occupied by wealthy. These areas are poor in socio-economic infrastructure, and their existence in itself poses health risks to the dwellers. Furthermore, because slum dwellers are an important part of the functioning of the city, their rights are also important. Once settled in the slums, occupants are not generally evicted. However, because slums are unhealthy by nature, it is important to rectify the poor condition of slums by considering the dwellers’ viewpoint. Considering both the poor state of slums and their consequent need for improvement, the study analyzes two sets of data. The first analysis pertains to analysis of the basic infrastructure of slums in the State of West Bengal using Census 2011 data; second analysis deals with primary data generated in the field survey conducted in six slums of Kolkata Port Zone using participatory non-numerical random survey method. The primary survey finds a need to give occupancy rights to the slum dwellers as well as further improve the present slum conditions, which at present are currently highly deplorable.

Any involuntary movement of people entails a variety of impoverishment risks for the displaced population. This includes landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalisation, increased morbidity, food insecurity, loss of access to common property, and social disarticulation (Cernea in Economic and Political Weekly 35(41):3659–3678, 2000). Displacement of people in Indian cities has been likened to a type of “cosmetic surgery” (some aspect of the city life looks ugly; remove it!) and not as an instrument of positive change. Even now “resettlement” is often a euphemism for relocation in various policy documents. Especially in the case of displacement in Indian cities, removal of people from the project area is seen as the end of the resettlement exercise. No attempts are made to include the displaced communities into the mainstream population. This is an impediment to the growth of resilient cities. Resettlement in Delhi has always been in areas of deprivation. To understand this is the task of the present study. For analysis and fostering understanding, a chronological history of resettlement in Delhi is also traced. The study used an empirical approach to the problem, and questionnaire-based field surveys were undertaken at three resettlement colonies: Bawana, Bhalsawa, and Tikri Khurd. In addition, focus-group discussions and timeline studies were also undertaken. Various secondary sources, such as Slum Wing, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) Reports, and Census of India Reports, were also studied. This study brings forth the multitude of deprivations faced by the resettled population because of slum displacement. It also further reiterates the fact that resettlement has been to marginal locations that have disadvantages because they are located in vulnerable locations.

Cities are places where different stakeholders try to reach their own goals. The implementation of these goals is primarily focused on the streets in the community. However, streets are also the places where most problems arise within the urban space: congestion, air pollution, noise, and danger to society health and life. The new approach in city urbanism promotes multi-functional and multi-generational space, preserving history and the unique character of each city at the same time, and making sure a revitalized space is available within safe and comfortable walking distance. Unfortunately, planners and investors forget about those obvious demands. In emerging cities and metropolises, new investments usually focus on the expansion of transport infrastructure; unfortunately do not consider other needs of citizens. That limits the possibilities for sustainable development of the cities over the long term. The aim of this study is to analyze urban-street structures and to identify those which are conducive to the reconciliation of different stakeholders’ goals and those which are not able to fulfill such needs. The analysis is based on the comparison of two examples from Baltic Region countries: the city of developed society in Gothenburg in Sweden and the emerging city of Gdansk in Poland. Streets used for comparison have similar functions and meaning in the urban tissue of both cities. Analysis showed the characteristics of the streets, which are supposed to be factors or barriers for cities to sustain development according to the new approach to developing urban guidelines.

The research chapter primarily examines urban flooding caused by catastrophic rainfall that occurred in December 2015 in Chennai, India. Chennai, India’s fourth largest metropolitan city, was totally paralyzed by flooding for several days. The deluge destroyed crucial roads and rail-links, shut down the airport, snapped power and telecom lines, and cut off >3 million people from basic services for several days. This study investigates the dynamics of rainfall in and around Chennai city in particular and Tamil Nadu state in general. The devastating rains exposed the urban resilience in this important metropolitan. City resilience is its ability to endure in the face of emergency situations arising due to natural or man-made catastrophes. The present study also explains the weather system that prevailed during the incessant rainfall that inundated several parts of the city. It highlights the paradox of scarcity and abundance that exists in Chennai, which remains one of the most water-stressed cities in India. It probes the major causes of urban flooding from three different perspectives—global warming, those related to El-Nino, and those related to faulty urban-planning practices—thus highlighting the importance of resilience in smart-city design. In this regard, an effort is made to decode the Chennai flood in context of major urban-planning and urban-design principles outlined under the UN’s Habitat-II and III. It points out the ways in which land-use planning and environment protection has been blatantly ignored by the authorities, again highlighting the importance of making cities resilient. It tries to underline, through examples, the apathy and laxity of local authorities in urban management and governance practices. The chapter also envisages to measure level of disaster preparedness during those floods and concludes that for a city that dreams of attaining global competency, Chennai was complacent about its vulnerability to natural disasters.

A city is resilient when it has the developing capacities to overcome natural and economical disasters and still be able to maintain essentially the same functions, structures, systems, and identity. From the literature regarding the driving factors that make a city resilient to various environmental, economic, and natural hazards, it was found that administration, risk assessment, environment, financing, schools and hospitals, infrastructure, planning, preparedness, training, and awareness and reconstruction were driving factors. To study these factors, three major urban cities of India—New Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai—were considered in the study to evaluate the level of resilience these cities possess to face natural and environmental calamities. On analysis of data from the literature, it was found that all the case cities lacked advanced resilience technologies and had only basic resilience tools to face natural and environmental calamities. Delhi was found to have better resilience than Mumbai and Chennai on awareness, training strategies and environment protection, while Mumbai was found to have better resilience than Delhi and Chennai on the basis of financial investments and infrastructures. It is recommended that all three metropolitan cities need additional improvement regarding risk assessment, planning, and administration. Moreover, Delhi must focus on improving its overall infrastructure, whilst Mumbai needs to engage more on environmental and awareness actions.

Every elderly person faces health problems, especially chronic disease, because the human body becomes weaker and more vulnerable to disease. They face many physical and mental changes, such as weakness, difficulties in daily work, poor visibility, hearing problems, memory decline, depression, loneliness, and exclusion from society among others. They are more vulnerable to various communicable and non-communicable diseases due to old age. Moreover, the elderly residing in urban areas are more vulnerable because of noise, congestion, and pollution in the town. The urban elderly are generally engaged in less physical work compared with the rural elderly. Therefore, cases of high blood pressure and obesity are generally observed in elderly living in urban areas. The objective of the study is to determine various types of acute and chronic disease among elderly men and women living in urban areas and compare them with those of elderly living in rural areas. The data were collected through structured questionnaire in 2013. In total, 125 elderly living in Siwan town in the Bihar district and 125 elderly of living in the surrounding rural area were surveyed for the study. Statistical techniques include cross-tabulation and binary logistic regression for better understanding the research problem. It was found that high blood pressure, diabetes, eye, gastric, and heart disease are more common among elderly from urban areas, also multiple chronic diseases are very common among them. Family environment, family support, and literacy are the major determinants of chronic morbidity among elderly living in urban areas.

The concept of universal health accessibility equips every individual, family, and community with knowledge, thus enabling them to take positive action and make sound health choices. Mere availability of opportunities does not solve the problem of lacking health care. Social positioning in society (class status) determines health choices, thus making it problematic for unskilled workers belonging to the migrant category to access better choices for health care. Resilient social resources determine the health knowledge, attitude, and practices of the population. Migrants from similar cultural backgrounds as natives of the city face more of barriers to accessing health services. Knowledge is lacking regarding migrants’ health beliefs and access to health information. Henceforth, the present study attempts to explore social-resources resilience among manual migrant workers at the place of destination as well as the hindrances they face while trying to obtain these social resources.

Urbanization is the process of urban-population expansion mainly due to the movement of people from rural to urban areas. This causes the expansion of a town or a city. Urbanization is an on-going process that creates opportunities for people on one hand and creates new challenges for sustainable living on the other. Urbanization, although often linked to development, in fact poses several challenges to development. It is a slow and gradual process that, with the passage of time, tries to accommodate increasing numbers of people. Cities undergo demographic, morphological, environmental, social, economic, and cultural changes. With land area being fixed and almost limited, the challenge of accommodating additional people and their needs multiply. It becomes difficult to ascertain the optimum land-use model for cities as they expand haphazardly. Drastic changes in lifestyle and the urban environment further pose health hazards. The imbalance between development and the environment always remains an issue to be solved by experts and planners. Urban expansion eradicates green spaces or the so-called “lungs” of cities. Considerable work has been done in recent times exploring the link between urban green space and the well-being of people. “Green space” refers to a wide variety of natural and landscaped areas both publicly and privately owned. It includes parks, ravines, school yards, private yards, street trees, landscaped open spaces along streets and around buildings, cemeteries, and green roofs. Urban green spaces provide environmental benefits through their positive effects of negating urban heat, off-setting greenhouse-gas emissions, and attenuating storm water. They also have direct health benefits by providing urban residents with spaces for physical activity and social interaction and allowing psychological restoration to take place. The health-related benefits of green space are well known, but there is also an emergent need to understand how green space affects the healthcare cost of an urban household, which is also highlighted in the present study. Urban green spaces are not just a natural phenomenon; their expansion and shrinkage also depend on people’s perceptions and emotions, which ultimately lead to urban well-being and decreased healthcare costs. In the cosmopolitan culture of a city, everyone should have the goal of sustainable living and must be determined to achieve it. It is important for people to understand that awareness and ethics are an integral part of their sustainable urban living. This chapter identifies the green resources of Delhi and attempts to understand and analyse peoples’ perception of the presence of green spaces as well as their need of green spaces for health and overall well-being. The urban green spaces of the capital city were identified by remote sensing using Landsat 7 and 8 images. Keeping in view the strong link between green spaces and environmental psychology, an Environmental Emotional Quotient was formulated based on the questions administered to them.

Bhopal was shortlisted as an aspirant in the smart-cities challenge by the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India. The Indian government’s Smart Cities model is an innovative sustainable urban-development solution that uses information and communication technologies and other means to improve quality of life, efficiency of urban operation and services, and competitiveness while ensuring that it meets the needs of present and future generations with respect to economic, social, and environmental aspects. To provide a set of strategic and operational research methodologies and systems solutions that cater to the needs of the Bhopal developing sectors, current trends of urbanization with their impact on the health of the city must be studied. This chapter aims to quantify the spatio-temporal patterns of urban expansion and their relationships with land-surface temperature (LST) as a prime indicator of city health in Bhopal. The process was studied using LST and the urban land–cover pattern derived from Landsat TM/ETM satellite data for two decades (1995–2015). In this study, the four major land-cover classes mapped include (i) built-up areas, (ii) water, (iii) vegetation, and (iv) others. Three spectral indices were used to characterize three foremost urban land-use classes: (1) a normalized difference built-up index (NDBI) to characterize built-up areas; (2) a modified normalized difference water index (MNDWI) to signify open water; and (3) a soil-adjusted vegetation index (SAVI) to symbolize green vegetation. Land-use and land-cover (LULC) maps prepared using the NDBI, MNDWI, and SAVI had, respectively, an overall accuracy of 90, 88, and 86% and kappa coefficient of 0.8726, 0.8455, and 0.8212 for 1989, 2006, and 2010. These changes, when attributed in increasing surface temperature in the study region, show a positive correlation between LST and NDBI, a negative correlation between LST and SAVI, and a perfectly negative correlation between NDBI and MNDWI.

More than half of the world’s population lives in urbanised cities, and these cities are facing various ecological challenges. Eco2 cities are sustainable cities with large communities presenting challenges and opportunities for the developers and urban planners defining the goal of sustainable cities. To make a city sustainable is to energise current and future generations to have minimal reliance on the surrounding countryside and endow it with power from renewable and non-renewable sources of energy. An eco-city is one designed by planners with best-quality environmental-friendly solutions and created with a mind toward studying the impacts of these solutions. This is done to minimize the use of energy, water, and food as well as minimize waste outputs of heat, air, and water pollution (White 2001). Aspects of these principles include education and training for all regarding sustainable development, technical research, exchange of experiences, and knowledge dissemination in the field of sustainable-city theory.

Conventional building materials—such as paints, solvents, plastics, and composite timbers—along with biological pollutants (e.g., dust, mites, and moulds) and building methods—have been linked to a wide range of health problems. That is why construction technology is constantly being developed and improved and now places more emphasis on eco-friendly construction. Eco-friendly construction enables decreased energy consumption due to the use of energy-efficient design, materials, and building techniques. Decreased energy consumption automatically decreases the carbon footprint and helps decrease human impact on the environment. In addition, green construction typically uses environment-friendly materials and construction methods, which are good for both the environment and for human health. Eco-construction techniques include using energy bricks, which blend solid byproducts into manufactured bricks to partially replace normally quarried clay; another method to incorporate an eco-friendly aspect into construction is the use of plastic waste materials in road-making. If these materials can be suitably used in highway-road construction, pollution and disposal problems may be partly decreased, literally helping pave the way towards smart cities. The objective is both to develop new construction materials and decrease the environmental impact of currently used construction materials. In the present chapter, eco-friendly bricks are manufactured and their properties compared with those of conventional bricks. A study was also conducted among different academic institutions in Noida and the Greater Noida region to evaluate willingness to pay more for using eco-friendly materials in construction.

This study analyses the views of people in Aligarh District towards the flora and fauna that surround them. The study was designed to capture the insights of an indigenous accepted wisdom related to north Indian society. Subsequently, it examines the prospects available for the conservation of biodiversity in the district. For this research, primary data were collected with the help of a structured questionnaire. The study found that the residents of the district are thoughtful towards the flora and fauna surrounding them. They take good care of biodiversity to the best of their ability and believe. According to Hindu mythology, it is believe that killing any living creature considered as a sin. This religious belief helps to conserve and protect the biodiversity of the district.

Japanese regional capitals—such as Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka—have rapidly grown since the 1950s. These cities, in addition to the former six largest cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, Kyoto, and Kobe), have become metropoles. The main driving force behind the remarkable development of regional capitals was not industrialization but the agglomeration of branch offices headquartered in Tokyo or Osaka: These cities are now referred to as “branch-office economy cities.” However, during the latter half of the 1990s, branch agglomeration in regional capitals stopped increasing and began to decrease. Consequently, regional capitals needed to explore ways other than development to achieve hierarchical inter-city linking with Tokyo as the apex. We propose a way to expand the city network of horizontal intercity linkages focusing on individual cities. The network is called the “individual city-centered network.” Actors that develop these networks are various entities—such as government agencies, companies, civil-society groups, citizens, and travelers—operating in the city. To sustain urban vitality, we conclude that it would be necessary to understand the actual conditions of the networks inside and outside of the city and to develop an environment in which to expand them.

From the time of the liberalisation of the Indian economy in the 1990s, a large number of Indian cities have witnessed a high rate of economic growth, urban development, and social transformation. From that time onwards, a great influx of people from various parts of the country moved to the cities and towns in search of better opportunities. As a consequence, Indian cities are now facing congestion, overwhelmed infrastructures, slums, depletion of resources, and unemployment every day, which has affected the quality of city life. Thus, it is exceedingly desirable for Indian cities to attain knowledge of technologies, public participation, and smart sustainable growth to develop new smart cities and transform the existing cities in a better way in order to unleash their true potential. In late June 2015, the Government of India ambitiously announced a revolutionary urban program to create a “100 Smart Cities” initiative across India in an effort to take advantage of the country’s recent urban boom and catalyse investments in cities. This chapter is an attempt to investigate various challenges a smart city face, such as the smart use of technology and its urban planning interrelation to solve complex urban challenges in the Indian context.

Sustainable tourism, sustainable-tourism development, and sustainable-development principles are commonly used within the framework of sustainable development. Both tourism researchers and practitioners are trying to understand/develop, integrate, and apply the main concepts. In this process, the concept of sustainable-tourism planning was analyzed thoroughly, and the theory of sustainable strategies identified with appropriate optimal goals. The theoretical discussion has progressed considerably in this discussion at every forum across the nation. The problem is that the theoretical discussion seems to be too far ahead and too abstract compared with the development found on an operational level. Given the complexity of the issues surrounding the concept of sustainable tourism, the current chapter tries to provide a unified methodology to assess tourism sustainability based on a number of quantitative indicators. The proposed methodological framework (sustainable-tourism measurement [STM]) will provide a number of benchmarks against which the sustainability of tourism activities in various countries can be assessed. The methodology used includes the following steps: identification of the dimensions (socio-economic, cultural, ecological, infrastructural, etc.) and indicators, method of scaling, and chart representation. To illustrate the usefulness of the STM, tourism sustainability was assessed in the developing Asian countries of India, Malaysia, and Thailand. The preliminary results show that a similar level of tourism activity across countries might induce different economic benefits and might have different consequences for the socio-ecological environment. Therefore, the STM is a useful tool to assess the heterogeneity of developing countries and detect the main problems each country faces in their tourism-development strategy.

According to UNESCO, urban governance is the process that leads and takes into account the various links between stakeholders, local authorities, and citizens. It includes written and unwritten policies, procedures, and decision-making by units that control resource allocation within and among institutions. Heritage-inclusive development (HID) polices represents the integration of urban governance and heritage properties that oversees sacred places, which can be an integral part of greater ensembles, such as historic cities, cultural landscapes, and natural sites. The sacred and religious heritage city of Ayodhya plays an important role in the formation of religious nationalism and corporate identity of religious heritage through cultural performances and religious festivities. The main institutional and administrative bodies of Ayodhya, viz. Municipality, City Development Authority, Ayodhya Research Institute, Indian National Trust for Art, Culture and Heritage, Tornos and some others—fulfil the three dimensions of urban governance, i.e., political, economic, and institutional, and together they play important role in creating heritage-inclusive development policies and programmes. Ayodhya Research Institute and Tornos focus and promote the tangible and intangible heritages of Ayodhya using heritage attributes as resources. This chapter critically narrates various components of urban governance and observes their role in heritage planning through heritage-inclusive development polices in addition to the implications of the recent heritage-based national programmes. Qualitative approach, participatory observations together with field studies, and interfacing interviews are the main framework of this chapter.

Now a day’s urbanization and industrialization is going rapidly throughout the world in the name of development. With such development, we are disturbing our nature/ecological system. In return, nature responds in form of disturbing events and the scale vary from minor to major. They vanish whole city or part of it. To overcome the impact of disasters, we have to make the cities resilient against these types of natural as well as manmade disasters. The world has moved from United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in order to make the planet more sustainable; where one of the SDG focus is to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. Various stakeholders (individual, community, private and public) have to come together at single platform to make the planet more livable.