Urban Planning in Nepal: Approaching Sustainability

                                                                                                                               2019

     It has become clear that urbanization is inevitable. With this, our planning approach has become mostly urban. There is a growing significance of urban development in Nepal.  The field of urban planning extended with the growing issues and challenges of urbanization. Human activities take place mostly in urban areas; and affect the environment.  Urban planning is concerned with the organization of such activities over the urban space for sustainability. It has generated tools related to making national and regional development sustainable.  The lack of a comprehensive approach has created confusions in the application of urban planning in Nepal. There is a need to avoid them in order to sustain its distinct identity; it needs to be well defined.  This book is an attempt to present different approaches of urban planning and related experiences in Nepal into a single volume in a comprehensive way.  It reflects the evolution of urban planning in Nepal. It contains what needs to be done for transforming urban planning to make it effective and relevant in facing the emerging challenges of sustainable urbanization and urban development in Nepal. The book deals with the core elements of urban planning; and shows how it should be made strategic in order to fulfill the long-term goals of master planning while underscoring the importance of integrated action planning.  It shows different approaches for the sustainable use of the urban land and highlights the significance of common public spaces. It presents infrastructure and services as integral parts of urban development for raising the quality of life in urban areas by meeting the needs of the people. It tries to link them with sustainability. The book is expected to raise awareness on the relevance of urban planning in approaching sustainability. It works on strategies for making cities inclusive and sustainable; resilient and safe; and smart.

Foreword

 

Through this book, Dr. Jibgar Joshi, a renowned scholar and professional with rich experience, offers among other things, a language and tools for talking cities and understanding the process of planning, forming and developing cities in the present context. I have known Jibgar for more than four decades. He has over the years kept himself engaged in active academic and professional exercise.

The book provides readers with a framework, which could be instrumental in getting the insight of all the parameters essential for building cities. Careful perusal of the book could convince readers that the narrative mentioned in the book, if translated professionally into actual practice, could result in the emergence of a city with capacity to remain inclusive, safe, and resilient.  Nepalese have witnessed the ongoing unplanned growth of cities in the country and are struggling for getting basic services. Having read the book, I believe the readers would come across a valuable message for avoiding flaws and biases in urban development strategy. The book might reassure its readers about viability of cities which are livable and manageable in their own life time and in their own vicinity. Dr. Joshi's strategy gets mapped impressively as he discusses in practical tone, integrated action planning and strategic planning. The writer takes special care in blending the concepts and practices of integrated planning, investment planning, and strategic planning in the context of realizing the vision of master plan for urban areas.  In a display of pragmatism, he lays emphasis on flexibility in allowing the implementation-dynamics of the process and actors attached to the key elements – planning, integration, and investment – to take their due course prudently.

The book is responsive to climate change issues and advocates the use of clean energy. The latest move for saving environment for future expressed in vocabulary of various sorts such as green revolution, respect to natural resources in the heat of development drive, saving mother earth, back to nature, safe earth, and development not at the cost of environment, also features in the book in a prominent way. He refers to the years of dedicated contribution that communities made in creating common public spaces and pinpoints the current pressure on them because of the growing needs of present day economic growth. He voices for their continued accessibility to all people irrespective of their income level. The doctrine he advocates is a complex of concepts and practices. It includes, among others, respect for common spaces and appreciation of their relevance, open heart for integrating them with development, and innovations to use them for sustainability.

After a comprehensive tour of urban planning through different perspectives which adorn the book, the readers may have a better feeling of the mess in cities, confusion in role of actors, haze in vision, and drifting policies reflected in the latest state of city-building in the country. Dwelling on the conflict currently being felt in growing demand for and inadequate supply of services, he finds an appropriate role for engineers and planners and also a challenge for them: building infrastructure with apt design and with proper use of land focusing on sustainability and ICT. Arguing that "it is possible to transform rural areas into sustainable and vibrant urban centers", the author mentions:  "people should be made aware of their needs and the possibilities of meeting them in the best possible way.” The book underlines the need for building province-specific and region-specific cities in Nepal and provides guidance to provincial leadership for this. Take-away from the book in this regard is clear: a working urban system could strengthen provincial economies which would then enable the country to realize prosperity at the national level.

The book is interesting to read; and facilitates understanding of issues related to core dimensions of urban planning and its parameters and linkages. Dr. Joshi has taken special care to avoid planners' and engineers' jargon and scholarly show-off for focusing on communicating his message to common Nepalese who take interest in development matters particularly in the way cities are built or managed. The positive and constructive tone that readers find in various pages of the book should be appreciated for it helps to move on remedying errors of the past. A rich bibliography and appropriate attributions wherever needed exhibit the writer's keen sense of research and professional authenticity.  It is because of these qualities that the book could be termed “a must read book” for those interested in development and cities. I commend it. It will, besides providing readers with updated way of looking at city development and planning, facilitate the decision makers, planners and builders to refresh their thinking and construction practices about city and development matters.

Prof. Rama Krishna Regmee, Senior Journalist

Professor, Kantipur City College

     Putalisadak, Kathmandu.


 Preface

 

Nepal has a great deal of experiences in urban planning and development with lots of success stories. With its engagement in many types of planning works, there has been an immense growth in planning knowledge. Many innovative planning tools have been invented and applied. At the same time, its scope has expanded with new challenges of unprecedented nature. However, the success could not be extended to create impacts in terms of sustainable improvement in the quality of life through the provision of urban services. 

The field of urban planning is expanding fast; and its growing influence at regional and federal level is clearly visible with the growth of urban economy. Once considered as an extension of building as a part of civil engineering, it now covers almost all the disciplines. Earlier, urban development used to be seen as a sector with little contribution to national economy. The focus used to be on rural and national development; and investments in cities were not a priority. Today urban sector has become the major contributor to national development.  Most of the investments are being centered on urban areas. Slowly we realized that whatever our policies and intents might have been, our actions and preferences centered on cities. We are now aware that it is not the policy intents that make a difference. What makes difference are our actions and investments. Cities now play a key role in the transformation of the national economy. We now realize that national production suffered greatly as we did not provide appropriate sites for our projects and activities in cities. Increasing investments in cities are the drivers of development and most activities related to national, provincial or local development take place in urban areas. However development in urban areas are taking place in an unplanned way. Urban planning has become less effective. It has not been able to face the new challenges brought about by rapid urbanization. There is an increasing problem of coordination and integration. As a result cities are facing challenges of sustainable development such as increasing exclusion and climate change.

Being associated with planning exercises for more than four decades, I had the privilege of witnessing the evolution of urban planning in Nepal. Over the years, I have been using various tools and methods of urban planning during the course of research, teaching, and preparation of plans and policies and their implementation.  Urban planning, instead of being developed as a tool for sustainable development, is being shaped through short-run political needs at federal, provincial, and local level. It is being manipulated to ignore equity and environment for the sake of immediate return. The primary goal of planning is to enhance the public good. The changes in the scope of urban planning have placed much more responsibility on urban planners. However, they are being engaged more on isolated activities not necessarily linked with the public good. Sustainability can and should be approached by making cities as well as urbanization more sustainable. It is achieved through the sustainable use of resources for meeting the human needs and sustaining the ability to meet their future needs. It largely relies on the management of urban services in a sustainable way. Poorly managed cities consume natural resources, most of which are not renewable.

The book tries to reflect the evolution of urban planning in Nepal for a long time. It tries to present different approaches of urban planning and related experiences in Nepal in a comprehensive way. It is written with the purpose of making urban planning more relevant and effective in the context of sustainable development. It is expected to raise awareness on the relevance of urban planning in the context of approaching sustainability. I will consider my efforts worthwhile if it can influence the development of urban planning to this direction. Although the book is intended for all who have some interest in the prosperity of Nepal, it will, in particular, be relevant and useful for planners and planning students as well as for municipal officials.

I am grateful to Prof. Rama Krishna Regmee for his foreword. My thanks are due to Mr. Madan Bista, MS Offset Press.  I owe a great deal to my family; my wife Lajmina provided me continuous support and my daughter Dr. Dipika Joshi helped me with her valuable suggestions in making this publication possible.

 May 2019                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Jibgar Joshi      

                                                                                                                                                                                                   464 Tahachal Marg, Kathmandu

 

Regional Strategies for Sustainable Development in Nepal

2009

 This book of Dr. Joshi is a comprehensive work on regional strategies that should be followed to make development more sustainable in Nepal. It shows how space and environment should be considered in the preparation of sectoral policies. It describes regional and sustainable development strategies; and shows how these can be applied for making sectoral plans more effective. It describes the urbanization process in Nepal. It presents a growth centre strategy for Nepal; and describes national urban system for organizing the national space based on the proposed strategy. It explains the role of cities and towns of different hierarchy. It shows how rural urban linkage potentials should be harnessed to ensure balanced development of urban and rural settlements. It deals with governance at different levels.

Dr. Joshi elaborates the underlying concepts of linkage centers; and shows how investments should be allocated to key sectors of different regions. He shows how strategic activities should be identified in different regions. He puts forward the concept of city regions and resource regions for pursuing the goals of sustainable development. The model he suggested has 15 planning regions. He argues that the federal structure of Nepal should be guided by the concept of such regions. He has used the principle of regional planning to elaborate the role of federal government.

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PLANNING APPROACHES IN NEPAL

 

 

In this book, Dr Jibgar Joshi gives an account of some of the planning approaches that he has applied during the course of his long career. He has presented the concept of planning as a tool for making decisions in a wide spectrum of situations in a lucid and concise manner. The book is a comprehensive work on planning at different levels in Nepal. It provides a review of national planning since its inception. It deals with planning at sub-national levels; and stresses on the need for their integration with national planning. It explains the methods of project analysis in simple terms and gives details on how to make a plan. It also deals with environment and land use. It shows how infrastructure agencies should develop their business plans. One of its chapter deals with institutions. The book concludes with a discourse on the future of planning where he has shown concern for the need of making planning useful and relevant. For this, he has suggested measures to make planning strategic in order to enhance the social good.





 

 

Managing Environment and Cities for Sustainable Development

The global economy defines the way we manage our cities. At the same time, the way we manage our cities has immense impact on the global environment, not to speak of climate change. This book is an attempt to show how cities and environment should be managed for sustainable development. It works on their integration. It is a comprehensive work on environment and cities.  It explores the changing perspective on environment.

Human activities take place mostly in cities; and affect the environment. The book views environment as an integral part of human life and happiness. It deals with different aspects of urban environmental management; and shows how urban environment can be improved with a view to meeting the goals of sustainable development. One of its chapter deals with climate change and cities. It provides a framework for environmental governance at different levels. It shows ways and means of building capacity in developing countries. It deals with strategies to manage environment as well as cities, and try to link them together for sustainable development. It tries to give a framework for an integrated action on environment and cities.