Sustainability and Resilience of Urban Agglomeration

#### **Chapter 1**

## The Concept of Sustainability in the Brazilian Road Freight Transportation Sector

*Rodrigo Duarte Soliani*

#### **Abstract**

The road cargo transportation system has significant representativeness in the Brazilian economic scenario. Companies depend on transportation to receive inputs from their suppliers and take their products to consumers. This modal is also the major consumer of fuel oil products in the transportation sector. Thus, it is necessary to act with a focus on sustainability, considering the economic, social and environmental aspects. From this perspective, this study aims to present aspects of the concept of sustainability in the Brazilian road freight transportation sector, with emphasis on the environmental, social and economic dimensions. A qualitative research approach was used with the literature research technique in order to build the theoretical basis for discussion on the dimensions of sustainability in Brazilian road freight transportation. The results show that the road cargo transportation sector is relevant for the country and seeks to fulfill its social role and be economically viable; requires attention to environmental awareness and eco-efficiency; should make efforts to use alternatives to avoid damage to the environment, applying technologies to reduce noise pollution, GHG emissions; and seek to comply with environmental legislation acting in a sustainable manner.

**Keywords:** Sustainable Transport, Environmental Dimension, Social Dimension, Economic Dimension, Road Freight Transportation

#### **1. Introduction**

In the most diverse organizations, the debate on sustainability has been intensely present in a constant challenge to the potential to generate value for customers, shareholders and society in general. Nowadays, sustainability has become a fundamental theme, with evidence to avoid the negative impacts of activities, also reflecting technological advances, population growth and consumption [1].

This comprehensive view of the importance of sustainability being undertaken in companies also has its validity for the cargo transportation sector, in this specific case, the road modal is the most representative one, being responsible for handling more than 60% of cargo in Brazil [2]. The preference for road transportation compared with other transportation systems is marked by factors such as: greater flexibility and easier access by trucks to the most different locations; ability to transport goods door-to-door; simplification of the sending of documentation in relation to the railway modal; and faster delivery of the product [3].

Freight transportation operations between cities and states, as well as between the producer and the distribution centers and between these and the final market, show relevant economic importance. However, this activity, due to the large number of trucks, in view of the need for loading and unloading operations, causes impacts, both on cities and on roads [4].

This dynamic of road cargo transportation operations has its share of contribution to the country's development process, however, on the other hand, it highlights the intense use of an energy pattern based on fossil fuels that strengthens the relationship with the increase in gas emissions greenhouse effect (GHG) of anthropic origin [5]. However, this is an aspect that raises the question of how to undertake sustainability in road freight transportation. From this perspective, this study aims to discuss the dimensions of the concept of sustainability in the Brazilian road freight transportation sector, identifying the main attributes for a road freight transportation to be characterized as sustainable.

#### **2. Sustainability**

The organizational posture focused on sustainability has been increasingly valued by stakeholders (shareholders, employees, customers and the community itself). The concept of sustainability is based on the concept of the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), as presented by John Elkington in 1994, composed of the economic, social and environmental dimensions, forming the tripod of corporate sustainability [6]. The interaction and integration between these three pillars bring benefits to the environment and to society, and contribute in the long term to the good economic performance and competitive differential of companies [7–9].

Sustainability has evolved from two sources: the first, in biology, with an emphasis on ecology, highlighting the potential for the recovery and reproduction of ecosystems (resilience), in the face of anthropic actions; the second, in the economy, as a developmental factor, due to the verification of the growth of production and consumption in the course of the 20th century, and which signals the continuity of this rhythm, considering the population increase [10].

Patti, Silva and Estender [11] consider sustainability as a strategy that makes up development, resulting in improved quality of life. From this perspective, an integrated management is projected covering aspects of social development, economic growth and environmental protection. Sustainability is evident as a debate present in the daily agenda of organizations, agencies and government sectors, in non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as in the academic environment and in the media in general. Companies have shown interest in the issue, constituting a legal order and government recommendations, projecting environmental and social repercussions.

As for the economic dimension of sustainability, companies need to make products available for consumption, however, this process should provide financial return on the investment made. With regard to the social dimension, the organization needs to offer good working conditions, job creation, social inclusion to combat inequality. In the environmental aspect, the company must have its actions guided by ecoefficiency, being concerned with the impacts caused by the use of natural resources and by the pollutant emissions [12]. An eco-efficient operation is one that manages to produce more and better, with less resources and less waste generation [13].

#### **2.1 Environmental dimension**

Usually, the environmental dimension is the first sustainability dimension cited as it concentrates the assumptions that production actions and consumption behavior

#### *The Concept of Sustainability in the Brazilian Road Freight Transportation Sector DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97280*

are compatible with the material - basis of the economy, as a subsystem of the natural environment. It is constituted in the processes of producing and consuming in order to ensure that ecosystems can evolve in their self-repair or resilience potential [10].

The environmental dimension of sustainability emphasizes the preservation of ecological processes, with special attention to the capacity of physical and biological systems to withstand adversity and to maintain its structure and functions. In the environmental view, sustainability points to the impacts of actions caused by people in relation to the environment. It is a process that establishes policies for the conservation of energy and natural resources, reduces the use of fossil fuels and the emission of polluting substances, substitutes non-renewable products for renewable ones and transforms used products into more efficient ones [14].

The concept of environmental responsibility goes beyond the mere fulfillment of obligations established by legislation. It contemplates citizenship, social commitment, principles, beliefs and values of an organization, their employees and the communities affected [15]. From sustainability centered on the environmental concept, two actions evolve: the ecological balance that ensures living conditions for people, fauna and flora, and the sustainable use of natural resources by organizations. It involves compliance with environmental laws, the elaboration of projects with reduced environmental impacts, the management of liquid and solid waste, the application of clean technologies, recycling and environmental education [16]. Briefly and directly, all these determinations converge to the term eco-efficiency.

#### **2.2 Social dimension**

The social dimension represents the concern to provide society with conditions to live properly. A sustainable society is supported by the theory that all its members have the minimum necessary to live with dignity and that no one practices acts that can harm others [10].

In Gomes and Moretti [17], "social responsibility is the ability to give answers or to seek them". The authors emphasize that social responsibility is one of the active elements in the relationship between organizations and stakeholders, thus, the companies involved in this proposal work to offer answers to social needs.

The sociocultural concept highlights sustainability procedures inserted in performance and profit, being attentive to the social and environmental impacts of the actions, with a focus on the quality of life of communities, cultural memory and economic growth. Sustainability under the social view has its activities directed to people, with care for their well-being and quality of life [18].

#### **2.3 Economic dimension**

The economic dimension presupposes increasing production and consumption with better use of natural resources, especially fossil sources of energy, water and mineral resources [10]. Sustainability based on the economic aspect supports development and environmental policies in the face of costs and benefits and an economic assessment that supports environmental protection and raises levels of well-being. From this perspective, sustainability includes allocating and managing resources more efficiently and a regular flow of public and private investment. It aims its activities to maximize profit, however, it seeks to sustain competitiveness in the market and seeks to remain aware of environmental and social aspects [19].

Businesses demand the entrepreneur's comprehensive and holistic perspective in order to remain active and with a high level of competitiveness in the segment and in the market. They require the adoption of a management model that has identification with the market in which it operates, seeking to generate profitability for shareholders and respect and commitment to citizenship and environmental preservation. It is, however, an imposition of the market to apply socially responsible and sustainable management, as well as an advantage for obtaining profit, which is the guarantee factor of longevity of the business [15].

#### **3. Overview of road cargo transportation in Brazil**

Road transportation is a complementary modality *par excellence* in different situations of cargo transposition, since it is through trucks that different loads leave the production source and reach the railways, airports or ports [20].

The statistics from the National Transportation Confederation [21] shows the road modal with a composition of more than 2.6 million trucks, 600 thousand mechanical horses, 1.3 million trailers and 900 thousand semi-trailers. This structure handled 485 million tons of useful kilometers (TKU), representing 61.1% of the total transportation cargo. It is worth mentioning that the national fleet has more than 63 thousand autonomous drivers. However, the CNT [22] points out that of the 103,259 km of roads analyzed, 58.2% have some type of problem, whether in the conditions of the pavement, signage or road geometry. Regarding the pavement, 48.3% of the stretches evaluated received a regular, poor or very bad classification.

According to the National Land Transportation Agency [23], the average age of the Brazilian fleet is 13 years, with 16.8 years for autonomous vehicles, 9.5 years for companies and 12.6 years for those who belong cooperatives. Vehicle age is an important factor and is reflected in the type of engine and installed emission control technology [24]. The largest concentration of trucks is in the South and Southeast regions due to the greater economic activity, but they operate throughout the national territory on urban and intercity roads of variable quality [25].

The transportation sector consumes about 30% of the country's total energy, with 92% of that consumption taking place in road transportation. Still, transportation consumes 51% of oil products spent in Brazil [26].

Road freight transportation has its typical body type established in Ordinance 96/2015. It is a wide variety of body types defined to suit different goods. The bodies are: open, tipper, chassis, closed, van, board, tank, among others [27].

Cargo transportation is part of an organization's product distribution logistics system and is represented by three players. The first one is the user: units from the industrial, trade and agribusiness sectors. The second are companies that operate in a cooperative manner such as: Road Cargo Transportation (TRC), Logistic Operators (OL), Multimodal Transportation Operators (OTM) and Logistics Service Quarters (4PL). Municipal, state and federal governments form the third player. Their role is to provide infrastructure for roads and terminals suitable for transportation services, in addition to regulation of operation through regulatory agencies. The decisions to optimize the logistics transportation networks, based on improvements in infrastructure, are objects of the political sphere and, therefore, difficult to influence isolated or cooperated by operators and/or users of the system [28].

Thus, road freight transportation is representative in the country's economy and has great historical and current significance in development. It integrates the Brazilian transportation scenario in a relevantly. However, it needs improvements, both in equipment and infrastructure to carry out operations. One way to achieve sustainable development is to put pressure on national transportation sectors to become more sustainable. The transportation sector is an important field for implementing sustainability strategies as it causes many environmental, social and economic problems, such as air pollution, gas emissions, demand for land and infrastructure, among others.

*The Concept of Sustainability in the Brazilian Road Freight Transportation Sector DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97280*

#### **3.1 Sustainable transportation**

Sustainable transportation is motivated by three considerations: 1) the concern with cargo transportation and the direction to the operational structure, mainly with regard to roads; 2) recognition for the reduction of vehicles in circulation; and 3) the growth of sustainability awareness. These are connotations that seek to highlight sustainability to ensure business [29].

In Rodrigue [29], sustainable transportation is one that: allows the basic demands of access by society in general to be carried out safely and without damage to human health and ecosystems, and with balance; if it is consolidated as accessible, it acts efficiently, it has options of type of transportation and it sustains a growing economy; limits emissions and waste within the planet's absorption capacity, reducing the consumption of non-renewable resources, and limits the consumption of renewable resources to the levels of sustainable yield, with recycling and reuse of its components.

Companies that work with cargo transportation, following the logic of competitiveness, are increasingly committed to incorporating technological innovations as an alternative to differentiate themselves from competitors and improve customer service. Putting new technologies into practice is a situation endogenous to the capitalist and globalized system, in which consumption determinations and marketing, sales and customer relations are based on consumer opinion and trends [30].

The ability of an organization to grow in a scenario of strong competition is directly associated with the ability to develop some kind of differential. This factor represents, above all, the development and adoption of innovations for the best relationship with the customer, to generate new products or to be able to establish more efficient processes [30]. In this panorama of the performance of road cargo transportation, the highlights are the innovations of a sustainable character, responsible for directing actions for the preservation of the environment, and also sufficient to optimize resources and reduce costs.

#### **4. Materials and methods**

The methodology adopted for the development of this study, according to Prodanov and Freitas [31], is: by the qualitative approach of the problem, since it has a dynamic relationship between the real world and the subject, through interpretation without representation numerical; for its exploratory objective, since it intends to familiarize itself with the problem and present hypotheses; and by the technical, bibliographic procedures, when its elaboration uses material already published in the most varied media.

According to Gil [32], literature research is developed from material already prepared, consisting mainly of books and scientific articles. In qualitative research, the natural environment is the direct source for the search for information. The researcher has direct contact with the environment and the object of study in question. The data are observed in their study environment, without the need for manipulation or the application of statistical methods or techniques. The information collected is descriptive, representing the largest possible repertoire of elements existing in the studied reality [31].

For the collection of articles, we used the databases Ebsco, Scopus and Web of Science for article collection of those aligned with the core of this research, the following keywords were adopted: "Transportation" and "Energy Use" and "Environmental Impacts"; "Sustainable Economy" and "Best practices"; "Sustainable Development" and "Business Strategies"; "Sustainable" and "Supply Chain Management"; "Sustainability" and "Road transportation".

These words were used in all defined databases and the filters adopted for the inclusion of articles in the bibliographic portfolio were: the language (English and Portuguese), research area (engineering, administration, logistics), and the articles should have, or in the title, or in the abstract, or throughout the text, any of the keywords used. In this study, only articles available in full text were selected from the database to which they were linked.

Through the pre-selected documents, bibliographic references were searched for other approaches in order to insert them in the research. In total, 58 relevant approaches to the theme were identified, after this survey the research was subdivided into showing the classification, and the relationship with the information available and contributions to the discussion on aspects of sustainability in road freight transportation, as shown in **Figure 1**.

#### **5. Results and discussion**

Throughout the researches, a gap was noticed in terms of sustainability in road freight transportation in its most comprehensive definition, that is, from the economic, environmental and social aspects. When it comes to sustainability in transportation, the association with atmospheric emissions is inevitable. However, the other aspects are also of great importance for the well-being of society and many are associated.

#### *The Concept of Sustainability in the Brazilian Road Freight Transportation Sector DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97280*

The configuration of the transportation system, the performance of its activities, as well as the implementation of actions to achieve sustainable efficiency, require a foundation in the three pillars of the TBL: the economic, with emphasis on the efficiency of the performance of activities, costs of interiorization and compatible price; the environmental, with observation for the prevention of pollution, protection and conservation of natural resources and environmental management; and the social, with attention to people's safety, health and quality of life [29].

A company to be within the parameters of sustainability must be much more concerned than with atmospheric emissions. It is important to be concerned with optimizing the load, the better it is done, the fewer trucks will be needed to transportation the goods, although for this, it may be necessary to increase the waiting time of the goods which would cause a trade-off, increase waiting time and have fewer trucks circulating, or make quick deliveries with trucks circulating below capacity [33].

By reducing the number of trucks, the company reduces the gases emitted, the noise on the roads, the congestion and the number of accidents. By having better infrastructure, land use and truck access, smaller trucks can be placed to circulate in urban areas at times with less vehicle circulation with suitable locations for loading and unloading. This would generate considerable social well-being by decreasing congestion, noise and emissions within urban centers [34].

The number of road accidents can also be reduced through improvements in infrastructure and in the adjustment of the drivers' working hours so that they do not drive under the influence of substances or in conditions of extreme tiredness. Accordingly, in Brazil, Law/2015 was enacted in 2015, which defines rules for road transportation drivers, whether cargo or passengers. It is known as the Driver's Law. It came about in order to ensure the rights and establish the duties of the driver. Therefore, there was a reformulation of some rules, required safety measures, in which the main ones were the readjustment in the workday, waiting and rest periods, toxicological medical exams, fees and fines [35].

The challenge for logistics professionals when embracing sustainability is how to link and balance environmental performance and good business practices. That is, how to identify appropriate approaches or solutions that balance environmental and economic aspects. One of the main objectives of logistics is to increase the efficiency and economic performance of companies. However, the implementation of actions that contribute to changes in other social aspects, such as environmental and social responsibility, depends on the simultaneous fulfillment of short-term economic goals. However, research shows that several benefits generated for companies by adopting environmental policies, such as reducing costs due to resource savings, increasing sales by improving the company's image and adapting to future government regulations [36–40].

#### **5.1 Environmental dimension in cargo transportation**

As for the environmental aspect of road cargo transportation, two phenomena stand out: emission of greenhouse gases and noise pollution. Road freight transportation is a major cause of air pollution. The emission of gases has a negative effect on air quality and the health of people and animals. The level of toxicity of the gas emission depends on the fuel used. Although alternative fuels such as biodiesel already exist, the main fuel in use in Brazil to transportation goods is still diesel. This energy source is unsustainable, as it is a finite resource, with potential to damage public health and the environment, through particulate emissions, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxide (NOx), organic compounds volatiles (VOCs) and

greenhouse gases [41]. Noise pollution comes from the operationality of road traffic, resulting from the speed undertaken, which emits noises through propulsion (engine), pneumatic and aerodynamic [42].

#### *5.1.1 Energy consumption*

For the National Transportation Confederation [25], the infrastructure used for transportation in Brazil is inadequate. Due to the large territorial area of the country, the use of the road modal causes inefficiency, since this mode is not the most suitable for cargo with low added value and long distances. Still from an economic perspective, the lack of efficiency in Brazilian transportation logistics reduces the country's competitiveness [43].

In Brazil, in 2010, the transportation sector spent 31% of the total energy, of which 91.7% were consumed by road transportation. The energy source of the Brazilian cargo transportation is constituted in a great majority of fossil fuels, showing the potential of environmental impacts of the sector [44]. However, according to the National Petroleum Agency (ANP), renewable sources, especially biofuels, are increasingly being improved with the proposal to increase supply. Biofuels come from renewable biomass, with the potential to replace fuels from oil and natural gas in combustion engines [45].

Diesel oil represents a high consumption rate of the energy matrix that serves the cargo transportation sector in Brazil. However, its use as a fuel, evidencing combustion and exhaust, constitutes a significant element of emission of particulate material and polluting gases that affect the atmosphere [46].

#### *5.1.2 CO2 emissions*

In view of the energy consumption at a level above the world average, the transportation sector in Brazil stands out as a problem with regard to GHG emissions, mainly of CO2 gas. Transportation emissions - which mainly involve road, rail, air and sea transportation - accounted for more than 24% of global CO2 emissions in 2016 [47].

The combustion process of diesel oil releases hundreds of chemical compounds in both liquid and gaseous form. In exhaustion, the main elements released are: carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, water vapor, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds, such as hydrocarbons, the latter of high toxicity, among them the most harmful to health are benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) [48].

In summary, the main pollutants that impact the air quality emitted by the combustion of diesel oil are: carbon dioxide (CO2), particulate matter, nitrogen oxides (NOX), sulfur oxides and other pollutants [49].

CO2 emissions have been a target of concern and actions to reduce them, so much so that CONAMA Resolution no. 18/1986 created the Air Pollution Control Program for Motor Vehicles (PROCONVE) with the objectives of: reducing the levels of emission of automotive pollutants; promote national technological development; create inspection and maintenance programs for vehicles; promote public awareness of the issue of air pollution by motor vehicles; establish conditions for evaluating the results achieved; and promote the improvement of the technical characteristics of liquid fuels [50].

Encouraging the use of biofuel for road freight transportation in Brazil has been one of the recommendations for reducing CO2 emissions. Another observation refers to the readjustment of the fleet and vehicle models in order to increase the efficiency of operations, reduce energy costs and increase the competitiveness of

Brazil [45]. Policies for GHG control, in particular the reduction of carbon emissions, the use of new technologies for more efficient and less polluting engines, have been objectives of manufacturers and vehicles, with significant changes in production patterns. The more restrictive emission limit has contributed to environmental awareness with energy efficiency [51].

#### *5.1.3 Noise pollution*

The sound is originated by a mechanical vibration that propagates in the air reaching the ear. Noise is just a type of sound, but a sound is not necessarily a noise, subjectively, noise is an unpleasant and undesirable sound. Noise is the physical vibratory phenomenon (in the case of air) as a function of frequency, that is, for a given frequency, there may be, at random, over time, variations in different pressures [52].

The concern with noise and its effects started at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution due to the appearance of powerful machinery both in factories and in construction, as well as new modes of transportation. The development of industry and the growth of cities has now resulted in an essentially urban world. In Brazil, according to the 2015 population census, about 84% of the population lives in an urban environment [53]. This urban expansion eliminated the silence of much of the planet and, today, noise is one of the most harmful contaminating agents to human health.

Road traffic is the main cause of local environmental noise. The maximum amount of noise that human beings can be exposed to continuously, ensuring acoustic comfort and not harming their health is 65 dB, a value ensured by preventive medicine. Exposure to noise of values above this can cause different impacts on the body, such as, for example, disturbed sleep, decreased work performance, hypertension, interference with cardiovascular diseases, among others [54].

Noise tolerance limits set maximum exposure times for certain levels. However, it is known that there is not a single and perfectly constant level of noise during a journey, including, in the Road Freight Transportation there are great variations, mainly with regard to background noise, such as, for example, the passage through the same via trucks, automobiles, motorcycles and, close to rural areas, even tractors [55]. To quantify these exposures, the dose concept is used, which gathers the acoustic variations according to the exposure time and the maximum time allowed during the journey [56].

The three main sources of truck noise on the roads, according to McKinnon et al. [57], are: (a) propulsion noise (engine), which dominates at low speeds (below 50 km / h); (b) pneumatic (contact noise with the road) which is the main cause of noise at speeds above 50 km/h; (c) aerodynamic noise, which increases when the vehicle accelerates.

The National Environment Council (Conama), in its Resolution 001/90, when disposing about criteria of noise emission standards resulting from any industrial, commercial, social or recreational activities, including those of political propaganda, determines that the values and noise emission limits established in the ABNT NBR 10151 standard, with the objective of ensuring public peace and the health of the population [58].

ABNT NBR 10151: 2019 - Acoustics - Measurement and evaluation of sound pressure levels in inhabited areas - General purpose application, Brazilian Association of Technical Standards [58]. In a table, ABNT NBR 10151: 2019 presents the levels of daytime and nighttime noise allowed, in different types of areas possible to exist in a city, such as, for example, strictly residential, urban, hospitals or schools; the mixed with a commercial vocation; the mixed with recreational vocation; and the predominantly industrial one.

#### *5.1.4 Trucks with alternative technologies*

All automakers present in America and Europe, and also in Brazil, have been working on vehicle designs with hybrid technology, 100% electric or gas. There are also several startups around the world that also have projects to develop cleaner commercial vehicles [59].

In addition to sustainable issues, trucks with alternative technologies to diesel have low maintenance costs, emit less noise and, therefore, can travel at times or places of greater restriction and, even with the largest initial investment, in a few years, the trucks are pay. Much because of the lower operating cost than diesel guaranteed by the manufacturers [60].

The electric truck is a response from manufacturers to the increasingly strict rules on pollutant emissions. The need to reduce CO2 levels is such that it has attracted new companies to the transportation sector [60]. This is the case of the Swedish Volta, with the recently introduced HGT, and the American Tesla, with the Semi.

Several tests and attempts to introduce the electric truck in Brazil were made before BYD arrived. The brand started operations in the country in 2015. Currently, according to information from the Chinese company itself [61], it offers the eT7 11,200 and eT8 21,250 models in the Brazilian market for garbage collection operations, and the eT3 van for the urban transportation. BYD's electric truck has lithium iron phosphate batteries. According to the brand, this solution can last up to 30 years and its autonomy is 200 km [61].

JAC Motors is the second brand to bet on electrification. In September 2020, the brand launched the iEV1200T in Brazil. The model is the second electric truck in the country, but the first focused on urban collection and distribution operations. Unlike BYD eT3, which has a load capacity of 720 kg, the JAC model has a Total Gross Weight (PBT) of 7.5 tonnes. The truck's autonomy is up to 250 km, if the truck runs with 2 t of net load. If traveling with 4 t of net charge, the JAC iEV1200T can travel 180 km between battery recharges [62].

Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus (VWCO) started production of the e-Delivery electric truck in October 2020. The model, which was developed in Brazil, is being produced at the Resende plant (RJ). Sales will start in the first half of 2021. The e-Delivery electric truck will hit the market with two Total Gross Weight (PBT) models: 11 and 14 tons [63].

The tests started in 2018, after Cervejaria Ambev announced that it will have more than 1/3 of the fleet composed of at least 1,600 Volkswagen electric trucks by 2023, the largest ad of its kind in the world [63].

In about two years of testing, more than 22 tons of CO2 are no longer emitted into the atmosphere and, so far, e-Delivery has stopped consuming more than 6,500 liters of diesel. The electric truck is recharged with 100% electric energy from clean sources, and 43% of its energy comes from the vehicle's own regenerative brake system. The e-Delivery electric motor generates up to 260 kW (equivalent to 348 hp) of power and its torque is around 233 mkgf [63].

Like e-Delivery, in addition to being supplied with electricity, some models have a braking system that also produces electricity to be stored in the same batteries that supply power to the engine. All of them are non-polluting, both in relation to the emission of harmful gases and in relation to noise [64].

The main application of these vehicles in the near future is in urban traffic, in short and light cargo logistics operations. With the current battery technology, urban vehicles are the most suitable, as they travel short distances and do not need as much energy to operate [65]. Because of their low autonomy and load capacity,

#### *The Concept of Sustainability in the Brazilian Road Freight Transportation Sector DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97280*

electric trucks depend on an operation that prevents, for example, the vehicle from getting stuck in traffic jams. In addition to autonomy, other issues to be addressed to make electric trucks feasible are cost and battery recharge. As with cars, electric trucks also cost more than conventional models. This is mainly due to battery packs, which make up 50% of the vehicle's value [66].

#### **5.2 Social dimension in cargo transportation**

In this study, two important points stand out in the social aspect of road cargo transportation: accidents and congestion. Accidents can cause deaths and injuries to those involved, as well as inconvenience to other drivers on the roads. In general, the number of accidents with the participation of heavy vehicles considering the distance covered is lower when compared to automobiles, however, the probability of a truck being involved in a fatal accident is great [26].

#### *5.2.1 Accidents*

According to data from the Institute of Applied Economic Research [67], in 2014 the total cost of traffic accidents on federal, state and municipal highways reached an approximate value of R \$ 40 billion, with an average cost of R \$ 647 thousand by fatal accident. Santana et al. [68], point out that, although road cargo transportation (TRC) is a strategic sector for Brazil, it presents several structural problems, with high social cost, including high mortality due to Work Accidents (AT) with truck drivers.

Every day, Brazil records 14 deaths and 190 accidents on federal highways. In 2018 alone, there were 69,206 accidents, of which 53,963 were victims. These accidents resulted in 5,269 deaths in the year [69]. In the 12 years analyzed by the CNT [69], Brazil had 1.7 million accidents on federal highways, with 751.7 thousand with victims and 88.7 thousand deaths. The highway with the highest number of accidents in 2018 was BR-101, where a total of 8,896 accidents with victims were recorded. Most of the occurrences on Brazilian federal highways have the presence of automobiles (64.6%), followed by motorcycles (44.4%) and trucks (23.4%) [69].

According to Silva et al. [70], drowsiness, physical and mental tiredness, drug use and payment for production are among the main factors that lead to accidents at work with professional drivers. In spite of this, the cargo transportation sector has been organized in such a way as to favor productivity, generally linking drivers' remuneration to the number and extent of trips, which leads them to make long journeys with little rest, a combination considered as one of main factors that contribute to the occurrence of accidents.

#### *5.2.2 Traffic Jams*

Urban congestion is one of the main problems generated by the use of road transportation for goods transportation, since the speed is relatively low, compromising the flow of vehicles through the streets and avenues. This situation significantly interferes with the city's routine [26]. It is, therefore, a great challenge to be solved, ensuring the economic development of cities and reducing the negative impacts of congestion.

The National Confederation of Transportation [25] developed the study "Urban Logistics: Restrictions on Trucks?" which presents the current panorama of restrictions on the circulation of trucks and loading and unloading operations in seven Metropolitan Regions of Brazil: São Paulo (SP), Belo Horizonte (MG), Curitiba (PR), Porto Alegre (RS), Goiânia (GO), Recife (PE) and Manaus (AM). To this end, a survey of the laws governing the circulation of trucks and loading and unloading operations was carried out in these municipalities.

The results show that the accelerated urbanization of Brazil, in the last decades, has brought complexity and challenges to the supply logistics of cities where 84% of the Brazilian population lives and 96.7 million motor vehicles circulate. The study found a variety of rules and restrictions on the circulation of trucks in urban centers, added to problems of infrastructure, signaling and inspection, among other deficiencies that have an impact on the transportation activity [25].

The problems found by CNT [25] make it difficult to plan cargo transportation, increase operating costs and decrease the quality of supply services in cities, namely:


The main solutions identified by the study [25] are: to improve public policies and planning, including cargo transportation in urban planning and traffic policies, integrating all municipalities in metropolitan regions; carry out democratic management and expand social control of all interested sectors: transportationers, shippers, buyers, manufacturers, distributors, transportationers, logistics operators, wholesalers, retailers and final consumers; improve traffic signs and inspection, giving more clarity and visibility to restrictions on cargo transportation, publicizing alternative routes and expanding inspection, especially in the areas of loading and unloading; expand the supply of loading and unloading spaces and hourly windows for deliveries and collections; increase security, expanding the offer of rest and rest places associated with goods distribution centers; and expand investment in infrastructure, carrying out maintenance and expansion works on urban infrastructure, especially in highway rings.

The complexity of urban distribution stems mainly from the great variety of demands for goods (at different locations and times), the reduced capacity to expand the road infrastructure and the insufficient offer of routes and alternative modes. In addition, the increase in the total vehicle fleet, congestion, restrictions on the circulation of trucks, the inadequate supply of loading and unloading spaces and the reduced hourly windows are some of the factors that condition the performance of the freight transportation activity in the middle of the country, urban transportation, increasing the costs of road transportation and reducing the predictability of goods delivery.

#### **5.3 Economic dimension in cargo transportation**

The economic aspect of road cargo transportation, in addition to focusing on obtaining profits, highlights some significant factors: the configuration of infrastructure for operationalization, access opportunities, cargo optimization and adequate land use. These determinants aim at better organization and distribution of cargo, mainly in the movement in urban centers, with definitions of areas for loading and unloading.

When it comes to infrastructure, access, cargo consolidation and land use, the best organization and distribution of cargo in urban centers is sought. An example of measures related to land use is to reserve areas in urban centers for loading and unloading. When talking about access, it refers to spatial and temporal restrictions and, in the case of public infrastructure, the use of transfer points to improve the load factor of vehicles, that is, the load consolidation centers [71].

According to Novaes [72], in Brazil the occupancy rate in road cargo transportation is only 43%, which results in an excess of trucks on the roads. This is because there are customer demands on specific routes, but the demand does not complete the capacity of a cargo vehicle, nor can it be deactivated due to low demand, as it is necessary to serve the customer.

In an attempt to achieve these economic attributes, Vidal, Laporte and Matl [73], report the use of Information Technology (IT) to achieve some objectives, such as: promoting the exchange of information between interested parties; vehicle routing and scheduling according to the degree of congestion in the transportation network; allocate loads in the compartments, efficiently, for the loading and unloading process; and increase the vehicle occupancy rate. The use of IT to help aggregate freight is of great importance to avoid trips below capacity. In addition, vehicle routing and scheduling systems for using the loading and unloading zones can result in savings in travel time between 10% and 15%, according to the authors.

Some urban centers and cities that are on the side of the roads have tended to build road loops to divert the flow from city centers [74]. Another way to reduce the impact of trucks on urban centers is access restrictions, which are the most common regulations in Europe. These access restrictions can be according to the size restriction of the truck or the time allowed for traffic [75].

#### *5.3.1 Last mile delivery*

In freight transportation logistics, the final step "Last-Mile" refers to the transportation in which the goods leave the distribution center for the final destination, that is, for the customer, both B2B and B2C, who purchased a certain product [76].

In terms of innovation, Last Mile Delivery, in addition to transforming the methodology commonly used by the transportation sector, which prioritizes the quality and efficiency of delivery, started to take into account issues such as sustainability [77].

Because of this, it has become increasingly common among companies to use bicycles and scooters to make deliveries, whether on short or large routes. The alternative is quite feasible, since it provides the improvement of urban mobility and does not pollute the environment [78].

The investment in technologies allows for faster delivery, which will not only make the final consumer more satisfied, but will also help the company to gain more time, streamlining processes [79]. Geolocation enables the optimization and improvement of other tools used in the transportation process, being essential for the integration of the company's system with the Google Maps API (Application Programming Interface).

A geolocation tool contributes to the definition of more viable routes, which helps to save time and fuel, directly impacting the maintenance of the means of transportation used. In addition, geolocation allows control of delivery in real time, taking into account the company's particularities. With this, the entire delivery process is streamlined, optimizing material and human resources [79].

According to Joerss et al. [80] the business model conventionally applied to the last mile should be replaced due to the new technologies that reach the market. For these authors, the traditional model that uses light diesel vehicles will be responsible for only 20% of deliveries in the last mile in urban areas, being progressively replaced by autonomous vehicles and delivery services by bicycles, more energy efficient. There is a potential for new technologies to transform deliveries in the last mile, which can lead to a new transportation infrastructure and delivery models [81].

#### **6. Conclusions**

The road cargo transportation sector has its representativeness in the country's economic scenario and, however, in order to obtain sustainable gains, attention must be paid to the negative effects that its performance can cause to the environment and establish a reduction in the levels of CO2 emissions. This is done through logistical planning and the choice of more eco-efficient modes, that is, less polluting, such as the railway. Biofuels, as well as electric trucks, may also help to minimize the serious problems of road transportation in the country, especially urban ones.

The current transportation matrix has proved to be inadequate, since the high dependence on the road modal intensifies the problems of urban mobility, enhances environmental problems and negatively affects people's quality of life. Thus, it is understood that the improvement in the country's economic and environmental results is directly related to changes in the transportation sector. The current model is contrary to the search for a better quality of life for society and to the increase of Brazilian competitiveness in relation to the foreign market.

Organizations around the world have faced the challenge of making their operations more sustainable. In logistics, the focus for the coming years will be on reducing carbon emissions and reducing production waste. Technology and logistics go together, mainly with regard to the development of solutions that help to optimize processes, make the results more satisfactory and guarantee higher quality for companies that are served by companies in the sector.

In the case of logistics, innovation is considered an extremely strategic factor for the success of a business in the sector. In this sense, among the main trends identified in this study in Brazilian road freight transportation, are: the greater use of ecological fuels, which are less polluting and provide less noise, the popularization of hybrid or fully electric vehicles, the growth in use of small vehicles for last-mile deliveries, in addition to the use of transportation management tools, which allow to select and better manage the partners that offer these differentials.

Society faces a challenging time for economic growth and public welfare. The environmental problems resulting from unrestrained progress are already reaching great proportions, becoming the subject of discussions and mobilizations worldwide. In this reality in which sustainability is no longer just a competitive differential, it is indispensable for the future of the planet, the Brazilian transportation sector adopts socio-environmental responsibility as the basis for its performance. Promoting social and environmental responsibility in the Brazilian cargo transportation sector and, thus, collaborating to the preservation of life and the environment, constitute the main contribution of this chapter to the book Urban Agglomeration.

*The Concept of Sustainability in the Brazilian Road Freight Transportation Sector DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97280*

#### **Author details**

Rodrigo Duarte Soliani Federal Institute of Acre (IFAC), Brazil

\*Address all correspondence to: rodrigo.soliani@ifac.edu.br

© 2021 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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#### **Chapter 2**

## The Degraded Insular Landscape in the Urban-Rural Interface – Application to the Urban Agglomeration of the South of the Island of Tenerife

*Miguel Ángel Mejías Vera and Víctor Manuel Romeo Jiménez*

### **Abstract**

The urban agglomeration of the south of Tenerife is characterized by its accelerated and explosive conformation since the tourist boom of the 80s of the last century. This speed has caused radical landscape changes that have had environmental, economic, social, and spatial repercussions. We try to extract those landscape patterns that characterize this urban model but also to analyze and quantify the landscape degradation of the urban-rural transition zones existing between the tourist and non-tourist nuclei. Through the cartographic and graphic method, typical of spatial thinking and regional geographical analysis, we combine multiple components that characterize and synthesize the substance of the abiotic, biotic, and cultural elements. As a result, we have a diagnosis where the centrality of the tourist nucleus brings together economic activity, the movement of people and vehicles, but at the same time, allows the development of other former ruralbased nuclei, transforming them into residential ones, as well as the explosion of buildings dispersed between them. We propose that planning should be based on the landscape patterns that characterize it, starting from the corridor that links the urban centers of the agglomeration.

**Keywords:** degraded landscape, urban sprawl, soil sealing, green corridor, eco-corridor, urban agglomeration, compact city

#### **1. Introduction**

In a finite space such as an island, the fragmentation of the landscape [1, 2] induces a growing deterioration, mainly due to the abandonment of the agricultural space and the increase of urban dispersion [3]. In Tenerife, this process is more severe, when in the last 30 years hardly any new urban plans adapted to the social, economic, and environmental reality have been drafted. Instead, there have only been adaptations to new regulatory texts applied to old territorial and urban plans. Among many consequences, there is a disruption of biodiversity and natural capital flows, but also a break in the continuity of the structures of the cultural paleo-landscape. This pattern is recurrent in many cases, but "studying cities is a

never-ending process there is always more to learn" [4]. If we say that an urban agglomeration is built from a central urban core and a series of smaller peripheral urban centers that are under its influence, perhaps we are not making a big difference, but if its expansion is channeled through its network of road corridors that stretch the built-up space, while at the same time, buildings are constructed between the interstitial spaces indiscriminately, the perceived landscape is not only fragmented but, in many cases, it has deteriorated. The rural-urban interface is not defined. Beyond the large nuclei that make up the urban agglomeration of the south, there are multiple population swarms of all kinds: medium-sized nuclei, scattered micronuclei, many clandestine and self-built, individual scattered buildings, urbanizations, all glued between the industrial agricultural space and the abundant abandoned agricultural space. If we add to this problem that this process has an explosive character, forged in just two decades, 1970–1990 and that we are facing a model of urban agglomeration linked to the implementation of the massive and fordist tourist industry [5], we believe that it is a space that has enough entity to investigate what has happened in its past [6] to explain its present, but above all, and this is where we are, to monitor the changes that will occur in the future.

But can this urban typological model be considered a city? Possibly we cannot yet consider it as a consolidated urban structure, but yes, it is in the process of conformation. If we look at the projection of its planning, we would say that it could be, in the future, the largest in the Canary Islands. The large central urban nucleus, Los Cristianos-Las Américas-La Caleta (Arona-Adeje), can be considered the driving force of the tourist industry in Tenerife, although there are authors who consider that, although it does not have a direct relationship with the phenomenon of industrialization, it did affect all settlements, being a modifying factor of the first magnitude [7]. The numerous studies developed in Spain between the 80s and 90s of the last centuries on this phenomenon are considerable and use typologies such as enclave, nucleus, and even call conurbation to the whole Mediterranean coast. The evolutionary process of these enclaves or nuclei goes from being simple tourist urbanizations to tourist cities creating specific urban spaces destined for recreational consumption [8]. The south of the island of Tenerife could be considered, on an insular scale, a large conurbation, which is related to the rest of the island, but also to other national and international scales. This same idea overlaps with its immediate past. Agricultural activity took the leading role in the change, when the export of crops became the first great socio-spatial modifier of the south, between the 40s and 50s of the twentieth century. The arrival of water for irrigation (Canal del Sur S.A.) and the implementation of thousands of hectares of irrigated crops, generated a large labor supply, causing the movement of the insular and regional working population [6]. But the physical characteristics that made the farms ideal were also ideal for tourism, generating a dialectic for the soil, the water, and the worker [9]. In this relationship, undoubtedly, the weight has shifted to the side of the tourist industry. The price of land, the speed of profit, the large economic margins, etc., as demonstrated by Víctor Martín, turned agrarian income into urban income [10]. Small, medium, and especially large landowners put up for sale thousands of hectares of land, in many cases wasteland and unproductive land, but close to the sea. The property map changed from physical properties (individuals) to different corporate legal figures. The owners of rural land changed legal figures from individuals to corporations. But even today, in its urban perimeter both activities coexist, although, spatially, agricultural production is displaced more towards both extremes NW and SE, freeing land in the perimeter closer to the large and medium urban centers (**Figures 1** and **2**).

The tourist landscape is a product, as in the rest of Spain, of mass tourism linked to the sun and the coast, which began in the 1960s, centered on the Mediterranean arc and the Balearic and Canary Islands. In our case, it is developed from the 60s in a *The Degraded Insular Landscape in the Urban-Rural Interface – Application to the Urban… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102647*

punctual way in traditional coastal settlements: El Médano or the sale of large plots of wasteland along the coast that allow the promotion of Ten-Bel. But it was not until well into the 1980s that the tourist nucleus was formalized, combining tourist infrastructures (hotels, apartments, beaches, ports, shopping centers, leisure infrastructure, industrial estates, etc.) with the original small settlements, to which many other scattered, illegal, and non-formal settlements were added, spreading

#### **Figure 1.**

*Landscape of the 1950s and 1970s. Model of transformation from rain-fed agriculture to irrigated agriculture for export. Municipality of Adeje: La Caleta de Adeje (Photo 9), Playa de la Enramada (Photo 10), and Playa del Duque (Photo 11). An area with residual rain-fed agriculture where some small water catchment dams can be observed in the courses of the ravines. Source: 1956 Cadastral Orthophotography, Aerial photograph 1970, and Island Council of Tenerife.*

in all directions, following the conception of the processes of the classic ecological system and based on the processes of expansion-aggregation and invasion-succession [11]. The processes of invasion-succession are sustained, when they do not find equivalent resistance, in those cases the type of space occupation is substituted by another. In the south of Tenerife, especially in the coastal areas, the substitution of the agrarian landscape is evident, but also, following H. Gibbard, there is a change in the local population dimension, in the ethnic composition, social stratification, economic activities, residential mobility, the affectation of residential areas, administrative activity, creation of jobs in suburban areas, etc. [11].

Following the ecological method [12] proposed by the Chicago School in the 60s of the last centuries, we could check if the construction of the urban agglomeration in the south of Tenerife followed sustainable patterns adapted to its nature, or on the contrary if it has been built without these logics. That is why we start in this work, from a deterministic point of view, since the urban agglomeration that we analyze is developed from a key environmental justification, the sun, and the sea. Therefore, there are two abiotic and environmental facts of first level, the coast, and the climate. But we also look for cultural components that are the ones that explain the events in a very short timeline. Between them is the whole biotic set that threads them together. This is the transition zone; it is the possible eco-corridor that should be designed.

Our intention is to show a work conceived from spatial thinking.

#### **2. Objectives**

This work has two fundamental objectives. On the one hand, to characterize the landscape of the urban agglomeration in the south of the island of Tenerife, placing emphasis on the space occupied by the interface between the different population centers that make it up. It is in these spaces where the different models of growth will be developed, and therefore where it is necessary to intervene on the basis of a landscape policy. On the other hand, it is necessary to construct a method applicable and reproducible to other agglomerations through the combination of multiple landscape components, as well as using different spatial scales, sources, and data models. Therefore, the cartographic and graphical method is substantial.

#### **3. Methodology**

Based on spatial thinking, typical of regional geography, we use qualitative and quantitative analyses of spatially based components and variables, following criteria of geographic information processing [13]. To support this method, we use graphics and cartography, supported by geospatial analyses that combine vector data models with raster data models [14]. To do so, it is necessary to proceed with the work by defining the different spatial units of analysis, in this case ranging from a point (location of an activity or the gauging of traffic intensities) to a region (regionalization understood as the sum of municipal entities that share resources and management services). In the middle of this range appear the landscape units [15–17] that are structured from the integrated relationships of abiotic, biotic, and cultural components and that clearly define their identity [18, 19], and functioning. Our study area falls within this pattern and differs from other large island landscape units, such as the metropolitan area or the north. To discover these patterns, it is necessary to follow phases of information processing, that is, at the time of inventory, at the time of processing, and at the time of communication of the results. Clear patterns of graphic semiology [13, 20]. In

#### *The Degraded Insular Landscape in the Urban-Rural Interface – Application to the Urban… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102647*

each of these phases, we proceed to perform qualitative and quantitative analyses of components and variables to characterize their keys [21].

The sources used are multiple. Starting from a general literature review on landscape concepts [15, 22] and their different characterizations [21], spatial distribution measurements [2], and management proposals, catalogs, plans, catalogs, etc. [18, 23]. Strategic concepts of territorial and urban planning, such as the European Territorial Strategy [24] based on the polycentric [24], compact city [25], sustainable [25], and resilient [26, 27] design solutions through ecological and green corridors or green open space [28]. Supported with applied research on the specific region in the geographical field where the hard relations of man in that environment are highlighted but at the same time his adaptation to it. From the slow historical transformation of this space, a vertiginous speed of change took place, first in agriculture, then in tourism, in the second half of the 20th century. In the 1990s, the Geography Department of the University of La Laguna carried out projects, books [9], exhibitions [29], dissertations [6, 30], and theses [10, 31, 32] related to this phenomenon. This space had a great scientific interest, which continues today with new challenges [33]. This work is framed within this line. Cartographic sources: The open data revolution [34] of geographic information allows researchers and analysts of the territory to have a volume of data that were not available until very recently, which is why, from the point of view of the selection processes of sources are directed toward the problems we address, seeking methods of analysis-synthesis that allow us to systematize the multiple relationships that characterize the landscapes. "In the treatment of geographic information, there are three perfectly related and inseparable levels characteristic of any language: data, information, and communication" [20]. The role of spatial data infrastructures in research is marking a new path toward knowledge and this we can implement in our research and results. In this sense, Cartográfica de Canarias (GRAFCAN S.A.), Instituto de Estadística de Canarias (ISTAC), Island Council of Tenerife, Cadastre, and LANDSAT8 support the data that we have converted into the information that we communicate following the following structure:

#### **3.1 Inventory level**

From a process of selection and debugging of data sources, we organized the information of this first level. We structure the study area, following landscape science, in thematic spatial components of abiotic, biotic, and cultural character. Each of them is modified in a process of transformation until the objectives of the same are obtained. The analysis of the inventory components will allow us in some cases to characterize the urban agglomeration and check where the conflicts are, in others, to build a space of synthesis were to project the connectors between the nuclei and their natural environments.

#### *3.1.1 Abiotics*

Environmental characteristics: From a DEM of the topographic base, we can have a map of insolation. This map, together with the DEM and the location of different meteorological stations, allows us to characterize one of the most important factors in the generation of the current landscape.

#### *3.1.2 Biotic*

From the LANDSAT8 satellite image and the combination of 543 NIR bands, we can classify in a supervised way the vegetation space of the bare space that covers the county analysis unit.

#### *3.1.3 Cultural*

This space is much more complex. We systematize topographic, cadastral, statistical sources, and raster and vector data models. Each one of them was built for particular purposes of different disciplines.

#### *3.1.3.1 Population structure*

We work with 2020 data from the municipal census and select the variables of population, average age, and foreign population. The objective, is to extract the weight of the different settlements and demonstrate which is the driving and attraction core of this urban agglomeration.

#### *3.1.3.2 Structure of the built-up área*

We combine topographic data at a scale of 1:5000 for the years 1964, 1987, 1996, and cadastral data of 2015. The objective, is to demonstrate the growth of frequency, dispersion-concentration, and accumulated area and by classes.

#### *3.1.3.3 Road structure*

We work on two variables, the main road network and gauging data from different control points of average annual intensities. The objective, is to demonstrate where are the weights of daily mobility of vehicles in the urban agglomeration.

#### *3.1.3.4 Economic structure*

Geolocation of economic activity: For punctual implantation, we differentiate the lodging space into different typologies and segregate it from other activities linked to tourism. The objective, is to demonstrate the weight of the economic location of urban centers.

#### *3.1.3.5 Structure of the agricultural space*

Using LANDSAT8, extract the cultivated space by means of supervised classification of 654 bands. The objective, is to know the distribution, frequency, and surface of this economic activity. It will serve in the processing phase to combine it in the construction of the geometry of a possible ecological corridor, green or refined eco-corridor.

#### *3.1.3.6 Planning structure*

We selected two subjective planning classifications in force, urban planning at the municipal scale of our area of analysis, and the delimitation of protected natural spaces. The objective, is to demonstrate the space projected and committed in the urban planning regulations and its capacity for compactness within the urban agglomeration. The protected natural spaces are those that must be linked through the green corridor with the planned and consolidated urban structures.

#### **3.2 Level of treatment**

The Corridor Island [35] as a spatial unit of synthesis. If we reduce the agricultural space and the island is compromised by planning, the result is the eco-corridor *The Degraded Insular Landscape in the Urban-Rural Interface – Application to the Urban… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102647*

island, in short, the unprotected abiotic and biotic space that must thread the urban-rural-natural interface with landscape criteria.

#### **3.3 Level of communication**

The whole spatial analytical process leads to a new, more precise unit of analysis: the eco-corridor. On this basis, it will be possible to articulate proposals for landscape integration in future territorial and urban developments.

#### **4. Results**

#### **4.1 Inventory level**

#### *4.1.1 Abiotics*

Environmental characteristics: Without going into the geomorphological and lithological basis that greatly differentiate the landscapes of the unit of analysis, and with a deeper study in this aspect will give us new keys to explain the places of the south, we will focus only on exposing the microclimates as a differentiating factor. Tenerife is a topographically extreme island, but its geographical position and altitude (3718 m) make it differential because it directly affects the generation of microclimates, and that in our study area is very significant. The south of Tenerife, like the rest of the island, from the historical point of view, had a clear settlement pattern, the places with water and fertile soil for agricultural production. For this reason, the humidity factor and the degree of sunshine were very important. Where the environment was less sunny and there was more humidity (**Figure 3**).

#### **Figure 3.**

*Representative climograms of coastal and midland areas: (a) Tenerife Sur Reina Sofía Airport. Prolonged series. (b) Hoya Grande, Adeje, SW, elevation 130 m above sea level. (c) Pinal, Granadilla. SE, elevation 850 m. (d) Guía de Isora, SW, 476 m. Sources: AEMET and Agrocabildo. Elaboration: Mejías and Romeo.*

#### *Sustainable Development Dimensions and Urban Agglomeration*

These places were not on the coast, but in the middle zones of the island, the so-called "medianías," which range between 400 and 900 m of altitude. As can be seen in the figures, there are enormous differences in temperature and precipitation depending on the altitude, but there are also differences depending on the orientation and position within the island, and this aspect is marked by the wind, the insular space oriented to the SE is swept intensely by the trade winds N-NE to S-SE. On the other hand, the main urban development in the south of Tenerife is protected by the SW. Therefore, coast, light winds, and high insolation are a perfect combination for the development of this industry that formalizes the urban agglomeration of southern Tenerife (**Figure 3**).

#### *4.1.2 Biotic*

The vegetation in the area of analysis is irregularly distributed, but clearly has two patterns: the space at high altitudes is occupied by pine forests, broom, and the rest is made up of replacement scrub, often on abandoned cultivation areas, tabaibas, cardones, or balos. The environmental and cultural conditions of intervention in the lowlands make the vegetation very residual and irregular (**Figure 4**).

#### **Figure 4.**

*Biotic synthesis. Source: LANDSAT8. Elaboration: Mejías and Romeo.*

#### *4.1.3 Cultural*

#### *4.1.3.1 Population structure*

We selected the 2020 data. Administratively, the population information of the municipal census of inhabitants is distributed in municipalities, districts, and *The Degraded Insular Landscape in the Urban-Rural Interface – Application to the Urban… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102647*

#### **Figure 5.**

*Distribution of the foreign population by section (a). Population distribution by mean age class and section (b). Source: GRAFCAN S.A. Prepared by: Mejías and Romeo.*

#### **Figure 6.**

*Distribution of population density by sections. Source: GRAFCAN S.A. Elaboration: Mejías and Romeo.*

sections. In order to check the size of the urban agglomeration, we understand that the section offers us more precise information on population movements and we can better check the details of the distribution. The urban agglomeration of the south of Tenerife is inhabited by 244,191 registered persons and an annual transient (tourist) population of 4,601,793 persons. To check the human pressure on the region we must indicate that the total insular total of tourists accommodated in 2019 was 6,071,820, therefore 75% are accommodated in our unit [36]. Undoubtedly this population weight marks the characterization and dynamics of

this urban agglomeration. The analysis of this population component currently shows three very significant spatial and statistical patterns: the average age of the area is set at 40 years and its distribution by classes between 32 and 52 years. The gender balance (50.32 men/49.68% women), and the importance of the foreign population (34.85% of the total). Young population: The presence of population between 37 and 41 years of age is the majority group and they are distributed in the sections immediately surrounding the main urban nucleus, while the sections with older average age are distributed spatially between the traditional nuclei of the midlands and the traditional coastal nuclei of Los Cristianos and Las Galletas (Arona). Foreign population: The high percentage of the foreign population has a dispersed spatial distribution, it is distributed throughout the analyzed area, but without a doubt, the highest concentration occurs, first in the sections closest to the coast, secondly, in the central section of the largest urban center and its immediate surroundings, thirdly, there is a very significant section where the highest concentration of foreign residents occurs (**Figure 5**). Its location coincides with the proximity of the airport (Granadilla de Abona), the industrial park of Las Chafiras, and Los Abrigos (San Miguel) (**Figure 6**).

#### *4.1.3.2 Structure of the built space*

We combined topographic data at scale 1:5000 for the years 1964, 1987, 1996, and cadastral data of 2015. The objective, is to demonstrate the growth of frequency, dispersion-concentration, and accumulated area and by classes. The growth dynamics have three very clear phases. The starting point is 1964, the built-up space was in the midlands threaded by the southern general road and the growth to the coast did it by secondary roads to the coast, where were the jetties or coastal ports where all the goods entered and left. For this reason, the development of coastal settlements was minimal. The explosive growth occurred with tourism and the infrastructures created for its formalization: airport, 1978, widening of the TF-1 highway, after the inauguration of the airport, Ferry-Gomera line in 1975 [29]. The structure of the built space grows, but at the same time reduces the average surface area of each polygon, a clear indicator of building dispersion (**Figure 7**, **Table 1**).

#### **Figure 7.**

*Evolution of the built-up structure. 1964–2015. Source: GRAFCAN S.A. Island Council of Tenerife, Cadastre. Elaboration: Mejías and Romeo.*

*The Degraded Insular Landscape in the Urban-Rural Interface – Application to the Urban… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102647*


**Table 1.**

*Frequency, cumulative area, and the average size of the polygons of the built-up structure.*

#### *4.1.3.3 Road structure*

The road structure is divided by hierarchy into a highway linking the metropolitan area of Santa Cruz de Tenerife with the south, which supports the weight of mobility in the region. The southern general highway, parallel to the previous one and with the same purpose, is to connect the island's capital with the south, but link the settlements in the middle of the island. Construction began in the middle of the 19th century and was not completed until the 80s of the 20th century. The structure of roads and secondary roads, many of them rural and unpaved, channel the scattered buildings. To demonstrate the weight of mobility and the centrality factor of the nuclei of the urban agglomeration, we constructed this heat map with the average annual mobility indexes, which indicates the majority weight of the main central nucleus and the axis, more to the E, between the industrial area of Granadilla, the new port, the airport and the urban nuclei of San Isidro and El Médano. This axis is becoming a new and powerful strategic pole of attraction (**Figures 7** and **8**).

**Figure 8.**

*Level of daily mobility index. Source: Island Council of Tenerife. Elaboration: Mejías and Romeo.*

#### *4.1.3.4 Economic structure*

Geolocation of economic activity: Undoubtedly, the economic weight generated by the tourist industry is found in the central urban nucleus (Los Cristianos-Las Américas-La Caleta). We have extracted and classified the types of activity separating the lodging activity from the rest of the related activities. The former, in turn, is divided into the traditional hotels and aparthotels, on the one hand, and in the census of vacation homes, on the other, which, in the last decade, have experienced great growth, becoming a variant of the traditional fordist system described above. This has a very significant distribution, is located in the traditional coastal towns (Los Cristianos and La Caleta) and in the urbanizations of the upper coastal zone, exceptionally there are some on the coastline. Therefore, there begins to exist segregation of the lodging activity that we must consider in order to characterize the internal morphology (**Figure 9**).

#### **Figure 9.**

*Distribution of tourism economic activity by type. Detail of the central urban core. Los Cristianos-Las Américas-La Caleta. 2019. Source: Cabildo Insular de Tenerife. Elaboration: Mejías and Romeo.*

#### *4.1.3.5 Structure of the agricultural space*

The southern landscape was transformed with the arrival of water for irrigation in the 40s and 50s of the twentieth century, the network of canals and secondary water conduction networks allowed the implementation of thousands of hectares of land for export crops (tomato and cotton, in the beginning, banana, mainly at present) [6]. Its current distribution is divided between the coast and the midlands and between the eastern and western sectors. Potatoes are grown in the midland areas of the eastern sector, cultivated on terraces covered with jable

*The Degraded Insular Landscape in the Urban-Rural Interface – Application to the Urban… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102647*

**Figure 10.**

*Synthesis of the agrarian space. Source: LANDSAT8. Elaboration: Mejías and Romeo.*

(pumice stone). The coast is mainly reserved for export crops, mainly bananas. The difference between the eastern and western sectors is that the former, which is windier, cultivate under glass, while the western sector, with less wind, cultivates mainly in the open air. This creates totally different landscapes. The construction processes of these agricultural structures are similar to the built structure, land clearing, creation of terraces, soil importation, construction of greenhouses and warehouses, irrigation network. Therefore, we are talking about industrialized agriculture. In the advanced stages of this production system, we have demonstrated processes of the creation of clandestine and self-built micronuclei inside this type of structure. It is a form of conversion of traditional rustic agrarian land to industrial land and then to residential land (**Figure 10**) [32].

#### *4.1.3.6 Planning structure*

Based on the current urban planning at the municipal scale, we want to show the urban projection of this urban agglomeration. This synthesis represents the urbanizable corridors. The tendency of the urbanistic model would have been continuity and compactness if, at the end of the 90's, some geomorphologic structures were not declared as protected natural space. This action, at the moment of greatest pressure, prevented this continuity, leaving a possible future connection by means of green corridors that link the nuclei with the surrounding agricultural space and the biotic space. This, at least, is our hope, as long as the design linked to the landscape is applied under the criteria of sustainability and resilience. The model we show (**Figure 10**), is the current planning and each of them has approvals from the late twentieth century and adaptations to the new rules of the early twenty-first century [37]. Meanwhile, the growth of urban sprawl at different levels of compaction was explosive (**Figure 11**). The large pockets of developable land give continuity to the

#### **Figure 11.**

*The projected city. Source: GRAFCAN S.A. Elaboration: Mejías and Romeo.*

#### **Figure 12.**

*Morphology of the built space. Levels of aggregation by area of influence (20 m). Source: Cadastre. Elaboration: Mejías and Romeo.*

*The Degraded Insular Landscape in the Urban-Rural Interface – Application to the Urban… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102647*

central urban core to the west, the traditional nuclei of medianías are projected in small sectors and the eastern axis of Puerto de Granadilla-San Isidro-Airport projects another large pocket. Arona, and especially the Valle de San Lorenzo, has suspended its urban projection, which was intended to bring together all this dispersed mass (**Figure 12**).

#### **4.2 Level of treatment**

Corridor Island [30] as a spatial unit of synthesis. The microanalysis we propose responds to what we have shown in the characterization. We finish as we started, a place as finite as the insular requires processes of spatial microsurgery, so we must refine the units of analysis. The corridor island that we proposed in the previous work, coordinated by Professor Mustafa Ergen [38] proposed a basic corridor island at the island scale. Analyzing larger scale areas allows us to build better models; this is our intention.

#### **4.3 Level of communication**

We must project from here the new corridor interface that links the urban agglomeration of the south of Tenerife. The same control that exercised the declaration of natural areas in the 80s will require doing it with new places, more than places, it is necessary to conserve landscapes. The result should help to make planning decisions. The refined eco-corridor will help to do this. We will implement new high-resolution data in the future to continue to monitor these processes (**Figure 13**).

**Figure 13.** *Refined eco-corridor. Elaboration: Mejías and Romeo.*

### **5. Conclusions**

The urban agglomeration that we have tried to show you in this thematic sequence, tells the landscape evolution of an insular region that went in 30 years from oblivion to being a world reference. This perception is reflected and each of the moments of its evolution are impregnated in the landscape of the south. Even today, and despite the passage of time and the indiscriminate and indiscreet intervention of man, the structures of this society remain.

In this current moment of the pandemic by COVID-19, an event has occurred that a few months ago was unimaginable, the tourism machine stopped. The presence of tourists was reduced by 70%, hotels, and aparthotels, travel agencies, stores, schools, transport, airports, ports, were closed. They were prolonged in time. It has been 14 months now. This has shaken the economic structure but above all the social structure. Marginality, hunger, unemployment, and other social consequences denounce if this is the model to be resumed, what has already been called "return to normality." Undoubtedly, we cannot evaluate the effects at this moment, we will do it in the next months or years, but it is necessary to continue investigating the degree of affectation that the population, and therefore, the space of the urban agglomeration.

The analysis shown focuses on the idea of landscape thinking. Planning, managing, educating, and raising awareness in the landscape. It is necessary to interrelate abiotic, biotic, and cultural connections because they are parts of a whole in equilibrium. The imbalances caused by unidirectional decisions provoke crises. The Canary Islands are full of them. We must diversify, invest in what we are powerful in, the renewable energy industry has in the south the most precious source, the sun, and the wind, an industry that also competes spatially, but we have excellent cultural, patrimonial, and natural values. We must not create tourist bubbles. Is it possible to integrate all this, with respect for landscape values without degrading them? We will see.

#### **Conflict of interest**

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

*The Degraded Insular Landscape in the Urban-Rural Interface – Application to the Urban… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102647*

### **Author details**

Miguel Ángel Mejías Vera1 \* and Víctor Manuel Romeo Jiménez2

1 Faculty of Humanities, Department of Geography and History, University of La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain

2 Terrestrial Biodiversity and Island Conservation, Faculty of Science, University of La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain

\*Address all correspondence to: mmejias@ull.edu.es

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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[19] Sabaté i Bel J, Mark Schuster J, editors. Designing the Llobregat Corridor. Cultural Landscape and Regional Development. Barcelona, Spain: Universitat Politècnica de

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[21] Tudor C. An approach to landscape character assessment [En línea]. Natural England. 2014. Disponible en: https:// assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/ government/uploads/system/uploads/ attachment\_data/file/691184/ landscape-character-assessment.pdf

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[23] Cabildo Insular de Tenerife. PTEOP Plan Territorial Especial de Ordenación del Paisaje de Tenerife. Available from: https://www.tenerife.es/planes/ PTEOPaisaje/PTEOPaisajeindex.htm

[24] ETE. Estrategia Territorial Europea: hacia un desarrollo equilibrado y sostenible del terrritorio de la UE: acordada en la reunión informal de ministros responsables de ordenación del territorio en Potsdam, mayo 1999. Luxemburgo: Oficina de Publicaciones Oficiales de las Comunidades Europeas; 1999

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[26] Rosemann J. Permacity. In: Rosemann J, editor. Permacity. Barcelona, Spain: TuDelft; 2007

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[28] Gomes M, Pires A, Queiroz da Silva A, Bigate I. Urban agglomeration and supporting capacity: The role of open spaces within urban drainage systems as a structuring condition for urban growth [En línea]. In: Ergen M, editor. Urban Agglomeration. Zagreb, Croatia: IntechOpen; 2018. DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.71658. Disponible en: https://www.intechopen.com/ books/urban-agglomeration/ urban-agglomeration-and-supportingcapacity-the-role-of-open-spaceswithin-urban-drainage-systems-as

[29] Colegio de Arquitectos de Canarias. Demarcación de Tenerife. Comisión de Cultura, El sur de Tenerife: estrategias y paisaje. Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Comisión de Cultura, Demarcación de Tenerife, Colegio de Arquitectos de Canarias; 1991

[30] Sabaté Bel F. Burgados, tomates, turistas y espacios protegidos: usos tradicionales y transformaciones de un espacio litoral del sur de Tenerife: Guaza y Rasca (Arona). Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Caja General de Ahorros de Canarias; 1993

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[38] Ergen M. Urban Agglomeration. Zagreb, Croatia: IntechOpen; 2018

#### **Chapter 3**

## An Urban Fabric Responsive Last Mile Planning

*Chidambara*

#### **Abstract**

The chapter aims to cover an important and often neglected aspect of transit planning—that of last mile connectivity (LMC). Today most transit systems extend beyond the city to conurbations or metropolitan regions. However, most often LMC planning is on the hindsight or follows a "one shoe fits all" approach, without taking into cognisance the importance of the urban fabric context of the stations. Last mile solutions that do not respond to the built environment context can result in unsustainable mode choice for LMC or in reduced transit appeal. The chapter presents last mile trip characteristics for stations located in different urban fabrics in the city of Delhi and its surrounding town Noida. It explores the attributes of the built environment that impact last mile travel behaviour across the metropolitan region. Additionally, the paper discusses the level of integration, with a lens on the current last mile environment, policy and planning practice for Delhi. The chapter further makes a case for treating LMC planning as integral to transit planning and outlines last mile planning principles suitable for different urban fabrics.

**Keywords:** last mile connectivity, urban fabric, built environment and travel behaviour, transit access, walk share and urban fabric, Delhi metro, urban rail

#### **1. Introduction**

A growing number of cities across varying economies of the world today are nested within urban agglomerations or metropolitan regions. The need for or the factors resulting in co-dependence of the city with its conurbations or satellite towns are well-researched and documented in literature. Geddes in his seminal work, *Cities in Evolution*, nomenclated 'city-regions' or 'town agglomerates' as 'conurbations', identifying them as the future model of urban development; at the same time, underscoring the role of transportation in rendering redundant, the administrative boundaries between the various constituents of a city-region. Describing the absorption of the many villages and boroughs in the development of Greater London, he wrote, *"…Instead of the old lines of division we have new lines of union: the very word "lines" nowadays most readily suggesting the railways, which are the throbbing arteries, the roaring pulses of the intensely living whole;…"* [1]. He further emphasised that different forms of transit systems (rail/trams/buses) will be crucial for such urban development to take shape.

The technological advancements in urban transport (both in automobile and public transport) since that period have been tremendous and we find such models of urban development prevalent economy-wide, albeit, with varying degree of

penetration and role of transits. In today's context it is common to see transits extending beyond city boundaries to conurbations or the other entities within their metropolitan regions, playing a vital role in providing several thousands of populations social, cultural, and economic opportunities. Urban rail systems (in all their variants) today have assumed greater significance than ever before, especially in Asian cities. As per a report on World Metro Figures, "at the end of 2017, there were metros in 178 cities in 56 countries, carrying on average a total of 168 million passengers per day. 75 new metros have opened since the year 2000 (+70%). This massive growth is to be credited largely to developments in a few countries in Asia" [2]. Given the pace and nature of urbanisation, the metro rails are likely to play a crucial role in the urban mobility landscape globally, owing to their higher speeds, comfort, safety in comparison to other public transport modes.

In an increasingly globalised economy, the need to connect, both in the physical and the virtual spaces cannot be negated. Travel takes a centre-stage in every urban dweller's life. However, the way people and goods move in a city and across it impacts its socio-economic and physical environment and is one of the key measures of a city's sustainability. Noted economist Colin Clark in his paper *Transport maker and breaker of cities*, observed that transport is one of the "less tangible implements" that is necessary to create the "end-products" of what is commonly classified as man's basic needs [3]. Developing an effective and efficient public transport thus becomes an indispensable pre-requisite for sustainable mobility and subsequently for sustainable cities. Several scholars recognise the role of transit systems in increasing economic development in cities through the creation of dense urban centres with walking and transit urban fabric [4]. Other benefits of rail transit cited in literature include higher per capita transit ridership, lower per capita traffic fatalities, lower per capita consumer transport expenditure, lower per capita motor vehicle mileage, among others [5]. Through the facilitation of easier access to opportunities, transit systems enhance the catchment and work-sheds which is not only crucial for cities to be globally competitive but also for their overall sustainability. Not surprisingly, we also find that travel patterns and urban forms, in turn, are influenced by the dominance (or absence) of transit outreach.

A substantial volume of scholarly works establishes the link between transit ridership and the surrounding built environment [4, 6–13]. Density (both residential and employment) in particular, is a common indicator across several studies that is found to influence transit ridership. A study of 27 residential areas in California, having different residential densities around metro stations, concluded that higher density residential areas have higher share of transit commute trips [14]. Similarly, transit stations located in higher employment density settings are found to have greater transit shares [15–17]. It is argued that sustainable transport is possible when there is "an emphasis on urban form and density; infrastructure priorities especially the relative commitment to public transport compared to cars; and street planning especially the provision for pedestrians and cyclists", highlighting the importance of other factors apart from densities [18]. This is reiterated through other research studies that have observed higher transit shares in transit and pedestrian-oriented neighbourhoods [10, 19].

#### **1.1 Transit and last mile connectivity**

The transit systems in their course, from the city centre to the outskirts and the conurbations traverse different built environment. Alongside, their network density and coverage drop significantly. Planning a transit network that is as dense in the peripheries/suburbs as in the city core might be an almost implausible task. Given this limitation, maintaining the attractiveness of transit, and achieving optimal ridership throughout the system is a big challenge for transit authorities too. It is

#### *An Urban Fabric Responsive Last Mile Planning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103954*

increasingly accepted that in-transit and out-of-transit experience collectively account for a transit's attractiveness. The last mile connectivity (LMC), referred to in this paper as both the first and the last mile, is an important constituent of the out-of-transit experience, and often, also one of the weakest links of the overall transit journey. The term 'mile' is merely representative, and it can vary from less than half a mile in central parts of the city with dense transit network to significantly over a mile in peripheral areas and conurbations with lower transit network density.

The nature of available options for LMC along with its quality can also have an impact on the catchment sheds of stations located in similar settings, and subsequently on ridership as well. It is important to understand that since the transit coverage itself varies in different parts of the city, the approach to addressing the last mile solution cannot be the same everywhere. While in some areas, it may not be necessary to stress on enlarging the catchment sheds, rather on improving the quality of infrastructure; in other areas the focus necessarily should be on enhancement of the catchment sheds, to enable more areas easier access to transit. This is especially vital for transits that serve metropolitan regions or urban agglomerations. Hence, a pragmatic approach that acknowledges and draws upon the potential and limitations of the physical built context is important to maintain transit attractiveness for higher patronage and greater user experience.

The need for a difference in the approach arises principally out of the difference in the locational context of the stations. Newman, Kosonen and Kenworthy [20] in their 'theory of urban fabric' show that cities are a combination and often overlapping of three distinct types of urban fabric - walking urban fabric, transit/ public transport urban fabric and automobile/motor car urban fabric. The 'urban fabric' in this theory signifies "a particular set of spatial relationships, typology of buildings and specific land-use patterns that are based on their transport infrastructure priorities". The three fabrics are distinguishable with respect to aspects such as distance from the city centre, densities, mix of land-use, network typology, characteristics, and quality, among others. The authors further contend that "strategic and statutory planning need to do more than land use and transport integration, and they need to have different approaches in each of the three urban fabrics". Their theory is well applicable and relevant for LMC planning at an agglomeration scale, as well.

This paper includes the findings of a study for Delhi Metro rail (which also serves its satellite towns Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Ghaziabad), which in further sections attempts to show that last mile travel characteristics vary with respect to stations located in different urban fabrics. The paper presents a case for the treatment of LMC planning differently in different urban fabrics. For cities where transits serve an entire agglomeration and/or the suburbs or the surrounding smaller satellite towns, respecting the different urban fabrics in LMC planning becomes even more crucial to maintain the attractiveness of the transit systems and subsequently, for higher transit patronage and greater user experience across all the urban fabrics.

#### **2. Built environment and last mile connectivity**

There has been far more research examining the relationship between built environment and transit ridership than on built environment and last mile user trip behaviour. However, from the limited body of literature we can somewhat conclude that urban form surrounding a transit stop is an important decisive factor in transit users' choice of walk, cycle, feeder bus or other forms of transport for the last mile commute. A study conducted in Bogotá examines how the built environment

influence walking and cycling behaviour [21]. The authors also observe that while in the developed world, there exists substantial literature that suggest built environment are significant predictors of non-motorised travel, not much research on the same has been carried out in the developing world.

In a study of three European countries namely the Netherlands, UK, and Germany the results indicated that suburbs generate higher levels of cycling-transit users than cities [22]. It would thus be interesting to distinguish the last mile access/ dispersal behaviour in city versus the satellite towns in a developing world context. The study also observed that improving the access to railway stations by public transport and non-motorised modes can limit car use. In cities in the developing world this is taken care by a variety of intermediate public transport (IPT) both motorised and non-motorised. Relatively shorter travel distances between common origins and destinations in cities as compared to suburban locations, enables higher walk share. In contrast, in transit-rich, compact cities, transit and walking are attractive alternatives to the bicycle [23]. Moreover, relatively higher densities in cities also makes possible a high-quality feeder bus service with short headways, making them more convenient [24]. The '*Transit Choices Report*' for Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority corroborates that the pattern of urban development largely determines how many people will be near a stop, whether they can walk to it, and whether transit can follow a path that will be useful to many customers [25]. It identifies density, walkability, diversity of land use, among others as the key indicators of built environment that governs transit ridership.

Yet other studies observe the nature of development around stations influencing non-motorised trip access to stations. Walk/bike share and trip rates were observed to be higher in transit neighbourhoods [10] and walk mode also had higher probability to be used for rail station access in a traditional neighbourhood [11]. Another study found the probability of walking to stations higher when retail uses predominate around stations [26].

Street networks are an important constituent of the built environment. Several studies associate travel behaviour, especially 'walk' share with transportation network. The relative association of street design: local qualities of street environment, street network configuration, spatial structure of the urban grid and land use patterns was studied with the distribution of pedestrian flows in 20 areas in Istanbul [27]. Cervero et al. [21] in their study in Bogota found that the variables that impact most are network characteristics while in developed countries diversity (of land-use) and density impact walking behaviour. They found two network characteristics variables—street density and connectivity index entered the model as significant predictors. Erstwhile, other scholars have used connectivity index [28, 29], street density [30, 31], block length [28, 32], block size [32, 33], block density [11, 34, 35] metric and directional reach and pedestrian detour factor (PDF) (also referred to as pedestrian route directness) [32, 36] as network measures. However, not all these studies have been conducted to understand the last mile travel behaviour per se and it would be interesting to explore whether network characteristics significantly influence station access/egress mode as well.

A study which directly explores this relationship is conducted by the Atlanta Regional Commission [37] which explores "how far urban density, mixed land-uses, and street network connectivity are related to transit walk-mode shares to/from stations". It observes that "local conditions around rail stations are significantly related to riders' choice to walk to/from transit". In particular, the study finds street connectivity to be strongly associated with walk-mode shares when controlling for certain other built and socio-economic attributes.

There is not much conclusive evidence of the relationship between built environment and last mile travel behaviour for cities set in the developing world,

#### *An Urban Fabric Responsive Last Mile Planning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103954*

which have their own set of uniqueness that set them apart from cities in the developed world. Presence of vertical mixing of land-use areas with fine-grained urban fabric, higher urban densities, poor conditions of walking and cycling infrastructure in several parts of the city, lower automobile-ownership and income levels, presence of the ubiquitous motorised and non-motorised forms of IPT available for individual hire as well as on shared basis, increasing penetration of on-demand/ride hail cabs: all of these present a very different last mile landscape in these cities and city-regions, thereby warranting studies conducted in these settings.

#### **3. Last mile travel behaviour of transit users in different urban fabrics: Delhi, India**

The chapter focuses on the relationship of built environment and last mile trip characteristics, based out of a more comprehensive study (also covering last mile mode quality, pedestrian environment and users' socio-economic characteristics) carried out by the author. Hence, the analysis pertaining to only built environment characteristics is presented here. The study was carried out for 10 metro stations of Delhi Metro rail network currently having a network length of 348 kms. Delhi Metro covers the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCTD), and the surrounding towns of Noida, Gurugram, Faridabad and Ghaziabad. The average daily ridership of the Delhi metro, although not phenomenal, has gradually risen from 0.12 million in 2004–2005 to 2.2 million in 2013–2014, and 2.76 million in 2016–2017. The stations selected for the study lie on the two busiest metro lines and one on a relatively new line, representing low to high ridership levels. The stations were selected also to represent different locational contexts with respect to distance from the city centre, land-use, population and employment densities, and last mile supply/quality. Two of these stations are located in the satellite town Noida. **Table 1** gives the profile of each of the ten case stations and their context.

User surveys were conducted at these 10 stations (collecting 1000 transit user samples) using revealed preference method to understand the users' current first/last mile mode choice and other travel characteristics, their socio-economic characteristics, along with rating and ranking of criteria for mode choice decisions.

#### **3.1 Urban fabric around stations**

Each station is set in a built context that represents an urban fabric (although, some overlapping of fabrics is also evident, the dominant fabric is used) discussed in the section1. The core CBD areas which are characterised by high density, mixed land-use (primarily, vertical mixing of residential and commercial at building-use level) and narrow, dense street network, qualifies them as having a walking fabric. Transit fabric are predominantly other medium to high density areas and depending on a combination of criteria such as distance from the core, population/employment density, and contiguous development, they were further sub-classified as representing 'inner' or 'outer' transit fabric. For instance, Noida Sec-15 was classified under 'outer' rather than 'inner' since it is not part of NCT of Delhi and falls in the satellite town of Noida. Similarly, Dwarka Mor and Dwarka Sec-10, although located somewhat close to each other, were categorised differently as having 'inner' and 'outer' fabric respectively owing to the much higher densities in Dwarka Mor vis-à-vis Dwarka Sec-10 and also because Dwarka Sec-10 is still not a fully developed area. The stations qualifying under 'automobile'


#### **Table 1.**

*Case stations and context profile.*

fabric are either in low density peripheral areas or terminal stations in the satellite town. **Figure 1** shows the land-use and network pattern for one station representing each fabric typology.

Population and employment densities for each station were measured from population and employment data available for traffic assessment zones (TAZs) of Delhi from a transport demand forecast study [38]. The density map and locations of the case study stations are given in **Figure 2**.

Ranking the stations from low to high density was a challenge since there is no standard definition across globe of what qualifies as low or high densities within cities. For instance, the Master Plan of Noida has two categories of densities: greater than 500 persons per hectare (PPH) as high density and less than 500 PPH as medium density, while Santa Clara, USA considers below 11.6 PPH as low density and greater than 97 PPH as high density. Besides, there is scant literature available that specifies ranges for employment densities from low to high. As such, the study developed its own ranking methodology of low to high densities: five ranges of densities were identified to distinguish clearly the differences in mode share with varying density conditions. The density ranges and corresponding density rank was developed based on the population and employment density values observed in all the 288 TAZs of Delhi. The low, medium-low, medium, medium-high and high ranges correspond to the densities of all TAZs denoting upto 15th percentile, 15th–25th percentile, 25th–50th percentile, 50th–85th percentile and above 85th percentile respectively. Hence, the low to high densities are relative in the context of the city of Delhi.

**Figure 1.**

*Land-use and network around stations representing each fabric. a) Chawri Bazar-Walking Fabric. b) Chhatarpur-Automobile Fabric. c) Green Park-Inner Transit Fabric. d) Dwarka Sec-10-Outer Transit Fabric.*

#### **3.2 Last mile travel and built environment characteristics of case stations**

The last mile trip characteristics including mode share and average trip length (ATL) for the stations are given in **Table 2**. The share of walk trips has a wide variation, the highest being 82.9% while the lowest being 9.4%. The average trip length (ATL) of all modes combined point towards larger catchment-sheds for some stations compared to others. These will be discussed in the context of urban fabric.

**Figure 3** gives the distribution of mode share across the ten stations located in different urban fabrics. Several inferences can be drawn from the comparison given in **Table 2** and **Figure 3**. The most evident of these is the decline in the share of walk trips from 'walking' to 'transit' and to 'automobile' fabric and significantly higher share of motorised IPT and private mode trips in transit and automobile fabrics.

High density mixed land-use areas (Chawri Bazar and Red Fort) have higher share of walk trips and shorter overall average trip lengths owing to maximum destinations located within 1 km range. This finding conforms with other studies where it is suggested that people are willing to use slower modes of travel, such as walking, for shorter distances, especially if many trips can be chained [7, 17].

Areas with higher share of institutional use (Vishvavidyalay, Dwarka Sec-10, Green Park, Noida Sec-15) are observed to have higher share of IPT modes. However, within

**Figure 2.** *Population density and station locations on Delhi metro network.*

this group, relatively higher activity density areas (Green Park, Noida Sec-15) also have higher share of walk trips. In areas having more than 30% residential land use, it is observed that higher density areas (Dwarka Mor, Green Park, Mayur Vihar) have higher share of walk trips compared to low density residential areas (Chhatrarpur and Dwarka Sec-10). Low to medium density stations located on the peripheries and/or terminal stations (Chhatarpur, Noida City Centre) have the highest overall average trip lengths implying a larger catchment shed. This difference in catchment sheds draws attention to the need for a differential last mile planning approach for stations across a metropolitan region.

The built environment attributes considered for the study were analysed for approximately 1 km buffer around each station. Land-use and network details of areas in 1 km radius around each of the 10 stations were obtained from the *openstreetmaps* and updated through site visits. Network attributes such as network density, node-link ratio (connectivity index), block size and block density were computed on ArcGIS. Another network characteristic of importance is the pedestrian route directness or pedestrian detour factor (PDF) which is the ratio of length of walking distance to the geodesic distance between its start and end points. For the detour analysis all blocks were treated and imported as zones in VISUM. Similarly metro stations were imported as a single zone but with zero area. Two skim matrices were generated: a 'direct distance matrix' and a 'travel distance matrix'. Finally average of all detour factors was taken.

The values of all the network attributes discussed above for the 10 case stations are given in **Table 3**. Most of the stations have network attributes that are within acceptable or recommended levels. However, there is some degree of relative variation, and the models test whether network attributes significantly affect last mile mode shares.

#### *An Urban Fabric Responsive Last Mile Planning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103954*


**Table 2.**

*Mode shares, ATL, and predominant land-use of case stations.*

#### **Figure 3.**

*Mode shares across different urban fabrics.*


#### **Table 3.**

*Network characteristics around case stations.*

Handy [30] recommends a network density of 26 miles per sq. mile (16.2 km per sq. km) and Mately et al. [31] suggests 18 miles per sq. mile (11.2 km per sq. km) as minimum recommended network density. As can be seen from **Table 3**, almost all case stations have network densities either within these ranges or higher. The station Dwarka Mor has an extremely high network density of 46 km per sq. km. which is due to the presence of exceedingly small block sizes (5625 sqm), which in turn is on account of the area having low-income housing and very small plot sizes.

Further, the recommended and minimum block densities are 160 (62 per sqkm) and 100 per sq. mile (38.6 per sqkm) respectively [11, 34, 35]. Three stations namely Chhatarpur, Dwarka Sector-10 and Vishwavidyalaya have block densities lesser than the minimum figure given above and two stations namely Dwarka Mor and Chawri Bazar have much higher block densities. The remaining five stations have block densities within this range. The connectivity index should be preferably 1.4 or higher and minimum 1.2 [29, 39]. The minimum node-link ratio observed in the 10 case station areas is 1.0 (Chhatarpur). All other stations have connectivity index

higher than 1.2. PDF should preferably be around 1.5 [32] and not more than 1.8 [36]. None of the case stations had a PDF higher than 1.8.

#### **3.3 Impact of built environment attributes on last mile travel**

Bivariate regression analysis was carried out between the dependent variables representing last mile travel characteristics and the independent variables representing built environment attributes. Multiple regression was not carried out since the dataset representing the built environment is quite small (just 10—representing 1 for each station), and because some of the network attributes also exhibit multicollinearity. The dependent variables considered for the models were first/last mile mode share and average trip length (ATL). The specific mode share used in the models was 'walk' since it had the maximum share in almost all case stations except for two; at the same time, it had also wide variations across the stations as reported earlier. Besides, the built environment in 1 km radius around stations is more likely to affect 'walk' shares in comparison to other modes which have much larger catchment area making it unfeasible to study them in detail. The decision to select 'walk' was also guided by the fact that walking is the most common, affordable, and sustainable mode choice (cycling share was quite insignificant across all stations and hence not used) for LMC worldwide, and probably one that is likely to be most affected by the built environment. Hence 'mode share (walk)' and 'ATL (walk)' were selected as the dependent variables.

The independent variables include 'population density', 'employment density', 'network density', 'block size', 'block density' 'link-node ratio' and 'pedestrian detour factor'. Curve Estimation tool under regression module in SPSS was used to check which curve fits best for each of the variable. With the entire dataset, ANOVA value for none of the regression types was observed to be significant. Hence, anomaly (1 data point) in the dataset was identified using 'unusual cases' tool and the models were rerun. The model results (refer **Table 4**) for only the significant variables are shown here.

The regression analysis shows that population density, network density, block density and block size contribute significantly to 'walk' mode share, whereas nodelink ratio and network density showed a significant relationship with 'walk' ATL. Population density has the highest and significant relationship with walk share. It


**Table 4.** *Models results.* has a logarithmic relationship with walk mode share. The finding is substantiated through claims made in other studies where density is thought to shape pedestrian activity by bringing numerous activities closer together, thus increasing their accessibility from trip origins [34, 40]. It is suggested that people are willing to use slower modes of travel, such as walking, for shorter distances, especially if many trips can be chained [7, 17]. However, the Bogota study [21] did not find density and diversity (of land-use) as significant, the reason for which the authors cite could lie on the sample selection of neighbourhoods which consisted of uniformly compact, mixed-use nature. As reported earlier, there is variation in both density and typology of land-use selection in this study and as such contradicts the Bogota study findings.

The models also indicate moderate to high relationship between 'walk' mode share with network density, block density and block size. Among the network attributes, network density has the highest and significant influence on walk mode share. It has a significant linear relationship with walk mode share. There is a significant linear relationship and inverse relationship of block density and block size respectively with 'walk' mode share. There is moderate relationship between 'walk' ATL and network density and link-node ratio (connectivity index). Similar results have been observed elsewhere [21] wherein street density and connectivity index were found to be significant predictors—higher connectivity index and street densities increase the likelihood of walking. The models on 'walk' mode share and link-node ratio (connectivity index) and PDF were not found to be significant. This may be explained by the fact that none of the stations had high PDF values. Also, the relationship between 'walk' ATL versus block Size, block Density, and PDF were not found to be significant and had quite low values of R square.

The study shows that there is distinctive relationship between built environment characteristics and last mile travel behaviour of transit users. Stations located in high activity density mixed land-use areas such as Chawri Bazaar and Red Fort have quite high share of last mile trips made by 'walking'. Within each type of land-use such as those that are predominantly residential, stations located in areas with relatively higher density such as Dwarka Mor have higher 'walk' shares for last mile trips compared to medium to low density areas such as Mayur Vihar-I or Noida City Centre and Chhatarpur. The study also observes that last mile travel behaviour varies across different land-uses, across varying densities within a particular type of land-use and across stations located in peripheries and satellite towns. Unlike the study of European cities cited previously [23] where suburbs had higher share of cycle access to rails, stations located in outer areas in Delhi have higher shares of IPT and private mode usage. Within satellite towns, as densities increase, the share of walk increases. Networks also play a crucial role in influencing walk share for transit access and should be given due consideration in planning of new areas.

#### **4. Last mile mode supply and integration in Delhi**

As mentioned in Section 3, Delhi metro provides services in National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCTD) and four surrounding towns of Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Faridabad, which are part of the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi. Although these towns share boundary with NCTD, they lie in different provincial regions (states) of the country, resulting in different administrative jurisdictions. The importance of providing metro connectivity in an integrated manner in the region was acknowledged early on and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) through legislative provisions was given the power for construction, maintenance, and operations of metro rail in these towns. However, the provision of last mile

#### *An Urban Fabric Responsive Last Mile Planning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103954*

services by DMRC is mostly limited to the NCTD. This undermines the importance of institutional integration at a metropolitan region scale, for the provision of last mile connectivity. It is only recently that some last mile services such as cab aggregator kiosks and authorisation of e-rickshaw services have been initiated at metro stations of the satellite towns as well.

The DMRC's official website has two sections on "passenger information" tab related to last mile connectivity: one for parking and bicycle facilities and another for feeder buses. Interestingly, an important recent addition to the website is pertaining to information on "last mile connectivity" which does not feature on the "passenger information" tab.

Delhi Metro's feeder bus services has a fleet size of just 269 buses [41], with most of them having surpassed their life cycle and with frequency that can be clearly termed as less than satisfactory. There has been no official route rationalisation carried out for the currently operational routes with most of the routes having quite long route lengths and plying primarily on arterial and sub-arterial roads. The website gives a list of feeder buses plying from 32 metro stations [42], giving the names of the location covered under each route. This information is barely useful to commuters since it neither provides a route map of feeder buses nor contains information related to schedule and frequency of service. The physical integration at station is also quite poor. At most of the stations covered in the survey, feeder bus stops were either not clearly demarcated or not integrated with station entry/exit. There was no real time information display of feeder/city bus timings or route guide map, and some stops did not even have a basic bus shelter. While some attempt at fare integration has been recently attempted through introduction of "common mobility card", these are available on an insignificant number of city bus routes, and feeder buses are not covered at all. The DMRC site does not give any information to users on where or how to avail this card.

However, Delhi's metro commuters have the advantage of availability of a wide range of other IPT options for their LMC in the form of cycle-rickshaws, e-rickshaws, auto-rickshaws (for individual hire), shared-auto-rickshaws (plying on semi-fixed routes), jeeps (eg., *gramin sevas*), and mini-buses. These modes are largely demand-driven, and as one can relate from the study findings, also respond to the urban fabric setting. The availability of certain types of modes such as cycle-rickshaws and e-rickshaws at stations are also affected by restrictions on their plying in certain areas. Shared auto-rickshaws and *gramin sevas* plying on fixed or semi-fixed routes are more visible at stations on peripheral areas, thereby enhancing the catchment sheds of these stations. Ride-hailing applications (RHAs) such as Ola, Uber, Meru and other taxi and auto-rickshaw services (individual hire as well as shared) are playing significant role in urban mobility as well as for last mile commute. Besides these IPTs privately and/or company operated chartered bus services also ply to/from some stations. In the last 1 year, Delhi is also seeing some level of penetration of the electric micro-mobility, which could play a significant role in future LMC landscape.

A heartening addition on the DMRC site is the page on "last mile connectivity" which gives some information related to modal integration and/or availability of IPT modes at stations. The referred page gives information on the list of stations where one can avail DMRC-authorised e-rickshaw services, cab aggregator services, e-scooter services and cycle-sharing services. Physical spaces are provided to the operator of these services within the precinct (such as kiosks for cab booking at stations) or outside the station precinct (such as docking facilities for shared cycle services). However, only limited stations have planned spaces available for various IPT modes and the situation is worse for stations in the satellite towns where local agencies are responsible for managing these spaces outside the station precinct; a

#### **Figure 4.**

*Huge parking spaces for private vehicles but lack of organised space for IPT and buses.*

**Figure 5.** *Chaotic environment outside a station due to lack of physical integration.*

few stations have ad-hoc demarcated spaces, primarily located on service roads. The agency has not yet facilitated formal integration of metro system with semi-fixed route shared IPT modes serving the stations and its catchment and subsequently has no information related to the same. The lack of physical integration of the same sometimes results in chaotic and unsafe environment outside station premises (**Figure 5**).

Parking facilities are available at 105 stations with a total area of 32 Ha (for 101 stations) [42] which averages to approximately 3100 sq.m. per station as area under parking. Most stations provide surface parking facilities, and as such this land has not been put to other uses. Various studies have pointed out that the space needed for parking and access of private modes adds significantly to the cost of transit stations and attenuates environmental and traffic benefits of transit service. This negates the very objective of curtailment of automobile usage/dependence in

#### *An Urban Fabric Responsive Last Mile Planning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103954*

cities like Delhi, which is key to sustainable mobility. While some stations provide huge areas for private vehicle parking, the same cannot be said about planned spaces for IPT modes (Refer **Figure 4**). Operator survey of IPT modes at the 10 case stations revealed 85% citing lack of adequate and designated planned spaces (and subsequently harassment by police/civic agencies) as a key issue.

The National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP), 2014 [43] for the first time explicitly covers "last mile connectivity". The term is mentioned at four places compared to zero in the NUTP, 2006. The new policy document broadens the scope of multi-modal integration to include "private modes of transport i.e., walk, cycle, cars and 2-wheelers and para transit modes i.e., tempos, autos, minibus and cycle rickshaw to the mass rapid transit network" which was limited to "integration of buses with Metro rail" in the previous transport policy [43]. The policy also recognises the significance of improving last mile connectivity to public transport through provision of footpaths and cycle lanes, provision of feeder services, and incorporating design principle to promote safety, accessibility, reliability and affordability, among other measures.

Integration—at levels of physical, operational, fare, information and institutional of last mile services with the transit service is crucial for enhancing the attractiveness of transit. The integration becomes more critical when transit system extends beyond city border to connect areas that fall in other provincial jurisdictions. While DMRC has taken more pro-active approach towards LMC planning in recent years, the idea of "seamless integration", especially at a metropolitan region level is yet a far cry. There is also a need to develop a strategy or framework to cater to the last mile connectivity that responds to the locational context of the station.

#### **5. Conclusion and last mile planning approach**

In view of the present research findings, it is reiterated that users behave differently while using stations located under different urban fabrics in the metropolitan region. A singular approach for addressing the issue of last mile connectivity is thus not appropriate. Last mile strategies and planning need to respond to the urban fabric typology of the station context. The study also reveals that the largest share of last mile commuters walk or use various IPT modes to and from metro stations and policies need to cater to their needs first. Further, the use of clean technology modes in the form of cycle-rickshaw and e-rickshaw which already have a large user base need to be promoted and thus requires appropriate regulatory framework which facilitate their operation rather than adopting a restrictive approach towards them. Policies on last mile should prioritise improving walking and cycling environment around transit stations and facilitating integration of low carbon IPTs, especially in terms of physical integration. It is evident that lack of appropriate last mile planning can result in greater dependence on private modes of transportation to access the transit system, especially in stations lying in the automobile fabric. Automobile usage for access/egress to/from stations generates large number of single occupant vehicular trips at the local level, thereby attenuating the environmental benefits of the transit. The most important policy direction that can be drawn from this study findings, is adopting a multi-pronged planning approach incorporating contextual environment to provisioning of LMC, in place of 'one size fits all' approach. A broad strategy could be focus on enhancing walkability in walking fabric; better physical integration and operational environment for IPT in transit fabric; and high-quality and route-rationalised feeder services and shared IPT services in the automobile fabric.

#### **5.1 Recommended last mile planning approach**

Keeping in view the fact that a large share of last mile trips across all case stations are covered by walking and since walking is the most sustainable way of last mile access, it is expected that creation of good walk infrastructure will encourage more people to walk the last mile as well as enhance users walk experience. Replogle [44] developed a transit serviceability index which included components such as 'sidewalk conditions', 'biking conditions', 'land-use mix', 'building setbacks', and transit stop amenities. He observed that zones with high transit serviceability indices not only had higher likelihood of use of transit but also had greater probability of walk access to transits. Provisioning of NMT infrastructure thus also makes economic sense.

Globally there is a lot of stress on improving both pedestrian infrastructure and environment for improving LMC. Provision of extensive network of sheltered and landscaped walkways connecting transit hubs is a pre-requisite for an enabling sustainable last mile ecosystem for Indian cities. This is of utmost significance, given the climatic conditions. However, another part of this study published earlier [45], which examined the effect of walkability on last mile travel behaviour, also suggests that it is not sufficient to merely create sidewalks and cycle lanes; other factors such as safety, aesthetics, etc. that contribute to creating the overall walking and cycling environment also determine how well these facilities are used. Hence, creating vibrant spaces along streets connecting transit hubs should be given due importance. This can be attained through paying attention to the built form design in greenfield areas and 'placemaking' practices in brownfield areas where there is limitation on altering the built form.

The share of bicycles for last mile connectivity as observed in this study was quite low. However, this may be on account of poor cycling environment and supporting infrastructure. Biking as the last mile mode is increasingly being given importance across the globe. The share of cycling for LMC could be enhanced through adequate safe biking and bike parking infrastructure. It is not sufficient to have public bike sharing facility only at the station precinct; there should be a network of deposit and hire facilities at several points in the catchment area (especially in institutional and commercial) for higher usage. Creation of bikeways in low-density peripheral and suburban areas can enhance their catchment sheds. It would also be beneficial in the long run as these areas grow denser in due course of time and transition from an automobile-fabric to transit and walking fabric.

A demand-driven and demand responsive system needs to be in place that caters better to connecting the users to their trip-ends. As the study highlights the vital role that IPTs play in providing LMC, it is important to acknowledge their services by integrating them in transit system planning in a concerted and organised manner. Localised loop or hub-and-spoke systems of e-rickshaws, shared autorickshaws, shuttle services can be operated in vicinities ranging from 1 to 5 kms (depending on the location of the station and the mode type). A good feeder service for a wider area can help in increasing the catchment sheds of each station. In this context, high frequency feeder bus services planning in peripheral/terminal stations is especially important given their larger catchment-sheds. Demarcation of planned spaces for all last mile modes at station areas and their adequate integration should be mandatory to avoid chaos and safety hazard to users.

At present there is lack of a set framework for last mile planning in the country. A toolkit containing general guidelines for last mile planning for metro stations should be developed which could guide all cities having or planning for transits. Based on the toolkit more specific area level last mile plans can be prepared for each station. These plans should cater to both station precinct level requirements and catchment area of each station. At station level the focus should be placed on

#### *An Urban Fabric Responsive Last Mile Planning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103954*

seamless integration of last mile modes with the transit in terms of both spatial and non-spatial integration. Catchment area last mile planning can be more local context specific (responsive to particular urban fabric and socio-economic mix of the population in the area), with focus on making areas safer, active and vibrant for pedestrians and cyclists and facilitating services of modes that are most suited to the locality. However, some facilities should not be compromised upon and kept consistent across all stations, such as, excellent walking and cycling infrastructure and environment.

The planning approach may also be slightly altered for stations located in different urban fabrics in brownfield and greenfield areas. Brownfield stations pertain to those stations that are in areas that are already developed and as such may have limitations in altering of the built elements (except for the redevelopment TOD projects) that are known to encourage walkability. Stations in brownfield areas will be generally located in walking and transit fabrics, and last mile planning should take this into consideration. Greenfield stations pertain to stations that are in the peripheries/fringes in automobile fabric. Although these are generally low-density areas, they offer great opportunity for both station precinct planning and incorporating planning principles that create sustainable built environment and mobility systems. This potential needs to be tapped optimally while planning these areas through incorporating principles of compact development and TOD; mixed use; active frontage; and an efficient road network system that offers connectedness, directness, and permeability. In due course, they can transform to high quality walking and transit fabric.

The study draws our attention to the importance of aligning transit policies with metropolitan region planning as that would enable creating urban fabrics that support sustainable mobility. In the long run it would help in naturally attaining more sustainable last mile behaviour (having higher share of non-motorised trip access to stations) as well as higher transit patronage. Last, but not the least, the role of institutional integration is paramount to providing seamless connectivity, especially for transit systems that serve an entire agglomeration/conurbation/city-region.

### **Author details**

Chidambara Department of Transport Planning, School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India

\*Address all correspondence to: chidambara17@gmail.com

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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#### **Chapter 4**

## Promoting Sustainable Development of Cities Using Urban Legislation in Sub-Saharan Africa

*Kasimbazi Emmanuel*

### **Abstract**

African countries have been urged to reform their urban policies, practices and laws in order to turn urban areas such as cities and towns into more effective engines of economic growth and play a central role in economic transformation and national development. This chapter examines how urban legislationpromotes sustainable development cities in Africa. Specifically, it discusses the characteristics of cities in sub-Saharan Africa, reviews international legal and policy framework for urban governance and analyses how urban legislation addresses sustainable development aspects in four Africa cities namely: Addis Ababa, Accra, Kampala and Johannesburg.

**Keywords:** promotion, sustainable development, cities, urban legislation, Africa

#### **1. Introduction**

Africa is the most rapidly urbanizing region of the world and has immense urban challenges, such as growing slums and growing poverty and inequality, combined with weak government capacity [1]. Other challenges include land allocation and land use management, provision and management of basic infrastructure/services, such as water, sanitation, and waste management, the movement/accessibility system [2]. The urbanization in Africa need to comply with the goals and principles as developed in the international policies and instruments. The Vancouver Declaration (Habitat I) 1976 recognized the growing impact of urbanization and the need to secure political commitment for sustainable urban. The World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) (Brundtland Report) defined the concept of Sustainable development as "development that meets current needs without jeopardizing future generations' ability to meet their own needs" [3]. Therefore, economic development, social equity, and environmental preservation are the key variables of sustainable urban development. should all be included in sustainable urban development [4]. The 1992 Agenda 21 under Chapter 7 was dedicated to promoting sustainable human settlement development, particularly the urban and rural poor. The Sustainable Development Goal under goal 11 aim to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable and the World Cities Report 2020 called for

well-planned, managed, and financed cities and towns create economic, social, environmental and other unquantifiable value that can vastly improve the quality of life of all [5].

The extraordinary projected rate and scale of urban growth in Africa between now and 2030 underscores the need to urgently develop urban laws and regulations that will create and shape cities that work more efficiently, treat people more fairly and address the urban challenges [6]. New urban infrastructure should be built, new urban growth regions should be established and new city governance and management systems should be implemented [6]. All of this should be done in accordance with laws that provide clarity, ensure that everyone is heard, prepare cities for a climate-change-resilient future, and provide efficient decision-making and administration systems [6]. In doing this, there must be harmonization of the national urban laws with global commitments and calls for urban reforms to enable better urban management [6].

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze how urban legislation promotes sustainable development of cities in Africa. The chapter is containing five sections. Section 1 gives an introduction to the chapter. In Section 2 the characteristics of cities in Sub-Saharan Africa described. These include population, infrastructure development, public utilities services, environmental management, the challenges and challenges of sustainable development of cities in Africa. Section 3 analyses international legal and policy framework for sustainable development of cities in Africa. Section 4 analyses the implementation urban legislation for development for cities selected cities in Africa: Accra in Ghana, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Johannesburg in South Africa and Kampala City in Uganda. Section 5 provides concluding remarks and some recommendations.

#### **2. Characteristics of cities in sub-saharan africa**

#### **2.1 Population and urbanization in cities in africa**

Currently, Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest proportion of its population living in urban setting and cities, with 472 million people living in urban areas and cities, accounting for roughly 40% of the region's total population [7]. Sub-Saharan Africa, on the other hand, is the world's fastest urbanizing region, with an annual urban population growth rate of 4.1 percent compared to the global rate of 2% [7]. African cities are forecast to urbanize at a rate of 3.65% annually, adding nearly 350 million new city-dwellers by 2030, and a billion more people are expected to be living in African cities by 2063 [8]. Africans are migrating to the cities, and the continent, which already has the world's youngest and fastest-growing population, is urbanizing at a faster rate than any other portion of the globe [9]. By 2050, Africa's 1.1 billion people will have doubled in number, with more than 80% of the growth taking place in cities, particularly slums [9].

This is particularly evident in the continent's spreading urban populations; the top fifteen most populous cities on the continent all have populations above two million [10]. Lagos, Nigeria's capital, is Africa's largest metropolis, with a population of at least nine million people; it is also one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, so the number is sure to increase [11]. This is followed by Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a population of roughly 7.7 million people [11]. Nigeria and South Africa, two of Africa's most populous countries, have several cities with enormous populations [10]. Nigeria is also home to the cities of Kano and Ibadan, both of which have populations of approximately 3.5 million people, making them large cities in their own right [10]. Cape Town, South Africa, has a

#### *Promoting Sustainable Development of Cities Using Urban Legislation in Sub-Saharan Africa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102826*

population of about 3.5 million people, but Durban, South Africa, is not far behind with 3.1 million [10]. Johannesburg in South Africa has also 2 million residents, as well as Soweto and Pretoria, each with about 1.6 million residents [10].

Southern Sub-Saharan Africa has the biggest proportion of people living in urban areas in Sub-Saharan Africa (more than 70%), followed by West Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Sub-Saharan Africa, and East Sub-Saharan Africa [7]. Demographics across the region show that the urban population is predominantly youthful [7]. Children and youth (0-24 years) accounted for 62.9% of the overall population of Sub-Saharan Africa in 2015, and 19% of the global young population [7]. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the population aged 0-24 years was 628 million in 2017, with an estimated increase to 945 million by 2050, implying that more children and youth will live in metropolitan regions and cities than in rural areas [7]. Notably, the Sub-Saharan Africa region is anticipated to see a positive gain in its child and youth population by 2050, whilst all other regions in the globe are expected to see reductions [7]. Currently, the population pyramid in Sub-Saharan Africa shows a strong child and youth base that anchors the other age groups in the region [7].

#### **2.2 Infrastructure development in cities in africa**

Infrastructure shapes cities and its deficiency makes the cities unattractive [12]. On the one hand, cities have physical infrastructure, which includes physical structures such as transportation, electricity grids, drainage systems, sewage systems, and waste disposal systems that are essential for an economy to function. Cities, on the other hand, have social infrastructure, which consists of facilities that support social services and serve as a backbone for communities and societies, such as hospitals, schools, and universities, as well as economic infrastructure (markets) and public facilities such as community housing and prison [7]. Generally, cities in Sub-Saharan Africa have poor infrastructure due to political instability and corruption, complex geographies, cultural barriers, and lack of technology and capital [13]. In addition, a recent World Bank research on infrastructure identified hurdles for continental economic development in this area. It was discovered that deficient infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically electricity, water, roads, and information and communications technology (ICT), lowered annual national economic growth by 2 percentage points and slashed business productivity by as much as 40%.

One of sub-Saharan Africa's top developmental challenges continues to be the shortage of physical infrastructure [14]. Greater economic activity, enhanced efficiency and increased competitiveness are hampered by inadequate transport, communication, water, and power infrastructure. African cities are being held back not only by a lack of urban infrastructure, but also by a lack of city planning, inefficient land use, regulatory barriers, and vested interests [15]. As a result, cities are expansive, fractured, and hyper-informal [7]. African cities are, unsurprisingly, quite expensive to live in. African cities are 29 percent more expensive than non-African cities with equal income levels, according to the World Bank. Locals pay a stunning 100% more for transportation, 55% more for accommodation, 42% more for transportation, and 35% more for food. All of this slows business down, nearly halving firm productivity while drastically raising consumer products input costs. The infrastructure gaps in Africa are not coincidental [7]. One of the main reasons is that municipal governments and city governments are cash-strapped, struggle tax revenue; and often lack the political discretion and financial autonomy to take action [7]. Rapid population growth also places enormous challenges on existing, and often obsolete and poorly maintained infrastructure and resources [14]. In many African countries, infrastructure limitations, notably in power and logistics, inhibit productivity [14].

Sub-Saharan Africa is still a long way from having universal access to the internet [16]. Only 1 in 5 people in Sub-Saharan Africa utilized the internet in 2017, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which analyzes internet usage internationally and across nation [16]. While internet coverage in Sub-Saharan Africa has increased significantly over the years, it still lags behind the rest of the globe [16]. Sub-Saharan Africa has not achieved the international goal under target 9.C of the Sustainable Development Goals that calls for the achievement of universal and affordable internet access by 2020 [17].

Currently, more than 100 million urban Africans live just beneath a grid but are unable to connect to the grid due to unreasonably expensive connection prices [18]. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 55 percent of urban people live in slum-like conditions, with many of them being without power or connected illegally [18]. Other city inhabitants have electrical connections, but due to frequent outages and voltage changes, they are unable to gain from them [18]. Applications of the Multi-tier Framework in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, show that about 60% of urban households in Ethiopia and 77% in Rwanda experience 4–14 power outages per week [18].

#### **2.3 State of public utilities services in african cities**

Majority of the people most African cities live in unplanned urban areas and informal settlements. As a result, the public utilities services in most African cities are well developed. In assessing the performance of Sub- Sharan Africa cities in provision of public utility service due regard must be place on areas that include accessibility to the large portion of the population in the city, safety in terms of water supply, sufficiency in the area of people accessing to at least meet basic health requirements; for reliability in areas of supply of interruptions of limited duration; for affordability and cost-effectiveness dictate the ability of poor households to afford utilities to meet at least basic needs. Water and sanitation are basic human rights, yet in Sub-Saharan Africa, 42 percent of people do not have access to basic water and 72 percent do not have access to basic sanitation [19]. In urban areas, only 56% of the population have access to a piped water supply (down from 67% fifteen years previously), and just 11% to a sewer connection [19, 20]. Simultaneously, the region is quickly urbanizing is urbanizing rapidly—with the urban population anticipated to rise from 345 million in 2014 to 1.3 billion by 2050 [21]. As a result, there is a big and growing demand for services, as well as a growing funding shortfall [22]. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals for water and sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa, investments will have to be enhanced by at least threefold [22].

Sewerage systems in most sub-Saharan cities serve few people [23]. They cover only a small fraction of the urban area and even where available, the connection costs are high and unaffordable for poor households [23]. The cost of a sewer connection can be twice as costly as a water connection for individuals living near a sewerage network [24]. Furthermore, once connected, households are subject to a wastewater charge that can account for as much as 50% (and occasionally as much as 90%) of their water bill [24]. The sewerage service network in many cities is limited to better-off, formal, and planned districts, and even here, the rate of connections has been modest because many families already have on-site sanitation facilities [25]. In some circumstances, a mandatory connection policy for residences within a certain radius of the network has been implemented. Even in these locations, however, many homes have yet to connect, and/or utilities have failed to enforce the connection policy because they are unable to provide a consistent water supply to their customers [25]. However, even in these areas, many households have not yet connected and/or utilities have not enforced the connection policy, as they are unable to ensure a regular water supply to their customers [21].

*Promoting Sustainable Development of Cities Using Urban Legislation in Sub-Saharan Africa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102826*

#### **2.4 Status of environmental management in african cities**

Sub-Saharan Africa has been (and still is) a region of varying environmental problems which are inherent or human-caused in quest of development [26]. Africa's urban areas are likely to suffer disproportionately from climate change, as the region as a whole is warming up 1.5 times faster than the global average [15]. Africa's fast urbanizing cities are rapidly depleting their natural capital [27]. Unique characteristics of African urbanization, such as considerably lower per capita incomes, a high reliance on biomass fuels, widespread informal settlement with poor service levels, and cities' exposure to natural disasters such as floods, are putting pressure on the natural environment of African cities and eroding the value of environmental assets [27]. As a result, there is a major risk that Africa's cities will be trapped in a "grow dirty now, clean up later" development path that will be costly, irreversible, inefficient, and detrimental to citizens' wellbeing [27].

The impact of urbanization on the natural environment includes a reduction in the amount of the impact of urbanization on the natural environment includes a reduction in the amount of freshwater available and a degradation in its quality; the rate of natural resource consumption is driven by a number of demographic and economic drivers, including population growth, rises in wealth and living standards, and increases in economic productivity [28]. Urbanization has an impact on the city's ecosystems, as well as the volume and value of services generated by these systems. For example, converting wetlands to agricultural or hard surfaces diminishes the value of the water purification services that wetlands frequently provide; the ongoing stress on urban city environments also has an impact on city biodiversity, since species may be destroyed [29]. Slow progress in addressing climate change in many developed countries is wreaking havoc on the world's least developed countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where a lack of preparedness for extreme events, as well as socio-economic and environmental resilience, will intensify the negative impacts of climate change and variability [30]. Only a few regulatory regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa explicitly require climate change to be addressed in an environmental impact assessment, indicating that most nations' environmental legislation lags behind the urgent need to tackle climate change [31]. When done right, environmental social and impact assessments can aid in the development and implementation of better projects that address challenging issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, urban sprawl, conflicts over increasingly scarce resources, inequity, and new technological opportunities [28]. Environmental Social and Impact Assessments can help build a balanced and sustainable future by critically assessing development actions while they are still being conceptualized, as well as molding and improving the society that future generations will live in., which is not operationalized [28].

Water scarcity is a major worry in most cities as a result of urbanization, and adequate, safe water supplies are a key concern [32]. Because majority of Africa is arid or semi-arid, and 41% of African countries are water-stressed, this is posing problems in many towns [32]. Most African cities are characterized by high levels of pollution [33]. The majority of African cities have high levels of air, water, and solid pollution. Pollution is due to the enormous number of households who use wood as a source of energy, and also industrial emissions, fertilizer use in urban and peri-urban farming, and traffic congestion [33]. Insufficient sanitation, as well as industrial discharges and herbicides and pesticides applications, are all linked to water pollution [33]. Low investments in waste collection services are linked to solid waste issues [28]. The majority of these issues are aggravated by inadequate enforcement of the regulations in place [28]. The combination of sewage and poorly managed industrial

effluents and agricultural return-flows has led to critical levels of pollution in many urban river systems, to the point of being hazardous to human health [34].

#### **3. Analysis of international legal and policy framework for sustainable development of cities in africa**

There are a number of international and regional instruments which provide guidelines and principles for sustainable development of cities in Africa.

#### **3.1 Stockholm declaration 1972**

The Stockholm Declaration represented a first taking stock of the global human impact on the environment, an attempt at forging a basic common outlook on how to address the challenge of preserving and enhancing the human environment. Principle 15 requires that planning must be applied to human settlements and urbanization with a view to avoiding adverse effects on the environment and obtaining maximum social, economic and environmental benefits for all. This Principle implies that development of human settlements in cities should consider environmental effects.

#### **3.2 The Vancouver declaration (habitat I) 1976**

The Vancouver Declaration of 1976 was the outcome of the first United Nations Conference on Human Settlements held in Vancouver, Canada, 31 May-11 June 1976. The Declaration provides some guidelines for sustainable development of cities in Africa. In its preamble the Declaration recognized the need for socially and environmentally rational human settlements and the dire consequences of "uncontrolled urbanization and consequent conditions of overcrowding, pollution, deterioration and psychological tensions in metropolitan regions," as well as "rural backwardness," especially in the impoverished world.

The Declaration in Principle 1 (b) requires creating more live able, attractive and efficient settlements which recognize human scale, the heritage and culture of people and the special needs of disadvantaged groups. Further, Principle 13 reaffirmed the human right and responsibility of all persons "to participate individually and collectively in the elaboration and implementation of policies and programmers of their human settlements." These two Principles imply that the development of cities should consider the quality of life and human rights.

#### **3.3 Our common future or Brundtland report, 1987**

The Brundtland report defined the term sustainable development to mean "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." This term encompasses the three basic variables which are essential for human beings: economic development, social equity and the preservation of the environment.

The report's sixth chapter, "The Urban Challenge," examines the enormous increase in the urban population of developing countries between 1940 and 1980. It also makes predictions about future trends and encourages Third World cities to develop their capacity to generate and manage urban infrastructure and services. Additionally, the Report emphasizes the issues that many cities in both developing and developed nations are facing, and it urges governments to develop and design explicit settlement strategies to manage the urbanization process.

*Promoting Sustainable Development of Cities Using Urban Legislation in Sub-Saharan Africa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102826*

#### **3.4 Agenda 21 and the Rio + declaration 1992**

The agenda 21 was one of the documents that were negotiated during the Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 3 to 14 June 1992. It is a non-binding action plan of the United Nations with regard to sustainable development whose aim is to achieve global sustainable development.

Agenda 21 provides guidelines that relevant to cities sustainable development in Africa. The goal of Chapter seven of Agenda 21 is to promote sustainable human settlement development, with the objective of improving the socialeconomic and ecological quality of human settlements as well as the working and living conditions of all people, particularly the rural and urban poor. Paragraph 7.15 requires that to ensure sustainable management of all urban settlements, particularly in developing countries. It emphasizes that improving urban management requires encouraging intermediate city development in order to relieve pressure on large urban agglomerations as well developing and implementing countries policies and strategies towards the development of intermediate cities. Further, Paragraph 7.19 requires all countries to conduct reviews of urbanization processes and policies in order to assess the environmental impacts of growth and apply urban planning and management approaches specifically suited to the needs, resource capabilities and characteristics of their growing intermediatesized cities.

The other outcome of the Rio Conference was the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development 1992. It also contains guidelines for cities development and management. Principle 4 provides that in order to achieve sustainable development, environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it while Principle 11 recognizes the importance of enacting effective environmental legislation. Thus, states are required to enact effective environmental legislation. It further requires that environmental standards, management objectives and priorities should reflect the environmental and developmental context to which they apply.

#### **3.5 The Istanbul declaration on human settlements and the habitat II, 1996**

The Istanbul Declaration was the outcome of the Habitat II, the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements that was held in Istanbul, Turkey, 3–14 June, 1996.

The Habitat Agenda's preamble expressly addresses the issue of gradually rising rural-to-urban migration, especially those in developing countries, which has put great strain on already overburdened urban infrastructure and services. Conflicts arising from the expansion of city suburbs have grown as a result of increased rural migration to cities. The haphazard settlement of this land, which is devoid of urban infrastructure, complicates any green space development.

In its Preamble the Declaration recognizes that among the most key problems facing cities and towns, as well as their residents, is the rise of squatter colonies and improper property use. Under paragraph 6, it recognizes the interdependence of rural and urban development, along with the need to focus development, especially in rural areas and small- and medium-sized towns, while minimizing the deprivation causing and resulting from rural-to-urban migration. This Declaration implies that there is need to minimize rural to urban migration in order ensure sustainable development of cities in Africa.

#### **3.6 The Rio declaration 2012 (the Rio + 20) the future we want**

The Rio Declaration 2012 was the outcome of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD). The Rio + 20 or Earth Summit 2012 was the third international conference on sustainable development aimed at reconciling the economic and environmental goals of the global community. Its objective was to secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development, assess the progress to date and the remaining gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of the major summits on sustainable development, and address new and emerging challenges.

Paragraph 132 notes that transportation and mobility are central to sustainable development because it can enhance economic growth and improve accessibility. It recognizes the importance of environmentally sound, safe, and economical transportation in improving social fairness, health, city resilience, urban-rural links, and rural productivity. We therefore consider road safety as part of our efforts to promote sustainable development in this area.

The establishment of sustainable transportation systems, such as energyefficient multimodal transport systems, particularly public mass transit systems, clean fuels and cars, and enhanced transportation systems in rural regions, according to paragraph 133. It further recognizes the need to promote an integrated approach to policymaking at the national, regional and local levels for transport services and systems to promote sustainable development.

Paragraph 134 acknowledges that cities can create economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable societies if they are adequately planned and developed, namely through integrated planning and management approaches. It therefore acknowledges the need for a holistic approach to urban development and human settlements that prioritizes slum upgrading and urban regeneration while also providing affordable housing and infrastructure.

#### **3.7 The sustainable development goals 2015**

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.

Some of the goals provide some guidelines for urban development and management. Member states are responsible for making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable, and this according to SDG 11. Target 11.1 is particularly relevant to cities in Africa, as it requires the government to ensure that everyone has access to adequate, safe, and affordable housing and basic services by 2030, as well as upgrade slums, which necessitates making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. The targets for achieving this goal include ensuring access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums, providing access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport, notably by expanding public transport, sustainable people settlement management and planning in all countries, minimising the adverse per capita ecological effects of cities, such as through ensuring proper management of air quality and municipal and other waste management, enabling equitable access to green and public areas that are safe, inclusive, and accessible and putting in place integrated policies and programs for inclusion, resource efficiency, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and resilience hazards, and design and implement holistic disaster risk management at all levels, in accordance with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.

*Promoting Sustainable Development of Cities Using Urban Legislation in Sub-Saharan Africa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102826*

#### **3.8 The paris agreement on climate change, 2016**

The Paris Agreement provides a framework for global climate action. In the preamble, the Agreement calls for the inclusion and networking of all levels of government in order to cope with climate change.

The Agreement contains provisions that provide guidelines for cities development and management. The Agreement's Articles 7 and 8 urge for climate change adaptation to be integrated by national adaptation plans that can be utilized to execute policies, programs, and projects. Cities and towns play a vital role in the development of such national plans since they strive to coordinate and integrate efforts to improve the resilience of major infrastructures in the face of climaterelated disasters.

#### **3.9 Habitat III: the new urban agenda 2016**

The Habitat III or the New Urban Agenda 2016 was the outcome of the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, took place in Quito, Ecuador, 17–20 October 2016.

The New Urban Agenda is a collective vision for a more prosperous and sustainable future. Urbanization, if well-planned and managed, may be a powerful tool for both developing and developed countries to achieve sustainable development. The issues that are covered in the New Urban Agenda include how to plan and manage cities, towns and villages for sustainable development.

The Agenda implored all national, subnational, and local governments, and all relevant stakeholders, to revitalize, enhance, and create partnerships, as well as improve coordination and cooperation, in accordance with national policies and legislation, in order to effectively implement the New Urban Agenda and achieve the shared vision.

The States committed themselves to promote national, sub-national and local housing policies that support the progressive realization of the right to adequate housing for all, equitable and affordable access to sustainable basic physical and social infrastructure for all without discrimination, including affordable serviced land, housing, modern and renewable energy, safe drinking water and sanitation, safe, nutritious and adequate food, waste disposal. The States further committed themselves. The States also agreed to promote appropriate measures in cities and human settlements to ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to the physical environment of cities, including public spaces, public transportation, housing, education and health facilities, public information and communication, and other public facilities and services, in both urban and rural areas, that are safe, inclusive, and accessible open or provided to the public, in both urban and rural areas, safe, inclusive, accessible, green and quality public spaces, including streets, sidewalks and cycling lanes, squares, waterfront areas, gardens and parks.

The states also committed themselves to increasing the supply of a variety of adequate housing options that are safe, affordable, and accessible to people from all walks of life, while also taking into account the socio-economic and cultural integration of marginalized communities, homeless people, and those in vulnerable circumstances, and avoiding segregation.

The New Urban Agenda 2016 sets standards for the development of cities in Africa which include quality urban settlement are dependent upon the set of rules and regulations and its implementation, establishing the adequate provision of common goods, including streets and open spaces, together with an efficient pattern of buildable plots and developing local fiscal systems that redistribute parts of the urban value generated.

#### **3.10 The AU vision 2063**

At a regional level Africa adopted Agenda 2063 (The Africa We Want) provides aspirations towards achieving a prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development. The Vision is a Pan-African people-centered vision and action plan that aims to position Africa for growth over the next 50 years. It puts a strong focus on urban development that includes transformational outcomes by 2023 in urban services such as improvements in living standards having access to safe drinking water and sanitation, electricity supply and internet connectivity to be up by 50% and recycling in cities at least 50% of the waste they generate [34]. The Cities are also expected to meet the WHO's Ambient Air Quality Standards (AAQS) by 2025and also make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable [34].

#### **4. Analysis of urban legislation framework for development of selected cities in Africa**

Effective urban legislation is an indispensable pillar of sustainable development of cities because it ensures proper planning. The next section analyses the urban legislation development and its implementation in selective African cities. It also describes the adequacy and how urban legislation in supporting sustainable development and transforming cities into more effective engines of economic growth.

Four major cities namely, Kampala, Johannesburg, Accra and Addis Ababa were selected as case studies to provide a comparative analysis of the implementation. Kampala was selected because it is Uganda's biggest city and is reported to be among the fastest-growing cities in Africa. In addition, it is the only city in Africa managed by Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) which is the legal entity established by Act of Parliament that is responsible for the operations of the capital city of Kampala in Uganda. Johannesburg was selected because it is South Africa's biggest city and it is recognized as a major world city and the economic capital of both South and sub-Saharan Africa. Accra was selected because it is the capital and largest city of Ghana and was established as the administrative capital of Ghana in 1877 during the British colonial rule. Addis Ababa was selected because it is one of the fastest growing cities in Africa and a capital city of Ethiopia and it also the diplomatic Centre of Africa because it hosts a number of international organizations such as the headquarters of African Union (AU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

#### **4.1 Kampala city in Uganda**

Uganda is in the East African region and situated 800 kilometers inland from the Indian Ocean, across the equator. It is located between the Equator's 10 29′ South and 40 12′ North latitudes, as well as Greenwich's 290 34′ East and 350 0′ East latitudes. Kenya is on the east, South Sudan is on the north, the Democratic Republic of Congo is on the west, Tanzania is on the south, and Rwanda is on the west. It spans a total area of 241,551 square kilometers, with 200,523 square kilometers of land. Kampala is capital city and largest city of Uganda of Uganda. It is the most populous urban centre with 1.5 million persons [35].

Uganda has developed several pieces of legislation that are intended to promote sustainable development of urban areas such as cities. The Constitution of Uganda 1995 sets an objective for the State to promote sustainable development and public awareness of the need to manage land, air and water resources in a

#### *Promoting Sustainable Development of Cities Using Urban Legislation in Sub-Saharan Africa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102826*

balanced and sustainable manner for the present and future generations [36]. The same Constitution mandates Parliament to make laws for the management of the environment for sustainable development [37]. The parent law on environmental management in the country establishes and mandates the National Environment Management Authority to provide for the management of the environment for sustainable development with powers to make statutory instruments that apply to the whole country including the capital city [38].

According to Article 5 (4) of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, Kampala is the capital city for Uganda and is administered by the Central Government; Article 5 (6) empowers the Parliament of Uganda to enact a law that provides for the administration and development of Kampala as the capital city [39]. Therefore, Kampala is managed under the Kampala Capital City Authority Act which provides an administrative arrangement for the city of Kampala and provides for its development and physical planning. The same law grants responsibility upon the Minister of Kampala Capital City Authority to coordinate physical planning in the metropolitan area in consultation with the Ministries responsible for urban development and local governments [40].

A specific law on the establishment and regulation of KCCA has been enacted. Section 7 of the KCCA Act specifies functions of KCCA in administration and development that include initiating and formulate policy, enacting legislations in form of ordinances for the proper management of the Capital City, constructing and maintaining major drains, carrying out physical planning and development control among others [41]. Several ordinances have been passed by the City Council while several bye-laws have been passed by division councils to strengthen and support sustainable development and management of the city as an urban area. The deposit or allow any solid waste to be placed or deposited on his or her premises or on private property, on a public street, roadside [42]. The Urban Agriculture Ordinance regulates use of manure, chemicals, disposal of toxic emissions and wastes, disposal of sump oil, prohibits agriculture in certain areas such as greenbelts, road reserves, wetlands, an area less than ten feet away from an open drainage channel, toxic area as well as parks; and also prohibits use of human waste as manure [43]. The Sewage and Fecal Sludge Management Ordinance regulates the disposal of fecal sludge, fecal sludge transportation, and issuance of licenses of providers of environmental sanitation services [44]. KCCA Act alongside the regulations and bye-laws do not express on make the capital city as inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable just as is stated by Goal 11 of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This may Uganda to reach Target 11.1 which requires that by 2030, governments must ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services, and upgrade slums which requires making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

#### **4.2 Johannesburg city in South Africa**

South Africa is one of the most geographically varied countries in Africa. It is located at the southern tip of the African continent. The total land is 1,213,090 km<sup>2</sup> . It is bordered by Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland. In 2019, the population of the city of Johannesburg was estimated to be about 5,635,127 people making it the most populous city in South Africa. In the same year, the population of Johannesburg's urban agglomeration was put at 8,000,000 people.

There are several pieces of legislation that promote and govern sustainable development of urban areas in South Africa. The Constitution of South Africa of 1996 provides a right to every person to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures that prevent pollution and ecological degradation; promote conservation and secure ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development.

According to Sections 156(2) and (5) of the Constitution a municipality is empowered to make and administer by-laws for the effective administration of matters over which it has jurisdiction, as well as exercise any power over a matter that is reasonably necessary or incidental to the effective performance of its functions [45]. Johannesburg city makes by-laws under Section 13(a) of the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act, 2000 [46]. Some of the by-laws that concern development of a sustainable urban city include: Air Pollution Control By-laws of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality which prohibits air pollution by providing for adoption of reasonable measures to prevent and mitigate air pollution [47]. The Waste Management by-laws provide for reduction, re-use, recycling and recovery of waste so as to minimize the environmental harm; to provide for rules on storage, collection, treatment, transportation and disposal of recyclable, industrial and organic waste [48]. The Water Services By-Laws provide for an environmental impact assessment to be carried out before the provision of the water services can be approved or commenced it also prohibits discharge of sewage, industrial effluent or other liquid or substance and installation of pre-treatment facilities [49].

The Municipal Planning By-law seeks to set up and manage land use scheme and municipal spatial development framework through the established of Municipal Planning Tribunals [50]. Public Health By-Laws provides for prohibition on causing public health nuisances and public health hazards, provides for the issuance of Public health permits, demolition orders, provides for compulsory connection to municipal sewage system, prohibits against obstruction of sanitary services, sets requirements in respect of toilet facilities, prohibits pollution of sources of water supply, sets out duties of salon operators overstore or dispose of waste, and also rules on keeping of animals [51].

#### **4.3 Accra City in Ghana**

Ghana is a country in West Africa that shares borders with the Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Togo in the east, spanning the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. Ghana has a total size of 238,535 square kilometers (92,099 sq mi). Accra is Ghana's capital and largest city, with a population of 2.27 million inhabitants. The Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) has a population of roughly 4 million people, making it Africa's 11th largest metro area.

Accra City has the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) which currently derives its legal basis from Local Government Act, 1993, which currently has been amended as the Local Governance Act, 2016, and under Legislative Instrument [52]. It has departments on waste management, works, physical planning among others [53].The functions of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly include provision of a sound sanitary and healthy environment, planning and development control of all infrastructures within Accra and provision of public safety; it has the Metropolitan Planning Committee which has the overall responsibility for the management of the land use plans and physical development activities [53].

The Environmental Protection Bye-law provides a responsibility onto households, industries, waste management operators, corporate bodies, institutions or any other business to take all necessary measures to protect the environment; it creates a duty that any discharge from a factory, industries, commercial mall, market, institutions, office or household must meet the standards set by the Assembly or other regulatory agency [54]. It also provides for promotion of waste treatment

*Promoting Sustainable Development of Cities Using Urban Legislation in Sub-Saharan Africa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102826*

systems; sets a requirement of permits for sand winning activities; provides for rules on the protection of wetlands and water bodies, control of tree felling and vegetation; and advocates through permits the replanting of economic trees [54]. Control of Animals Bye-law prohibits keeping of swine, cattle, sheep or goat and other wildlife in any town/community in the area of authority of the Assembly without a permit issued by the Assembly [55]. Sanitation Bye law provides for guidelines on disposal of solid and liquid waste management [56]. The Cleaning Bye-Law prohibits throwing litter, refuse, or other matter into gutters, drains, or unauthorized places which may cause nuisance or block free passage of running water [57]. Building/Physical Development Bye-law, provide for issuance of development and building permits to developers before commences development [58].

#### **4.4 Addis Ababa city**

Ethiopia is a landlocked country located in the North Eastern part of the African continent or what is known as the "Horn of Africa." Ethiopia is bounded by Sudan on the west, Eritrea and Djibouti on the northeast, Somalia on the east and southeast, and Kenya on the south. Ethiopia lies between the Equator and Tropic of Cancer, between the 30 N and 150 N Latitude or 330 E and 480 E Longitude. The country occupies an area of approximately 1,127,127 km<sup>2</sup> .

According to article 49 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa is the capital city of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia [59]. The specific law to manage the administrative affairs of the city is the Addis Ababa City Government Charter Proclamation No. 87/1997 revised by the Charter Proclamation No.361 of 2003 which under Section 9(8) provides one of the objectives of the City Government to make the City a naturally balanced, clean, green and favorable spot through the prevention of environmental pollution [60]. Section 11 (1) empowers the City Government to make laws and exercise judicial powers as well as executive powers and functions over different matters within its jurisdiction, which empowers the city government to legislate on matters that promote sustainable development of the City [60]. The City Government has the powers and functions under Section 11 (2) (g) to administer the land and the natural resources located within the bounds of the City; and under Section 14 (1) (c) to issue the Master plan of the City [60]. Some of these include the Addis Ababa City Government Immovable Property Registration and Information Agency Establishment Proclamation No.22/2010, the Addis Ababa City Government Procurement and Property Administration Proclamation No.17/2009, the Addis Ababa City Master Plan Preparation Issuance and Implementation Proclamation No.17/2004, the Addis Ababa City Government Civil Servants Proclamation No.6/2008, among others.

Section 11 (2) (1) of the Revised Charter Proclamation, provides that the City Government has the powers and functions to: (a) issue and implement policies concerning the development of the City; (b) approve and implement economic and social development plans; (f) identify, ascertain, and organize municipal services to be delivered at the city, sub-city, and Kebele levels; to provide efficient, effective, and fair services by the use of a variety of service delivery options and public participation; and to make sure that a standardized, acceptable system of service delivery is in place. Some of these functions actualize the achievement of the sustainable development goals related to urban development and management. Some of these functions actualize the achievement of the sustainable development goals related to urban development and management.

In addition Section 11 (2) (1) of the Revised Charter Proclamation states that the City Government has the powers and functions to: In addition Section 11 (2) (1) of the Revised Charter Proclamation states that the City Government powers and functions include the following to administer, develop, and sell houses nationalized under the Government Ownership of Urban Lands and Extra Residences Proclamation No. 47/1975 and administered by the City Government, as well as other houses developed or obtained lawfully by the City Government. This is in line with achieving the New Urban Agenda of 2016. The implementation of the New Urban Agenda implies that governments should establish a legal framework for regulating adequate provision of common goods such as streets and open spaces, together with an efficient pattern of buildable plots.

#### **4.5 Challenges of sustainable development of cities in africa**

There are several challenges that affect promoting sustainable development of cities in Africa.

First, most cities lack a holistic urban legislation to regulate key issues to sustainable development of cities especially physical planning framework such as physical infrastructure for human settlement or area and public services such as transport, economic activities, recreation and environmental protection. Most cities lack a holistic urban legislation to regulate key issues to sustainable development of cities especially physical planning framework such as physical infrastructure for human settlement or area and public services such as transport, economic activities, recreation and environmental protection.

Second, due to a multiple of pieces legislation that creates conflicts and duplications of mandate there is limited coordination at the various hierarchies of planning by the different authorities which creates a conflict of interest when making decisions that involve consultations from more than one planning authority. For example, in some cases there are conflicts and duplications between Planning authorities and local authorities. The uncoordinated planning and development leads to uncontrolled sprawling of the major towns, growth of slums and informal settlements, lack of public space and weak coverage of basic infrastructure services, notably water, energy, and sanitation, which makes it difficult to improve welfare in either urban or rural environments.

Third, the emerging rapid increase in urban population poses great challenges leading to overcrowding, traffic congestion, growth of slums and informal settlements, dilapidated housing, food security concerns, and poor sanitation.

Fourth, the existing infrastructure and service provision do not correspond to the growing population demands. Investments in urban infrastructure and services have lagged behind the expanding demographic and economic importance of cities, resulting in the expansion of unplanned settlements, urban poverty, insufficient fundamental urban services, and a deteriorating urban environment. Most slum settlements are inaccessible because of poorly planned transport infrastructure and lack access to clean water and waste management systems.

Fifth, there is limited funding of urban development and management as a result in most cities, there are inadequate financial deal with the escalating urban infrastructure challenge.

Sixth, many cities lack the sufficient human resources to develop and implement plans. Developing such capacity within local planning departments, by using other agencies and engaging the community and interest groups, is the key to producing good plans.

Seventh, high level urban poverty has led to the development of slums characterized by the poor housing conditions, high urban crime rates, homelessness, poor medical care, among others.

Eighth, in some cases, there is political interference in urbanization programmes. Political interference sometimes affects enforcement of action plans for

#### *Promoting Sustainable Development of Cities Using Urban Legislation in Sub-Saharan Africa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102826*

example where the development control decision by the planning authorities affects the political position of the government or individuals, such decisions are revoked and authorities instructed to act on the contrary to their directives.

Lastly, corruption of politicians and technocrats leads to poor decision process and increases the cost of and reduces the benefits from development programmers to the society [61]. As a result, the gap between the potential and realized achievements continue to widen thereby further undermining the country's chances of achieving sustainable development [61].

#### **5. Conclusion and recommendations**

The analysis in the paper has demonstrated that characteristics of the most cities in the Sub-Saharan Africa include limited regulation of physical planning which has led to widespread illegal and informal development and this has hindered the extension not only of water, electricity, and solid waste collection services but also of adequate sanitation arrangements and road networks. Further, many African cities have not developed legal and regulatory framework that address the realities of urban life. This is in addition to limited ability to implement existing laws and regulations. In most cases, City governments do have adequate legal experts to develop the appropriate regulatory framework that is enforceable. As a result, the citizens are compelled to follow informal methods to conduct land and property transactions, undertake business, acquire means of a livelihood, and even access fundamental services due to the number and rigidity of laws and regulations. Uncoordinated decision making and implementation as well as political interference led to the failure of City Authorities to cope with the challenge of urban growth in Africa. This is in addition to limited financial and human capacity to support sustainable development of cities.

There are recommendations that can be proposed to improve the urban legislation development and implementation in the African cities. First, it is necessary to develop a holistic urban legislation that provides predictability and order in urban development, from a wide range of perspectives, including physical planning framework such as physical infrastructure for human settlement or area and public services such as transport, economic activities, recreation and environmental protection viewpoints. Second, there is need to strengthen the institutional framework on urban development and management so as to stimulate capacity building to sustainably develop cities. This can be done by establishing appropriate urban planning departments with appropriate mandates and governed by the experts. Third, there is need to strengthen capacity of the physical planners, engineers and architects, decision makers and urban dwellers through training and education on issues designed to meet each city's particular circumstances, although most cities and towns share some urban problems whose solutions may be similar. Fourth, there is need to increase funding for activities for cities development and management at various levels in cities. Lastly, development and planning in cities should be participatory at all levels to facilitate more transparent and collaborative decision-making development decisions. This should involve empowerment urban poor communities and provision of pro-poor services.

*Sustainable Development Dimensions and Urban Agglomeration*

#### **Author details**

Kasimbazi Emmanuel School of Law, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda

\*Address all correspondence to: ekasimbazi@yahoo.com

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

*Promoting Sustainable Development of Cities Using Urban Legislation in Sub-Saharan Africa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102826*

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#### **Chapter 5**

## Urban Agglomeration and the Geo-Political Status of the Municipality of Portmore, Jamaica

*Carol Archer and Anetheo Jackson*

#### **Abstract**

This chapter will attempt to shed light on the relevant explanations for designating or creating urban agglomeration for the purpose of administration and governance in the case of largest urban space in Jamaica. The main objective of this chapter is to provide an in-depth look at the case of Portmore with specific emphasis on the socio-economic, political, legislative, and relevant policy arrangements that influence the change in subnational geo-political status from municipality to parish. The researchers explore the literature on local government reform, public financing, urban economics, and urban planning which provided a basis for objectively interrogating the proposed change. From the analysis of existing legislations, policies, and international conventions such as the New Urban Agenda, the proposal to change the geo-political designation of the Municipality of Portmore raises several questions about the economic profile of the area and the capacity to enjoy the benefits of urban agglomeration given its location attributes. Understanding the evolution of the theoretical discourse in urban planning can provide clarity on the relevance of this geo-political designation, the intergovernmental relationship associated with the geo-political designation, particularly as it relates to autonomy, and the allocation of resources for the provision of local government services. This understanding will help to direct the decision makers as to the best designation for Portmore given its current realities and importance of implementing measures to support decentralization and autonomy at the local level for major urban areas. The researchers found that the economic viability of the proposition is at best questionable as the economic base of the municipality is limited and its capacity to generate linkages demand serious considerations. Attention should be given to local government reform in the face of emerging trends and current realities rather than changing status of an urban areas which is the direct result of the principles of urban agglomeration.

**Keywords:** municipality, local government reform, urban agglomeration, decentralization, political economy, geo-political status

#### **1. Introduction**

Recently there has been raging debate regarding changing the geo-political designation of Portmore, Jamaica, from a municipality to a parish. The historical development of Portmore is intrinsically tied to Kingston. Portmore's development began in the early seventeenth century and has developed from being a single community into a vast network of housing schemes. Some of the early communities include Queens Town, now renamed Edgewater and Port Henderson.

Queens Town was established after the 1692 earthquake, which destroyed Port Royal. This community was established as a twin city to Kingston but was destroyed by a storm surge in 1722. Since its inception, Portmore as served as a dormitory of Kingston. In fact, by Jamaican government's definition Portmore is included in the designation of the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA) and by extension an agglomeration of Kingston, the capital of Jamaica.

The major justification, for a change in geo-political status, offered by the government representatives, is that parish status would allow for greater autonomy for the elected officials from Portmore. The push for autonomy is influenced by the fact that the population and communities in Portmore increased since 2002 when the area was first designated as a municipality. As reported in the Jamaica Daily Gleaner on December 16, 2020, the communities in Portmore increased from 22 in 1991 to 40 communities in 2001 with the construction of several housing schemes, including that of Greater Portmore.

This chapter will attempt to shed light on the relevant explanations for designating or creating urban agglomeration for the purpose of administration and governance in the case of the largest urban space in Jamaica. Understanding the evolution of the theoretical discourse in urban planning and urban economics can provide a lens through which to examine the efficacy of the proposed geo-political designation, the intergovernmental relationship associated with the geo-political designation, particularly as it relates to autonomy, and the allocation of resources for the provision of local government services. This understanding will help to direct the decision makers as to the most appropriate designation for Portmore given its current realities and importance of implementing measures to support decentralization and autonomy at the local level for major urban areas.

Ebenezer Howard, pioneering urban planner, offers one of the earliest works on designation of urban areas. Howard, in his 1902 seminal writing, *Garden Cities of Tomorrow,* proposed the concept of town clusters [1]. Based on his research, Howard concluded that there was a dynamic relationship between the spatial organization of the cities/urban areas and the semi-urban and rural areas. Furthermore, Howard foresaw urbanized areas comprising several "garden cities around Central Cities. In his vision of the urbanized landscape, the urban form is not only the areas occupied by cities but also an area comprising several peripheral Garden Cities integrated with a Central City. Researchers Fang and Hu ([2], p. 128) argue that Howard's concept eventually evolved into the early forms of the "Garden City" model of urban agglomeration. The growth of urbanized population in Europe, the Americas and Asia, called for further explanation of the relationship between and within these urbanized areas. Geddes [3] coined the term conurbation or continuous urbanization. Unlike Howard that predicted the growth of urban areas contained by greenbelts, Geddes [3] predicted the growth of these urban spaces without the swath of rural lands. Based on Geddes' prediction, the British government recognized the various forms of aggregated local authority to address local land use and service delivery issues.

#### **2. Methodology**

An exploratory approach was used to examine the case of Portmore as a Municipality and the efficacy of the proposed change in the geo-political designation from a municipality to a parish. In this regard, the first objective was an indepth look at the case of Portmore with specific emphasis on the socio-economic, political, legislative, and relevant policy arrangements.

Specifically, detailed information on the proposed change, relevant legislative documents, existing policies, available reports, and prior research were assembled and studied.

*Urban Agglomeration and the Geo-Political Status of the Municipality of Portmore, Jamaica DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102665*

The review took account of the existing context of the Municipality of Portmore and its connection to the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA), details of the current and proposed geo-political arrangement, the rationale for the proposed changed and the readiness of Portmore for the proposed change from municipality to parish status. In addition to this, economic roles, and functions of the Municipality of Portmore in relation to the neighboring urban centers, the academic literature on local government reform, public financing, urban economics, and urban planning provided a basis for objectively interrogating the proposed change. This also informed the analysis and discussion of the existing fiscal relationships between the local authorities and central government and narrow down key considerations for the government and key stakeholders in determining the way when considering changing sub-national geopolitical status. The existing legislative and policy environments and the implications for sustainable development also guided the study.

#### **3. Urban agglomeration/economies and geo-political designation**

One of the most recent discourses on geo-political treatment of large, urbanized areas is presented by Fang [4]. Fang suggests that urban agglomerations are very different from the simple clustering of similar administrative units or geographic location. Instead, urban agglomeration is an emerging urban spatial form that is driven by concentrated industries and populations, a highly connected transportation network, an enhanced central city and favorable regional incentive policies. Urban agglomerations are evidently a product of the late stages of metropolitan development. Furthermore, "one can only claim that there is an urban agglomeration when the networks grow in strength and frequency and the socioeconomic ties among the central and peripheral cities become more integrated Fang and Hu ([2], p. 133).

Cities are characterized by urban agglomeration as there exists agglomeration economies. Agglomeration economies are generally either pecuniary or technological in nature [5]. These are resource advantages. The former can result from a large and diverse labor market. Thus, firms in the KMA that rely on Portmore for its labor supply can enjoy greater productivity through lower labor and transportation costs due to proximity to work and stronger competition for jobs. This is of major consideration when other urban areas such as May Pen or Old Harbor are considered (see Map showing designated towns and areas in Jamaica). Portmore is one of the largest residential settlements in Jamaica and the English-speaking Caribbean. It is also one of the fastest growing urban areas in the island. However, as aforementioned, Portmore has been a dormitory for Kingston. Its main pull factors are proximity to Kingston and its affordable housing stock, in comparison to the KMA.

Technological agglomeration economies result from knowledge spill-over across and within industries. It implies thicker upstream and downstream linkages between economic activities in an urban area. To capitalize on these economies, local governments, with the autonomy to design and attract the right kind of industries will most likely promote the appropriate mix of land uses and production linkages that will trap the benefits of knowledge sharing and the cross-fertilization of ideas, inputs, and outputs, that will maximize returns to firms and by extension to the locality.

Presently, in the Municipality of Portmore, the leading sources of private-sector income are retail and services. There is also a fairly recent trend of a growing number of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms in the Municipality. In addition to this, the steady demand for housing in the area stimulates growth in new outputs of housing and commercial properties. However, the strength of linkages between these economic activities is questionable. For example, there is no evidence of strategic clustering of industries and spatial concentration of suppliers, supply chains, complementary industries, and local institutions to maximize on locational competitiveness [6].

In fact, it is arguable that the informal economic activities in the area perform fairly well in establishing linkages when compared to the formal activities. It must be noted that although the informal sector is a source of employment and income for many residents, it is not a source of revenue for the government. Further, with the exception of the Municipality's fishing industry, these informal economic activities are diverse and very difficult to locate. Strategic clustering in any urban agglomeration is significant as land use patterns are substantial to the maximization of the benefits of agglomeration economies.

A further consideration is the potential intercity dynamics—The economic competition between Kingston and Portmore. If Portmore fails to create and supply the jobs to match its endowment of labor, the region will continue to serve as a dormitory for Kingston's labor input. An alternative arrangement to serving as a dormitory is for Portmore to use its labor supply as a source of competitive advantage to attract the type and quantity of productive activities to the area. According to Reilly's [7] law of gravitation the capacity of two cities to attract retail spending from the catchment area in between them is dependent on the size and the square of the distance from any location between the two cities. However, while large population and labor supply is a potent pull factor for firms, the existing spending power in the locality is also an important consideration. Arguably, higher income cities are more likely to attract higher income residents which makes them more attractive to both large and small businesses. Harvey and Jowsey [8] noted that:

*consideration has to be given to the composition of the population (for example, by age group and working proportion), its earning capacity (for example, whether they are skilled workers), government subsidy policy within the district and the spending habits of different income groups (Harvey and Jowsey [8], p. 97).*

When these are taken account of, the pull-factor of a more affordable housing stock in Portmore which makes housing more accessible to residents in lower income groups, may not necessarily translate to making the area more attractive to more businesses. Therefore, Portmore's current ability to attract the kind of economic activities in the quantities that will generate linkages and capitalize on economies, and which will provide job opportunities for its residents is questionable.

As mentioned earlier, Portmore lacks the level of diversity in economic activities and the type of upstream and downstream linkages to fully capitalize on the

#### *Urban Agglomeration and the Geo-Political Status of the Municipality of Portmore, Jamaica DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102665*

benefits of agglomeration economies that will likely be needed for the economic viability of the area if it is designated as a parish. However, other considerations include the quality and quantity of its urban infrastructure and services, particularly when compared to neighboring areas. Local governments in Jamaica and throughout the world are preoccupied with identifying the necessary funding to address these issues. It is likely to be more challenging should Portmore be designated parish, to generate the necessary resources to support the demand on its resources which would necessitate increasing investments in some public goods and services and land resources.

The prospects of maximizing scale economies in Portmore will likely depend on intensifying land use in the area. However, given the relatively inelastic supply of land for the various uses in the area, more intensive use will invariably take the form of high-rise developments. High-rise development is the most likely response to increased demand for residential or commercial properties in more urbanized areas where suitable land is relatively scarce. On this point, Portmore's geographical location makes it vulnerable to natural disasters. Consequently, building sound and resilient high-rise structures are likely to be costly. Whereas the land input may be minimized, the capital input would likely be substantial, such that these developments would not be feasible if the cost of capital is not sufficiently low.

Further, if the designation of parish results in altering the land use patterns in Portmore in pursuit of agglomeration economies, through a larger, more diversified economic base, then as mentioned earlier, the demand for services, facilities and urban infrastructure will likely increase. Any foreseeable increase demand on the services and infrastructure must be matched by the revenues generated by economic activities in the area. For this to be feasible, the marginal benefits from additional users in the area should equate the change in costs for the provision of public goods and services by the local government. Public goods are non-rivalry and non-excludable and cannot be efficiently allocated through the market mechanism. These include some levels of school and educational facilities, safety and security services, access to and maintenance of recreational facilities and markets, sewers and sanitation, public health facilities, and roads.

It must be noted, that in countries with decentralized governments, the market could be relied upon to smooth out differences in the marginal costs and benefits of the changes that may accompany a change in the geo-political designation from a municipality to a parish. However, even in a democratic society, as long as central governments have a high level of autonomy over revenues and the sources of income, local governments are not empowered to make the necessary adjustments to manage its provision of public goods and services. This generally results in sub-optimal allocations at the local level. Therefore, the designation of parish may be accompanied by increased fiscal responsibility but not necessarily by the level of autonomy and financial independence of the local government that is needed to avoid welfare loss to its residents.

To evaluate the extent of their financial independence if the designation is changed to parish, Portmore's local government should assess the following:


With the proposed change of the geo-political designation of the area, the arrangements for financing of, for example, public goods and services will necessarily be changed. Thus, the amount of actual revenue from taxes and fees and how these would be allocated to the newly established parish are pertinent to the decision. It must be noted that property taxes and council fees are the primary sources of revenue for local governments in Jamaica. However, property tax rates are set by central government and it is calculated on the unimproved land value, the buildings are not taxed. Consequently, increased tax revenues to the local authority are largely dependent on the demand for land. A noteworthy point on this topic is that the costly re-valuation exercise that is required to capture gains from appreciation in property value, is arguably not undertaken as often as is needed for local governments to capture its share of the gains in property value that is needed to finance investments in public goods and services to support residents and businesses in the area. In fact, disinvestment, and a lack of maintenance of public goods and services by local governments as they rely on this income to cover some of these costs is not far-fetched.

#### **4. Political economy and urban agglomeration**

The corollary of the foregoing is that alongside the potential benefits of parish designation touted by government officials, decision-makers are tasked to take an objective look at the Municipality's opportunities to expand and deepen its economic activities to cover both internal and external costs. This objective evaluation should include serious considerations as to whether or not the type, size and diversity of current and potential economic activities in Portmore can sufficiently capture the benefits of agglomeration economies and what changes will be made to empower the local government to manage the fiscal affairs of the proposed parish.

In Jamaica, as in most developed country that have adopted a market driven economy, the bulk of funding for local government services is appropriated by Central government. The assumption behind central government's control of funding for local services has been influenced by the notion of achieving economies of scale and efficiency in the delivery of these services.

For a small island state such as Jamaica, with a parliamentary system almost akin to a unitary form of government, centrally controlled funding for local government services might seem logical at first. However, further examination of income and expenditure at the local level reveals that services are duplicated across agencies and there are no clear lines of accountability towards the allocation of these funds.

Historically there has been a "tug-of war" between the national government and the local authority about who should bear the cost for delivering services. Central to the conflict is the control of powers. The central government wants to maintain control and access to revenues which are generated at the local level. In Jamaica, like any other modern democracy there is the tension between the nation state and local authorities, as the officials at the local level become more concerned with increasing their share of powers and resources visa-vis the claims of other localities and the national state ([9], p. 35).

#### *Urban Agglomeration and the Geo-Political Status of the Municipality of Portmore, Jamaica DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102665*

There are several treatises on local government reform which Jamaica can adopt to carry out the much-needed reform. One line of argument, at the broader macro level, placed the discourse into two camps: neo-Marxist left and the neo-conservative right. The neo-Marxist argues that growth and decline at the local level, particularly in the urban areas is influenced by decisions made at the national level as a function of economic forces [9]. The neo-conservatives believe that decisions at the local level should be left to 'invisible' force of the market and those local areas that can grow as a result will do so. Central to both lines of arguments is that national government can and does influence the growth and decline of local municipalities. This is the main point carried by political economists.

Another theory on local government reform, while arguing from the perspective of market forces, introduces a more complex variable, that of globalism. According to Clarke [10] "global economic change process general transcend scale, yet in some instances are very sensitive to local contextual factors, including state actions" ([10], p. 12). According to Clarke, local officials over the world operate under heightened conditions of economic and political uncertainty. They have new social and economic roles and responsibilities that are unanticipated. Local officials must reconstruct relations between public and private sector at the local level, in the context of the "new globalism" in addition to concentrating on providing the most basic governance issues.

Proponents of the "new global reality of local government" further argue that to the extent that the legitimacy of democratic regimes is tied to economic performance rather than governance based on civic values, the new localized state suggest a subordination of political will to private interest, particularly at the local level. Furthermore, democratization trends at the national level have left unclear the autonomy of local government relative to other ties. Local governments are victims of structural adjustment programmers in developing countries, national government focus on complying with international debt programmer rather than providing financial and administrative resources for the delivery of local services.

Attempts have been made at redistributing local influence. This is evidence by increased participation of the citizenry in the decision-making process. However, full participation is hampered by the fact that those who tend to "benefit" from the new privatization of services is the party 'faithful's' and the often-gained new position of influence in newly privatized local government. Local government's inability to carry out new roles and functions are constrained by "poor capital" and uneven development patterns. Uneven allocation restricts the ability of local governments to compete for new private investment.

New localism generates extensive competition among states and between local areas. This heightened level of competition has been known to exacerbate uneven development. In this era of globalism, local leaders must now move in a decisionmaking arena where pivotal investors operate at global scales, and at a magnitude and pace that defies local involvement. However, local leaders are asked to perform in this market as entrepreneurs under public constraints. National government also influences local leaders' performance in the global context.

The national government is wary of the fiscal and political consequences of proactive local development efforts. The local decision makers are also limited by the knowledge base and skills to act as public entrepreneurs. In the past local councilors were tied to their local context and the skills there are less likely to transfer when dealing in a global context. Schoburg [11] supports this position. She argues that most local government authority in Jamaica are hampered by an organizational framework built on values that are no longer compatible with contemporary leadership and management technologies or development norms. Furthermore, the operations of local government in the Caribbean and in Jamaica specifically, lack a culture of high performance ([11], p. 19).

Peterson [12] also acknowledged constraints associated with local government. He is of the view that local governments are limited by their ability to implement and redistribute polices or social welfare type policies. These local decision-makers fear that this would encourage the movement of capital. Instead, local decisionmakers are likely to seek out developmental policies that serve to increase local capital base. In their view, this represents a maximization of "the public interest." Stone [13], among others, expanded Peterson's argument by pointing out that the political culture of the locality also plays a significant role in the policies developed for that locality. The influence of political culture is most evident in policy making at the local government level here in Jamaica.

Recognizing the limitations associated with resource mobilization, local governments have opted to privatize the provision of certain services. Theories of privatizing local government services have also influenced the discourse on local government reform. Boyne [14] in his analysis of local government reform in Great Britain, points out that since the 1980s there has been efforts to privatize government services. This effort of privatizing is driven by the belief that the market can produce goods and services more efficiently. It is also driven by the belief that resource decisions are seen as more rational when left to individuals who choose alternatives based on their own preferences through a market bidding process. Market like disciplines will prevent consumers of public goods and services from over consuming their services and smooth out inefficiencies in the provision of these goods and services.

The historical overview of local government reform in Great Britain, provided by Boyne [14] mirrored that of Jamaica. Boyne notes that in Great Britain, local authorities have been shaped by central government into service providers whose primary role lies in supplementing the welfare state rather than economic production.

The industrialists shaped municipal policies to give their businesses the competitive edge. As large companies expanded, they began to focus on national and international base of power and gave limited attention to local politics. The national government oftentimes step in and control the provision of infrastructure and social services. In the 1980s, like Great Britain, there was restricted funding for local government in Jamaica. To address funding constraints, the more independent local government in Great Britain developed strategies for economic development. Greater London Council and the more radical councils developed schemes for allocating funds to stimulate local businesses.

In Great Britain, the Local Government Reform Act of 1980 forced local authorities to operate many services as if they were private companies without the capacity to generate a trading loss for a few years or to expand their business through national or international trade. Under this Act, local authorities could not use power to expand entrepreneurial skills to expand into markets other than those directly tied to the needs of the local authority. In other words, the local authorities were limited by Central government.

Hero [15] introduced a departure from the market-centered approach theory to local government reform. Hxe criticized efforts to evaluate local government solely in terms of the empirical distribution of concrete goods and services. People must be placed in the equation. Hero states that the value of ordinary individuals should be measured by the degree to which "outputs" of the system, in the form of security services and material support benefit them ([10]. p. 41). Unfortunately, Hero's suggestions were not taken into consideration until in the 1990s in Great Britain and New Zealand. In the 1990s, under the leadership of Prime Minister Blair, the "Best

#### *Urban Agglomeration and the Geo-Political Status of the Municipality of Portmore, Jamaica DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102665*

Value" system was introduced as a means of ensuring effective and efficient service delivery. This system set targets for local authorities. Included in these targets is a strong customer service component.

In general, existing research on local government reform points to the influence of global economic forces. These forces limit the decision-making capacity of local government, particularly as it relates to economic development. This also impact on service delivery. Although the local authorities are constrained by global forces, the average taxpayers are still concerned about effective and efficient delivery of local services such as fire, sanitation, and provision of social services.

In Jamaica there is an increasing demand for efficient and effective service delivery. With this demand there is a tendency to argue for prioritizing some of these services as a means of achieving these goals. Walker and Davis [16] have conducted extensive research on impact on contracting government services in Great Britain. They argue that services that are easily defined, monitored, and for which appropriate measures for performance can be implemented are the best to be contracted. They also warned that the difficulty in contracting service the recipients (taxpayers) do not often get the best possible service but rather the best service according to the contract.

The promulgation of the various Acts governing local government inclusive of the Parish Council Acts of 1887, the Parochial Rate and Finance Act of 1990, the Kingston and St. Andrew Act of 1925 and Municipal Act of 2003, and most recently the Local Governance Act of 2016, among others, serve to further blur the distinction between the provision of and funding for services at local and central government levels. Increasingly, research on local government recognizes that the powers of national or central government have increased significantly since the 1960s. The central government have assumed more interest in maintaining order and authority at the local level as well as securing public revenues and preserving the interest of public officials in pursuit of the government overall goals relating to growth and development.

In Jamaica, as in other developing states, government spending on public service delivery at the local government level has seen a mercuric rise since the 1980s. Concomitant with this increase in spending, central government has increased its regulatory powers and the decision-making authority have become more centralized. This is evident by the passage of various acts of parliament to centralize funding mechanisms. This is with the aim to achieve economies of scale, eliminate duplication of services and increase service efficiency.

The emphasis on market driven forces to influence the provision of and funding for local government services also served to blur the lines between the responsibilities of local and central government to provide these services. However, Gurr and King [9] argue that "the provision of such public services as water supply, for protection and waste management cannot be left up to the market neither can it be the sole responsibility of one layer of government" Gurr and King ([9], p. 33). According to Gurr and King, "Whatever other interest is pursued by the national government, some minimum level of the public services must be provided if the local authority is to survive at all" Gurr and King, ([9], p. 35).

Ragoonath [17], in his essay, "Challenges for Local Government in the Caribbean" is of the view that Jamaica and other Small Island Developing States of the region is faced with issues of rebuilding credibility to a local government system. The rebuilding is necessary since for many years local government structures of the region has been "'hijacked' and even emasculated by central governments, and at the same time being an arena for corruption and mismanagement, all in the context of self-interest, political expediency and even party paramount." ([17], p. 100). To remedy the situation Ragoonath calls for, reform of the legislative and

#### *Sustainable Development Dimensions and Urban Agglomeration*

the administrative structures in order that participation is enhanced, and citizens are empowered. He further argued that such reform must be because of consensus. Consensus will only come after consultation, and when trust is developed or inculcated. Moreover, the opinions of those at the bottom must be considered, alongside all other opinions [17].

#### **5. Urban agglomeration, legislative provisions, policies, and implications for sustainable development**

In justifying the proposed geo-political parish status for Portmore, a newly elected government official representing Portmore stated that,

*as a model parish, Portmore has the potential to counter a lot of the ills that ail most parishes: Particularly the blight spawned by unplanned developments and the resulting urban sprawl. The orderly development and zoning of the parish is of tremendous value in making Portmore the parish to live, work and do business. The creation of high-occupancy vehicle lanes at the tolls to encourage carpooling and reduce traffic and pollution; the creation of a model inter- and intraparish public transportation system; the provision of designated public markets and strict enforcement of vending rules; a modern waste disposal and sewage treatment systems are all potentially practical benefits of parish status. Miller (2020), "Practical Benefits of Portmore As a Parish, Friday, January 29, 2021, Jamaica Gleaner https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20210129/ robert-miller-practical-benefits-portmore-parish.*

It is important to note that the existing Town and Country Planning Act (1957) and other legislative provisions make allowances for the Portmore Municipality and the other parishes to prepare its land use plan to address issues of urban blight, transportation, and settlement needs. Unfortunately, in this statement, the elected official failed to recognize these existing legislations and failed to mention the enabling legislative enactments and or policies and programmers that will be implemented for the Jamaican society to achieve the principles of sustainable development as measured by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 11—safe, inclusive, and resilient cities and communities. Elsewhere in Small Island Developing States in the Caribbean and throughout the world, elected officials at the city level, policy makers, and city planners are actively working to create environmentally friendly, safe, and resilient communities, neighborhoods, and cities for their citizens without compromising the needs of the future generation.

The current administration in Jamaica must take care to adhere to the principles of the agreement under the New Urban Agenda which is the Framework for the implementation of SDG 11. By signing the New Urban Agenda, the government agreed to:


*Urban Agglomeration and the Geo-Political Status of the Municipality of Portmore, Jamaica DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102665*


To ensure that the government is not in breach of the New Urban Agenda and is able to achieve the SDGs, it is imperative that the necessary steps are taken to further enact the recommendations of the National Advisory Committee on Local Government Reform. The detailed Report prepared by the National Advisory Committee on Local Government Reform in 2009 for the government of Jamaica, recommend urgent need to reform the local government and governance structures to ensure sustainable development for Jamaica as a Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

In addition, the Report, among other things, proposed a legal framework that makes local government relevant to current realities and emerging trends regarding local governance and conducive to the achievement of good governance, sustainable development, empowerment of communities, and the active participation of citizens in the local governance process. In essence, the Report encourage decentralized local services provision, revenue collection and decision-making.

These recommendations in the Report are in keeping with several global think tanks approach to decentralization. Chief among them is the World Observatory on Subnational Government Finance and Investment. The World Observatory on Subnational Government Finance and Investment proposes the following definition: 'decentralization consists of the transfer of powers, responsibilities and resources from central government to sub-national governments, defined as separated legal entities elected by universal suffrage and having some degree of autonomy'. This is in line with the view that the level of autonomy of the local government is critical to the decision about the proposed change in the geo-political designation of the Municipality of Portmore.

#### **6. Conclusion**

The proposal to change the geo-political designation of the Municipality of Portmore raises several questions about the economic profile of the area and the capacity to enjoy the benefits of urban agglomeration given its location attributes. The efficacy of the proposal was also considered against the background of the competitive advantage of the locality when compared to competing urban spaces, the political economy arrangements, and the legislative and policy environment to support this change. The economic viability of the proposition is at best questionable as the economic base of the municipality is limited and its capacity to generate linkages demand serious considerations. The change would most likely be accompanied by more intensive land use if this can be achieved without compromising the goals of sustainable development. Furthermore, many of these services are funded in part by several agencies but there is no clear picture of the total amount being allocated for these services. A reporting mechanism which emphasizes the services rather than the agency or Ministry will give a clearer picture of how much is being allocated for the particular service.

Another recommendation to ensure clearer understanding of the delivery of the public services is to develop clearer performance measures and a reporting format that is intrinsic to the whole process of the service being delivered. This includes, the management, planning, monitoring and evaluation of the service. Well defined and easily measured goals reported in a concise manner will help the decision makers and the general public has a better understanding of how the public purse is being spent towards the delivery of these services. These clear structures will help decision makers and the average citizens to determine the most appropriate urban agglomeration and the attendant government and governance structure. It is important for local government to concentrate on service delivery and get the necessary support from central government to support these service deliveries rather than an "upgrade" parish status without the requisite autonomy for expanding it economic base for improve service delivery.

Decision-makers are of the view that Portmore's has the potential to attract the kind of economic activities in the quantities that will generate linkages and capitalize on economies, and which will provide job opportunities for its residents without acknowledging that the municipality's current position is based on the relationship that exist within the network provided by the Kingston urban agglomeration. For Portmore to exist above or outside of the existing agglomeration, there is need for the appropriate mix of land uses and production linkages that will trap the benefits of knowledge sharing and the cross-fertilization of ideas, inputs, and outputs, that will expand returns to firms and by extension to the locality. Review of the draft land use plans for the Municipality of Portmore does not suggest that consideration is given to land use management that increase the return on investment to enable the provision of basic urban services.

It is also evident that central government in Jamaica continues to maintain autonomy over revenues and the sources of income and local government at the parish level are not empowered to make the necessary adjustments to manage its provision of public goods and services. As a result, the designation of parish may be accompanied by increased fiscal responsibility but not necessarily by the level of autonomy and financial independence of the local government that is needed for the area to grow at the same level or rate of the larger metropolitan area. More emphasis is needed to make local government relevant to current realities and emerging trends regarding local governance and conducive to the achievement of good governance, sustainable development, empowerment of communities, and the active participation of citizens in the local governance process rather than changing status of an urban areas which is the direct result of the principles of urban agglomeration.

*Urban Agglomeration and the Geo-Political Status of the Municipality of Portmore, Jamaica DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102665*

#### **Author details**

Carol Archer\* and Anetheo Jackson University of Technology, Kingston, Jamaica

\*Address all correspondence to: carcher@utech.edu.jm

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

#### **References**

[1] Howard E. Garden Cities of To-morrow. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Ltd; 1902

[2] Fang C, Yu D. Urban agglomeration: An evolving concept of an emerging phenomenon. Landscape and Urban Planning, Volume. 2017;**162**:126-136

[3] Geddes P. Cities in Evolution: An Introduction to the Town-Planningmovement and the Study of Cities. London: Williams and Norgate. Ginsburg; 1915

[4] Fang C. Important progress and future direction of studies on China's urban agglomerations. Journal of Geographical Sciences. 2015;**25**:1003-1024

[5] Brueckner. Lectures on Urban Economics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press; 2011

[6] Porter ME. Location, competition, and economic development: Local clusters in a global economy. Economic Development Quarterly. 2000;**14**(15):15-34

[7] Reilly W. The Law of Retail Gravitation. New York, USA: Knickerbocker Press; 1931

[8] Harvey J, Jowsey E. Urban Land Economics. Great Brittain: Palgrave Macmillan; 2004

[9] Gurr T, King D. The State and the City. University of Chicago Press; 1987

[10] Clarke S. The profound and the mundane: Analyzing local economic development activities. Urban Geography. 1993;**14**(1):78-94

[11] Eris S. Local government and local development: Bridging the gap through critical discourse: Evidence from the commonwealth Caribbean.

Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance. 2014;**10**:5-31

[12] Peterson P. City Limits. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1981

[13] Stone CN. Urban regimes and the capacity to govern: A political economy approach. Journal of Urban Affairs. 1993;**15**(1):1-28

[14] Boyne G, Editor. Managing Local Services: From CC7 to Best Value. London: Frank Cass and Company; 1999

[15] Hero R. The Urban Service delivery literature: Some questions and concerns polity. Polity. 1987;**18**:659-677

[16] Walker B, Davis H. Perspectives on contractual relationship and the move to best value in the local authories. Local Government Studies. 1999;**25**(2):16-37

[17] Ragoonath B. Challenges for local government in the Caribbean. In: Paper Presented at Regional Seminar on Innovative Approaches to Local Development and Management in the Caribbean; October 3-7; Montego Bay, Jamaica. 2005

#### **Chapter 6**

## Perspective Chapter: Belem and Manaus and the Urban Agglomeration in the Brazilian Amazon

*Tiago Veloso dos Santos*

### **Abstract**

Exploring the results of research on the relationship between urban agglomeration and the Brazilian Amazon region, this chapter demonstrates, from a comparative study between the two main metropolitan agglomerates - Belem and Manaus -, the different ways of production in the regional space. Based on the organization, systematization, and analysis of data regarding the main elements of the urban structure in both agglomerates, namely: the patterns of housing settlements of the upper, middle, and lower classes; the distribution of industrial zones and the patterns of urban expansion, we sought to highlight the intra-urban differences between the two metropolises, considering their importance in the configuration of the regional urban network. The most recent evidence points to two quite different metropolitan structures, explained both by the distinct nature of the urbanization processes that produced them and the highlighted intra-urban characteristics.

**Keywords:** urban agglomerate, regional metropolises, Belem, Manaus, Amazon

#### **1. Introduction**

The Amazon region, identified throughout history by its biogeographic and morphoclimatic characteristics, has undergone a significant change in its tropical forest natural landscape from the second half of the twentieth century, which is no longer the only visual reference. This change, resulting from the production of the regional space, places cities and the urban as the main territorial reference at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The image of the urbanized forest as a reference [1] is a symbol of this transformation. Following the urbanization trends in the Brazilian territory, the region had about 70% of its population living in urban areas in 2010, in contrast to the 30% in the 1950s, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). More than the statistical expression of this change in the composition of the regional population, these data show a trend toward the formation of urban agglomerates as a basis for spatial planning.

This arrangement was made possible by the formation of a frontier economy since the formation of cities in the Amazon was part of the implementation of a

regional urban network, the locus of action of the institutions responsible for the integration [2].

This evolution of urbanization demonstrates the genesis of urban "condensations" since it is related to the increase in the number of cities in certain regions of the settlement system [3]. In this case, it is necessary to consider that, for the study of urbanization processes, the presence of these densities is as important as the increase in the size and number of cities or changes in their hierarchical structure.

However, thinking beyond the urban density in a more recent period, a new quality emerges in the dynamics of the urbanization of the Amazonian space, which can be classified as the emergence of metropolitan agglomerates in line with the metropolization movement of the Brazilian space.

The repercussions of this metropolization process in the Amazonian space arise from the need for expansion toward the frontier and the new patterns of capital accumulation and regional labor market organization, but it also concerns the general movement of urban complexification of Brazilian society [4]. Regional metropolization is associated with a pattern of transition from urbanization of society and territory to a trend toward the metropolization of space. It is from this interpretation that the Amazonian metropolitan agglomerates are presented.

However, if the socio-spatial processes of regional metropolization show up as a revealing trend in Amazonian urbanization, this does not mean that such processes have homogeneous configurations. On the contrary, the region has metropolitan agglomerations that present different characteristics, either to the type of economic-spatial dynamics that potentiates metropolization, or about a particular landscape produced as an expression of deeper processes.

The metropolitan agglomerates of Belem and Manaus, the two main cities in the region, are the references for this analysis since it is about recognizing the spatial manifestations expressed in them from a description of their constitutive characteristics as urban and regional phenomena.

#### **2. Urban agglomerates and regional metropolization**

The metropolitan reality is present throughout the Brazilian territory to a greater or lesser extent, and it has been also expressed in the regional Amazonian context in recent decades, in which significant portions of the region currently follow the trends of metropolization. The configuration of this phenomenon in the regional scenario is a consequence of various aspects of the globalization expansion and how this process is presented in the region, considering the insertion of the Amazon in the internationalization of the Brazilian economy since the mid-1970s, through integration and development policies.

The territorial impacts of the world economy unfold in two related manifestations: the ones that act on the intra-urban level and those that express themselves on the regional level around the metropolises. The metropolises of regional projection are parts of this global economic geography, causing transformations that can be synthesized as follows "The current world-system causes a "multi-scale restructuring of capitalist socio-spatial configurations", leading to "qualitatively new geographies of capital accumulation, state regulation, and uneven development" [5].

Considering the official data (**Table 1**), 72% of the population in the Amazon region is in urban centers. Although they can be evaluated according to different degrees of lack and precariousness regarding basic services, the existing urban centers must be considered as constituents of an urbanization model. In addition, urbanization cannot be measured only by the spread of the urban stain or even by the emergence of new cities, but also by the dissemination of its values by society. *Perspective Chapter: Belem and Manaus and the Urban Agglomeration in the Brazilian Amazon DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102481*


#### **Table 1.**

*Brazilian Amazon urbanization.*

In this case, it is recalled that the image of the Amazon as an "urbanized forest" had spread as virtuality since the 1980s.

Although it is possible to speak of metropolization, it is important to bear in mind that this process is not hegemonic in the Amazon case. For this reason, a particular type of extensive urbanization [7] is identified in the region, that is, a diffusion pattern of an urban way of life in the territory that does not need an exclusive urban center, but rather that it spreads in the territory of production relations and general living conditions, which have significant urban content to the point of creating demands with metropolitan profiles [8].

This characteristic of urbanization expansion with intensifying metropolization generated the interpretation that the settlement systems configuration in the Amazon is irregular and detached from a general principle of spatial organization. In this case, there is a whole literature stating that regional urbanization would be functionally disjointed from industrial and agricultural regional developments, because while agricultural expansion and industrial growth are limited to specific locations in the Amazon, the growth of the urban population is widespread across the region, leading to the conclusion that the urbanization process is disconnected from local development processes [9].

I assume a different theoretical premise to analyze the process of regional urbanization from the metropolitan agglomerates because in the two metropolises analyzed - Belem and Manaus - the existence of metropolization relates exactly to the networks of relationships that keep the Amazon, in a varied way, connected to global economic forces, which would be a general guiding principle of regional metropolization, and therefore not a reflection of an alleged functional disarticulation.

In Belem, this manifests itself through the expansion of the connection networks of the metropolis with the most dynamic regions of the countryside, through the expansion of the urban network dispersion radius and the logistical infrastructures that follow it.

In Manaus, the location of an industrial hub that connects the city to global networks of production and circulation of goods, with a relevant degree of specialization, becomes a "knot" in the international network of cities.

Therefore, it is relevant to understand that, unlike the urbanization and metropolization process in other regions of Brazil, in which the expansion of the urban area happened along with the process of the conurbation and the creation of territorial mobility networks strongly marked by industrialization, the Amazonian urbanization is characterized by the allocation of a set of the system of objects in the territory and a system of punctual actions - the large

objects [10], which provided the regional urbanization for the expansion of the frontier economy.

Based on these aspects, it is assumed that the space metropolization in the Amazon region is inserted into two sets of variables. In the first one, the existence and expansion of metropolization is functional to the new forms of appropriation and capitalist accumulation on a global level, in which the production of value in the urban space leads to the consolidation of new forms of accumulation.

The second variable is linked to the internal structuring axis of the metropolises. The fragmentation of space in these agglomerations demonstrates this unequal reality produced as one of their elements in common, despite their different patterns.

These agglomerates represent an important aspect of regional dynamics in a long historical period, being carriers of a reality that reflects what the process of regional metropolization is nowadays. The importance of Belem and Manaus as the largest agglomerations in the Brazilian Amazon is expressed in **Figure 1**.

Although pre-1960 regional history helps to identify the genesis of these agglomerations, it must be considered that it is the integration and development strategies in the second half of the twentieth century that intensify the current urban occupation pattern, expressed in their population growth (**Table 2**) 1 .

According to the data, Belem presents oscillation with a decreasing trend of demographic concentration in its metropolitan space, although the institutional area has been significantly expanded in the analyzed period, with the insertion of new municipalities in the Metropolitan Region of Belem (MRB).

#### **Figure 1.** *Brazilian Amazon: cities populations (2010).*

<sup>1</sup> The percentages of the populations in the agglomerates were calculated considering the contingent of the main municipality and the populations of the metropolitan municipalities. As new municipalities were included, they started to be added to the count, considering the decades in which the metropolitan regions were constituted.

*Perspective Chapter: Belem and Manaus and the Urban Agglomeration in the Brazilian Amazon DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102481*


#### **Table 2.**

*Source: IBGE.*

*Belem and Manaus: Metropolitan population in relation to the states.*

These municipalities were in part created from divisions and dismemberments of the municipalities that already made up the MRB.

Manaus, on the other hand, has the opposite trend, with increasing demographic concentration. This trend is explained by the significant growth from the implantation of the Manaus Free Trade Zone (MFTZ) and the Manaus Industrial Pole (MIP) in the 1960s. More recently, the inclusion of municipalities at the time the Metropolitan Region of Manaus (MRM) was created explains the population increase, given that the population of the municipalities becomes part of the metropolitan region.

In line with the trend of the participation of the metropolitan population in the state total, a similar aspect is observed when we consider the degree of concentration of the metropolitan Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In the two states (Amazonas and Pará), a significant percentage of wealth is concentrated in the metropolitan region, although this is more intense in Amazonas, with 85% of GDP concentrated in the Metropolitan Region of Manaus. In turn, Pará has important concentration levels, with the Metropolitan Region of Belem participating in 35% of the state's wealth (**Table 3**).

These trends are related to the way in which the integration and urbanization policies of the territory were established, which are part of the differences since there is an overlap between the formation of the metropolises and their regional surroundings.

In this case, there is a set of elements that help to demonstrate such differences, such as the induction of metropolization, the types of connections established with the global plan and the regional scale, the types of circulation systems, and the ways of territorial management that present distinct characteristics in the two agglomerates, making up a mosaic of diversity, much rather than the homogeneous reproduction of the same process. Such elements (**Table 4**) reaffirm the argument of the


#### **Table 3.**

*Amazonas and Pará: Participation in the Gross Domestic Product of the metropolitan region and the state (in current R\$ thousand) – 2010.*


#### **Table 4.**

*Metropolitan agglomerates in the Brazilian Amazon: characterizing elements.*

regional metropolitan difference and the territorial and content differentiation of the urban forms that the region presents.

The recognition of these elements leads to the conclusion that, in regional terms, these agglomerates can be understood when viewed along with the regional dynamics, which confirms the existence of an articulated complex between metropolis and the region. This complex produces metropolitan spaces that are mirrors of the differentiated sub-regional occupation profile.

These metropolization-inducing elements in different urban-regional realities make up a scenario that must be considered for the understanding of their organizational bases when it comes to the internal structures of the agglomerates. Based on these conclusions, we proceed to the analysis of the internal structure pattern of each of them.

#### **3. The structure of the urban agglomerates: Belem and Manaus in perspective**

Although the articulation between metropolitan agglomerates and their regional immediate surroundings is on a scale of understanding the role played by these spaces, it is important to highlight that the metropolis can also be interpreted from

#### *Perspective Chapter: Belem and Manaus and the Urban Agglomeration in the Brazilian Amazon DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102481*

its internal structure, that is, the way it is organized according to elements that define its intra-urban, or intrametropolitan space.

In this case, it is necessary to identify the elements that make up the urban structures of the regional metropolitan agglomerates. The goal is to identify the different degrees of differentiation of these structures, considering that they do not mechanically follow the same dynamics. Thus, we will see the elements that mark both Belem and Manaus agglomerates.

#### **3.1 Belem: From urban confinement to dispersed restructuring**

From the seventeenth century until the first half of the twentieth century, the trajectory of urban growth in Belem followed the needs of the Amazonian urban network, which still had little need for a complex urban space. Belem rose in the regional and national urban network at some moments in history, such as during the cycle of Pombaline reforms in the eighteenth century and the rubber period at the end of the nineteenth century. But with the end of these cycles, the city returned to its profile with the limited urban fabric.

In a more recent period, it is possible to affirm the configuration of a phase of urban expansion, marked by the dynamics of metropolization, which presupposes the advance of the urban network in relation to the period and the previous phases. This phase "begins in the sixties and is consolidated in the following decades and presupposes the incorporation of cities and villages close to Belem, defining a unique urban network, despite being fragmented" [12].

In this case, it is understood that Belem had its moment of expansion toward the formation of a metropolitan fabric from the 1960s, in the context of alteration of the circulation networks with the construction of the Belem-Brasília highway, the first major axis of road penetration in the Amazon Basin [13]. The highway (**Figure 2**) is one of the fundamental elements to understand the expansion of the urban fabric and the consequent spread of the city because until the 1960s the urban fabric was confined to the perimeter demarcated by its central neighborhoods and immediate peripheries. The stimulus coming from new regional dynamics, such as the introduction of road axes, propels growth toward other districts.

Simultaneously, the limitations on the demands of the new regional configuration stimulated changes of intra-urban spatial nature due to the growth of the city. The existence of a large area destined to state and parastatal agencies, forming an "institutional belt", made the introduction of the road axes to become one of the elements of the intensification of land use, contributing to the formation of a metropolitan core marked by real estate use and making possible to overtake the initial area of the city. This central area or metropolitan core undergoes vigorous densification, followed by a vertical landscape of the central neighborhoods.

On the one hand, if verticalization is the predominant vector in the central areas of the metropolis, on the other hand, the transformations caused changes in the uneven landscape, observed from its slums and baixadas2 , expressions of a metropolization that intensifies a type of urban peripheralization. The formation of peripheries, even within the central area of the metropolis, had a close relationship with this limited urban configuration at the time, since the "existence of institutional areas, bypassing the initial limits, made continuous expansion of the city impossible, making it difficult to access, with few urban services and equipment; a fact that contributed to the population densification in the most central areas, including the baixadas, located below the "institutional belt" [15].

<sup>2</sup> The term "Baixadas" derives from the original topographic conditions of certain areas of the city which are floodplain level, constantly flooded or subjected to flooding at certain times of the year and that made up about 40% of the urban site, in the denser area.

#### **Figure 2.**

*A stretch of BR-316 highway: Boundaries between cities become imperceptible given the conurbation and the intensity of flows. The BR-316 Highway is part of a set of federal highways that connect the capital, Brasília (DF), to Belem (PA), in a connection known as Belem-Brasília. Source: [14].*

However, this institutional belt began to be broken in the 1960s, consolidating the spread of the urban fabric toward the two main routes of expansion: the BR-316 federal highway and Augusto Montenegro Avenue, which have guided the directions of expansion since the 1980s (**Figure 3**).

This movement made it possible to expand the metropolis to its immediate periphery in the following decades, with growth toward the peripheral municipalities, configuring the expansion area and shaping the old confinement in a new way. The municipality of Ananindeua reaches a demographic growth of around 18% over the 1990s. In the 2000s, all municipalities in the Metropolitan Region had greater growth than Belem (**Table 5**).

The described movement of metropolitan expansion caused the concentration of the highest-income population in the metropolitan core to undergo some changes in a very recent period. It is representative of a change - which cannot yet be classified as a trend - the fact that Belem receives real estate investments from highincome developments, such as Alphaville3 , but this time located in an area far from downtown, in the district of Outeiro. This district is characterized as an area of lowincome housing and leisure, which somewhat contradicts the effort of the upper classes in Belem to remain close to downtown. Otherwise, it reaffirms the trend of dispersion of the metropolitan space, only this time, not from the peripheralization of low-income classes, but rather from the suburbanization of high-income ones.

The industrial areas are also present in the metropolitan area of Belem, even though the urban expansion was not a process derived from the allocation of

<sup>3</sup> Alphaville is the brand of a horizontal real estate development exclusively for high-income classes. The brand is a national reference in horizontal projects, planned neighborhoods and urban centers, present in 21 Brazilian states and the Federal District.

*Perspective Chapter: Belem and Manaus and the Urban Agglomeration in the Brazilian Amazon DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102481*

#### **Figure 3.**

*Belem: Expansion of urban space beyond the metropolitan core.*


#### **Table 5.**

*MRB: Municipalities growth rate (1980, 1991, 2000 e 2010).*

industrial capital, because the organization of the metropolitan space in Belem is not structured around industrialization, unlike other Brazilian metropolises.

In this case, we refer to the industrial experience carried out in Barcarena4 , a municipality that shapes the current configuration of the metropolitan space. The installation of a third roadway corridor in the 2000s5 brings the metropolitan

<sup>4</sup> The Barcarena industrial pole was defined as one of the projects of the Grande Carajás Program, whose goal is to implement industrial plants aimed at the processing of aluminum, kaolin and alumina. At approximately 36 kilometers from Belem, it has an energy supply provided by the Tucuruí Hydroelectric Power Plant, a road system and a port with capacity to serve ships of up to 60 thousand tons.

<sup>5</sup> The Alça Viária, PA-483 highway, inaugurated in 2002, is a complex of bridges and roads with 74 km of highways and 4.5 km of bridges, built to integrate the Metropolitan Region of Belem into the countryside.

#### *Sustainable Development Dimensions and Urban Agglomeration*

influence closer to the industrial pole, causing the metropolitan agglomeration to spread, made possible by the rapid flows between Belem and Barcarena.

In addition to the importance of these industrial areas, in economic terms, it is necessary to consider that Belem was historically characterized as the gateway to the Amazon Basin, and still has river navigation in its relationship with the rest of the country and in the diversification of its regional economy. Belem "is one of the most dynamic metropolitan centers in the network, having influence not only over the state of Pará, but also in Amapá, the western portion of Maranhão and the northern Tocantins. This influence of the metropolis has been made possible by the restructuring of the metropolitan area of Belem through the construction of highway axes that connect the capital to the countryside and the region itself, which improved the fluidity and shaped the Pará Integration System, linking the Metropolitan Region of Belem to the other regions of the state" [17].

The existence of ports in the metropolitan space confirms this position. The maintenance of the importance of river navigation combined with a dispersed metropolization has made road-river transportation possible, integrating the industrial and port structure, making the configuration of the metropolitan agglomerate more complex.

If the urban form of the metropolis was confined at first, assuming its dispersed character from the 1980s onwards, nowadays there is an increasing complexity of metropolization at a regional level, made possible by the increase of flows, the implantation of the infrastructure of material circulation and the expansion of the influence of the metropolis on the region. This can be seen on **Figure 4**.

This characterization sets up a metropolitan structure that is not limited to political-administrative limits but rather explained by the fixed points and flows that make up a functioning metropolitan agglomerate. As such, its structure can be thought of from its organization into sectors (**Table 6**).

In this structure, the core of the metropolis is formed by the central neighborhoods of Belem located in the initial perimeter of the city, either by high-income and upper-middle-class neighborhoods, but also by low-income class ones, known for their precariousness in terms of urban services and facilities, despite their

**Figure 4.** *MRB: Demographic densities.*

*Perspective Chapter: Belem and Manaus and the Urban Agglomeration in the Brazilian Amazon DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102481*


#### **Table 6.**

*Belem: Metropolitan structure.*

proximity to downtown. This core, the most valorized area of the city thanks to the pattern of concentration of services, jobs, and urban equipment, has been experiencing an increase in density in the form of verticalization [19], with new types of social selectivity, incorporation of sophisticated leisure equipment and high real estate prices, outlining the reinforcement of the trend of segregation for highincome social segments in the central area.

The transition areas are identified by the spaces destined to public and private institutions, which in the past served as a restraint to the expansion of the city and have a reasonable degree of lower-middle-class residential settlements, whose inhabitants still manage to live relatively close to the metropolitan core, counting on the services offered.

Finally, the metropolis expansion areas, which follow the direction of three vectors. The first one, Augusto Montenegro Avenue, which goes toward the peripheral districts, is inhabited mainly by low-income classes. This vector has been the object of recent transformations in urban dynamics because although it remains a vector in which there is the presence of low-income neighborhoods and classes, it has shown qualitative changes caused by the actions of the local real estate sector associated with the national real estate circuit. This expansion has been the scenario of a possible trend of upper-class suburbanization, represented by the arrival of middle- and upper-class developments.

The second vector is the BR-316 highway, which goes toward the peripheral municipalities of the Metropolitan Region of Belem, such as Ananindeua, Marituba, and Benevides, which were the ones that grew the most in the last decades, a growth that was partly due to the metropolitan peripheralization of lower-middle classes and low-income classes, who leave the metropolitan core toward these municipalities. This peripheralization, the main constituent element of the BR-316 vector, took place in a state-stimulated manner via housing policy, through the construction of large housing estates, but it also took the form of "spontaneous" lower class reproduction strategies, with occupations of areas for low-income housing.

More recently, in the 2000s, the expansion of this vector was expanded toward more distant municipalities, such as Santa Izabel do Pará, allowing a territorial discontinuity to happen on a landscape level, but reaffirming the contiguity of the metropolitan network, especially by flows related to the new spaces of low-income settlements that exist in this municipality and the dynamics and demands related to population and urban growth, which ratifies the need for a policy of common metropolitan services [20]. In addition, this BR-316 vector is configured by the existing relationship with the municipality of Castanhal, which, like Santa Izabel do Pará, was recently recognized as a member of the MRB.

The third and most recent vector of metropolitan expansion follows the direction of Alça Viária toward the integration of the metropolis with the closest or more dynamic state sub-regions, as in the cases of Lower Tocantins and Southeast of Pará, respectively, which presupposes the existence of a metropolis more integrated into the region's countryside, hence the affirmation of restructuring the urban-metropolitan network of Belem based on the design of this new structure.

The analysis of these processes of expansion of the metropolitan network allows to conclude the redefinition of the metropolitan dynamics which, enlarged from these different processes, consolidates a more complex metropolitan structure in the regional scenario.

#### **3.2 Manaus: From industrial enclave to concentrated metropolization**

The growth of Manaus as a city of regional reference dates to the end of the nineteenth century, when it began to experience the first forms of capitalist interaction under an agro-export basis, because of the exploitation of natural resources (**Figure 5**). This economy enabled the development of an agro-extractive production base, without incentives for the processing of primary products, in the same way, that it triggered the existence of a migratory movement that became workforce for the greater productivity of latex extraction. The end of the period of economic expansion and urban growth caused by the rubber activity until the first decade of the twentieth century was followed by a period of decline in economic, demographic, and urban aspects.

Thus, the movement of little expansion of the urban fabric during the first half of the twentieth century is partly explained by the period of decline, which was only changed from the 1960s with the arrival of regional development programs, when the city's rise to the status of a metropolis began. In the demographic evolution of Manaus (**Table 7**), it is noticeable how there were changes among the highlighted periods: the decline of the population after the 1910s, the slow collapse of the rubber economy, and the growth stimulated by the MFTZ6 and MIP in the 1960s onwards.

<sup>6</sup> The Manaus Free Trade Zone (MFTZ) was established in 1967, with the purpose of creating an industrial, commercial and agricultural center in the countryside of the Amazon, through an import and export free trade area and tax incentives with determined deadlines, in the Export Processing Zones model. Within the MFTZ strategy, a Pole was created to attract industries through reductions in customs fees, tax exemptions, land concessions and infrastructure provided by the State.

*Perspective Chapter: Belem and Manaus and the Urban Agglomeration in the Brazilian Amazon DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102481*

#### **Figure 5.**

*Manaus and the Negro River Bridge: The expansion to the other side of the river. Source: Personal archive to the author.*


#### **Table 7.**

*Manaus: Population evolution (1900–2010).*

Following the trend of population expansion, stimulated to grow throughout the Amazon region in the 1970s, an intensification of the urban area and the current configuration of the metropolitan agglomerate can be seen. The evolution of Manaus and the expansion of the occupation of areas further away from downtown can be perceived as causally related to the movements of the region.

While under the influence of Belem, the economic modernization projects contributed to the production of a network of cities in the Amazon's countryside. In the capital of the state of Amazonas, there was a concentration of urbanization and productive activities in the urban environment. The impact of the industrial enterprise caused the landscape of Manaus to be mediated by the industry.

The initial limits of the city were overcome when Manaus started to receive investments for the improvement of its infrastructure aiming at the implementation of the Free Trade Zone: an international airport was built, the port underwent changes and telecommunications services were implemented [21]. The new urban configuration, brought about through economic activities, marked the transformation of the city, because "with the consolidation of the Free Trade Zone, in the 1970s, the city underwent profound transformations, both in its form and in its social content. Manaus stopped being the "Paris in the Tropics" of the great works of the Rubber Cycle, to become a modern metropolis, with all the economic, social and regional contradictions" [22].

The reformulation of the city's profile since the arrival of the industrial pole is remarkable, with an immediate impact on the production of the space (**Figure 6a** and **b**).

From then on, the metropolis landscape follows the restructuring dynamics of the urban space in the logic of industrial production, which acquires its own economic importance. The urbanization process in Manaus has not stopped since then, and the expansion of the urban fabric was intentionally stimulated by state and market agents, especially the real estate sector.

Due to state actions, the changes in the administrative headquarters of the governments of the state of Amazonas and Manaus city hall, which were in the central area of the capital until the 1990s, were elements that induced the growth of the city toward the west-north vector since the decentralization of some of the administrative structures is consistent with the objectives of metropolitan deconcentration. The areas to which these services were relocated were coincidentally the ones which grew the most during the 1990s and 2000s, a period of the changes described (**Table 8**).

The state action in different administrative spheres has a common goal, to create the conditions for the expansion of the metropolis to one of its sectors, in a structural movement. In this sense, a type of center was created for the middle and upper classes of the city, located in the southern part of the city.

In fact, the production of the manauara space, which is uneven due to the nature of its urbanization, also tends to produce an urban area that has as a characteristic the income inequality, manifested in the city from the forms of land use and housing production. This inequality is constituted in the demographic distribution of

#### **Figure 6.**

*Manaus: The Industrial Pole in two moments: (a) during its construction, in 1967, with the extension of reserved land in the city; and (b) consolidated in the urban structure in 2012. Source: [23].*

*Perspective Chapter: Belem and Manaus and the Urban Agglomeration in the Brazilian Amazon DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102481*


#### **Table 8.**

*Manaus: Total households by urban zones (1991–2000).*

the population, quite concentrated in Manaus when compared with the extensive territory that constitutes the metropolitan region (**Figure 7**).

It is in this sense that a project of expansion in today's Manaus is conditional on overcoming natural obstacles, such as the river and the forest. This growth model tends to deny the dynamics of nature in its development process and in its representations. As we saw in the metropolitan reality of Belem, the recent arrival of large real estate projects for high-income consumers, such as Alphaville, is representative of this qualitative change in the production of urban space in Manaus.

It happens that, unlike Belem, the location of the enterprise in Manaus is close to the metropolitan core, precisely in the highest income area of the city, the south zone. This location is justified by some specific reasons regarding the urban structure of the city, such as the particularity of the population and economic concentration in the metropolitan core and the existence of green areas, which could not only

**Figure 7.** *MRM: Demographic densities.*

be used for projects but are also an element of urban marketing when the product is offered to a specific target audience.

Meeting these new landscape realities, the city has also presented urban interventions for areas of lower classes, such as the Igarapés de Manaus Social and Environmental Program (Prosamim), a state government strategy for the housing and health issues in occupations adjacent to Manaus streams, historically occupied by these populations.

In addition, Prosamim is made possible with the possibility of expanding the urban-metropolitan network beyond municipal limits. This expansion has recently been made possible by the construction of the bridge over the Negro River, which provides road access between Manaus and some neighboring municipalities, such as Iranduba and Manacapuru. In the case of Iranduba, there is already a pilot project for Prosamim, reaffirming the influence of the metropolis on the adjacent municipalities.

In the new face of a Manaus-metropolis, the influence of the bridge on the Negro River cannot be minimized, as it composes a new scenario and reinforces the influence of the capital on the immediate region. It is the most important object symbol of the metropolitan landscape, expressing the arrival of the urban on the "other side of the river". This is one of the spatial expressions that large objects tend to intensify, given that in the municipalities close to Manaus the flow of relationships taking place in the metropolis has not yet been established.

Iranduba is a small city in terms of economic dynamics, with little capacity for its activities to add value on a local or regional level [24]. Such conditions occur due to its proximity to Manaus, with integration by highways, which allows it to present a greater quantity and variety of shops and services.

Manacapuru, on the other hand, is classified as a medium city with an intermediary function, since it performs an intermediary function between the other cities and Manaus due to the proximity of the metropolis and the road connection, that is, its importance is not only for the municipality itself but also for those smaller ones around it.

In other words, from the point of view of expanding relations to the municipalities that make up the metropolitan region of Manaus, one can identify a growth trend in these relations, although at present they are not a consolidated fact, due to the concentrating characteristic of the Manaus metropolis.

It is necessary to add that the expansion of these relations is not mediated only by the consolidated urban network between Manaus and the adjacent municipalities. There is a type of movement in the metropolitan space that is made possible by the existence of spaces metropolized7 by commuting and specific flows, such as those made possible by tourism activities in the municipality of Presidente Figueiredo. This municipality is connected contiguously to Manaus and has flows and commercial activities derived from tourism that cause it to be influenced by a space consumption characteristic of metropolitan areas, including the use of nature elements, such as waterfalls, which are used to enhance tourist activities8 .

Despite the differences in elements of the urban structure, such as economic activities and the resulting socio-spatial impacts, the type of location of the upper

<sup>7</sup> The inspiration for understanding the metropolized space comes from Bernard Kayser (1969), for whom "The metropolized space is characterized as a space that is closely and concretely linked to the big city through the flow of people, goods, capital; flows that are quite intense and permanent and that in fact coincide with the major axes of urbanization" [25].

<sup>8</sup> In general, these establishments are privately managed, and there are several of them along the BR-174 highway. In general, they offer a short stay package (one-day long), which includes restaurants, tours and bathing in waterfalls. The use of the English language on billboards is common, characterizing a type of international tourism.

#### *Perspective Chapter: Belem and Manaus and the Urban Agglomeration in the Brazilian Amazon DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102481*

classes, and the metropolitan peripheralization, it is possible to find similarities between at least one aspect of the intra-urban structure of Manaus and what occurred in Belem: the port activities, and in this case, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that Manaus was favored by its location, since the city was conditioned to perform the port function, concentrating the flow of the hydrographic system of the western Amazon. This urban function became the main force of the city's development, initially driven by the rubber cycle and later by the model of implantation of the Free Trade Zone and the Industrial Pole.

Such characteristics of the metropolitan expansion in Manaus, articulated by urban and regional infrastructures, make it possible to expand the scope of the metropolization toward the state of Roraima, an expanded periphery crossed by the internationalism of the Brazilian northern border, although this increase in regional connectivity provided by the geographical fixed points produces few benefits in terms of quality of life in regions of extensive and peripheral urbanization [26].

We can say, therefore, that the metropolitan structure of Manaus is intrinsically associated with the development policies that produced the Industrial Pole and the Free Trade Zone as pillars of its urban expansion and economic growth.

More recently, over the 2000s and 2010s, this process has been intensified by state-sponsored green entrepreneurship initiatives, which deepen the trend toward metropolization in an uneven geographic development pattern [27].

When we consider these characteristics of the metropolitan space of Manaus and associate it with its main zones and its growth trends and expansion vectors, we have a table that reveals what the metropolitan structure of Manaus is like (**Table 9**).

The main housing areas of the middle- and upper-classes are in the metropolitan core, particularly in the southern part of the city. There is a concentration of urban services, goods, and equipment in these areas. However, the core is not exclusively occupied by these higher-income classes. There are also medium-income sectors bordering its central-south zone, and even low-income populations, especially around the streams. It is in these areas that the main urban intervention programs take places, such as Prosamim, oriented toward interventions aimed at changing the occupation profile, whether in the aspect of the standard type of housing or in the relationship between the city and the river.

The residential areas of the upper-income groups are also located close to downtown, reflecting a scenario of intra-urban segregation, mimicking a particular type of corporate metropolis. So far, there has been no suburbanization of the highincome classes.

The transition and consolidated occupation areas are identified from two occupation profiles. In the central-west zone, residential districts of the middle and upper classes stand out, following the BR-174 expansion vector. In the east zone, industrial areas reserved for the Industrial Pole, as well as recent sectors of housing of low-income nature, predominate. Given the mononucleated characteristic of the metropolis, the low-income residential areas are located within the municipality of Manaus, but in areas relatively distant from downtown, characterized by a low supply of equipment, infrastructure, and urban services, especially in the northern zone.

The mononuclear metropolis characteristic remains fundamental to understand the metropolitan structure of Manaus, although recently there has been an expansion toward neighboring municipalities, such as Iranduba and, to a lesser extent, Manacapuru, particularly oriented by the duplication of AM-070 highway and stimulated by the construction of the bridge over the Negro River, as well as by real estate production and the flows of goods, services, and goods along with it.


#### **Table 9.**

*Manaus: Metropolitan structure.*

#### **4. Conclusions**

The general picture of metropolitan structures in Belem and Manaus offers an understanding of these agglomerates from a regional characterization. It is possible to identify, within the scope of the particularities presented, aspects of differentiation in the configuration of the two metropolises. Elements such as the production of industrial, logistics, and port areas; the segregation profile of low-income classes, and the self-segregation of middle and upper classes lead us to conclusions about the pattern of metropolitan agglomerates in the Amazon.

First, metropolization is intensified from regional integration processes via economic ventures. The urban structure of agglomerates is influenced by regional dynamics that interact with capitals internal to cities, which makes it possible to state that in the Amazon case, regional dynamics directly influence the organization of metropolitan spaces. The movement of integration of the region in a frontier dynamic guided by the Brazilian State does not simply cause the structures to present a common pattern. On the contrary, the particularities of the agglomerates take

#### *Perspective Chapter: Belem and Manaus and the Urban Agglomeration in the Brazilian Amazon DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102481*

shape when we consider the different ways in which each of the references had the process of induced metropolization.

In Belem, the execution of major development projects in the countryside of the central Amazon indirectly mobilized urban restructuring and the consequent space metropolization. The role of urban reference in the region, combined with the migration movements of the workforce, conditioned its dispersed metropolitan structure.

In Manaus, metropolization was induced due to the implementation of a Free Trade Zone combined with an Industrial Pole, elements that boosted urbanization in the western Amazon, which had been hitherto stabilized in the post-rubber economy period. The industrial core and commercial activities led to the establishment of a concentrated metropolitan structure.

These regional conditions act along with other conditions for structuring the metropolitan space but can be seen through the profile of human settlements, the industrial occupation, the circulation logic promoted by these cities and that articulate not only the intra-urban space of the metropolis, but also connect all the regional environment to which they are related, therefore being product, condition, and means of these regional realities.

Both agglomerates have a socio-spatial segregation profile, although it cannot be affirmed in any way that this is an Amazonian peculiarity. Again, the peripheralization appears as a defining element of the metropolitan structure of the two references analyzed, but in different ways.

In Belem, peripheralization is a more dispersed network due to the trend of occupation of more distant areas by low-income populations. In Manaus, the peripheralization is basically inside the city, but even so, located in the distant periphery (northern sector) of the metropolis.

Finally, they are mononucleated agglomerates. Here, a pattern of similarity is identified, because when considering the profiles of the metropolises, it is assumed that they follow an expansion pattern from downtown, which reveals the type of occupation of their elites around the areas with most urban equipment and services. This tendency to maintain the metropolitan centrality has even caused the urban soil to be increasingly densified in the central and pericentral areas, through verticalization.

#### **Acknowledgements**

I would like to thank the Studies and Research Group of "Urbanodiversidade and Territorial Management at Amazon" from Federal University of Pará (GEOURBAM/UFPA) and the Urban and Regional Research Núcleo from State University of Amazonas (NPUR/UEA) for its continued and valuable input and feedback throughout the process of writing and revising this paper. Also, I am very grateful for the research funding provides all those years for my actual institution of work, the Federal Institute of Science, Education and Technology of Pará (IFPA).

*Sustainable Development Dimensions and Urban Agglomeration*

#### **Author details**

Tiago Veloso dos Santos Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Pará, Belem, Brazil

\*Address all correspondence to: tiago.veloso@ifpa.edu.br

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

*Perspective Chapter: Belem and Manaus and the Urban Agglomeration in the Brazilian Amazon DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102481*

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[21] Oliveira JA, Schor T. Manaus: transformações e permanências, do forte à metrópole regional. In: Castro E, editor. Cidades na floresta. São Paulo: Anablume; 2009. pp. 13-39

[22] Ribeiro Filho V. Novas centralidades em Manaus. In: Oliveira JA, editor. Espaços urbanos na Amazônia: visões geográficas. Manaus: Valer; 2011. pp. 71-89

[23] SUFRAMA. Superintêndencia da Zona Franca de Manaus. Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil: Acervo Fotográfico; 2012

[24] Sousa IS. A ponte Rio Negro e a Região Metropolitana de Manaus: adequações no espaço urbano-regional à reprodução do capital [Thesis]. São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo; 2013

[25] Lencioni S. Metropolização do espaço: processos e dinâmica. In: Ferreira A, Rua J, Marafon GJ, Silva ACP, editors. *Metropolização do espaço*: gestão territorial e relações

urbano-rurais. São Paulo: Consequência; 2013. pp. 17-35

[26] Kanai JM. On the peripheries of planetary urbanization: Globalizing Manaus and its expanding impact. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 2014;**32**:1071-1087

[27] Kanai JM. Capital of the Amazon rainforest: Constructing a global city-region for entrepreneurial Manaus. Urban Studies. 2014;**51**(11):2387-2405

[28] dos Santos TV. Metrópoles amazônicas: Dinâmicas regionais, estruturas urbanas e políticas de planejamento e gestão em Belém, Manaus e São Luís. Belém: Editora Paka Tatu; 2021

#### **Chapter 7**

## Devolution of Decision-Making: Tools and Technologies towards Equitable Place-Based Participation in Planning

*Donagh Horgan*

### **Abstract**

Neoliberal development has increased spatial inequalities for communities in both urban and peri-urban settlements across in the global north and south alike. The financialisation of property has increased urban development in favour of opaque private and semi-public actors, making it harder for community stakeholders to influence decision-making. Social innovation in which diverse stakeholders collaborate towards sustainability and resilience in the built environment, offers pathways towards place-based policy-making and more inclusive growth, but needs political support and tools to facilitate participation. Using findings from a set of international cases, this chapter considers the effectiveness of participatory approaches to decision-making, and digital tools that facilitate public consultation. Cases consider the effectiveness of mechanisms available to communities in the cities of Moscow, Belgrade and Edinburgh to influence urban development. Literature review and new knowledge is brought together to shine light on whether information and communications technologies are used to provide a veneer of engagement with communities, and whether more bottom-up or insurgent tactics can give citizens a voice to influence more equitable future cities.

**Keywords:** urban development, neoliberal planning, community participation, platform urbanism, living labs

#### **1. Introduction**

In a study looking at a set of cases from both the Global North and South, Horgan and Dimitrijević [1] found that increasing inequality is manifest in the built environment, as trends towards populist governance decreases the ability of communities to influence spatial decision-making. The authors use examples from around the world to illustrate how political ideologies influenced by global capitalism dominate urban planning systems. Even in cases where overarching policy objectives pursue sustainability and resilience, the underlying political system often prioritises economic growth at the expense of more holistic investment. Their research demonstrates that competitive or capitalist values promoted by neoliberal governments are often in conflict with social and ecological priorities, resulting in development strategies that continue to favour the market in practice. This is

most evident in the increasing monetisation of property and commodification of home—which has exacerbated acute housing crises in a number of cities and territories [2]. Horgan and Dimitrijević's [1] findings follow warnings from Lefebvre [3] and Harvey [4] on the exclusionary power of a pro-growth politics that produces capitalist forms of spatial development. Lamentably, the research would seem to suggest that decision-makers favour models that align to short term political priorities—that ignore and even inhibit social innovation in communities—in order to reduce risk for those funding development.

In a challenge to financialised development models, Horgan and Dimitrijević [1] identified networked approaches within communities seeking to take control over local development, and how community networks are making steps towards autonomy, self-reliance and resilience. Common across the phases of social innovation observed with those communities was the need for strong supportive governance systems to ensure participation at the grass-roots influences spatial strategy at higher levels of organisation. Tokenistic forms of engagement will only serve to further alienate communities suffering spatial inequality, and encourage citizens to challenge opaque urban governance. The authors conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought new attention to the politics that buttresses spatial inequality, and the precarity of unsuitable and undignified living conditions in cities and peri-urban settlements all over the planet. Similar findings in scholarship which support that capitalist modes of production produce spatial inequalities—through the configuration and allocation of space—inform the context of this research. Semi-structured interviews with key informants provide insights into the nature of participation in decision-making related to the built environment in three urban communities, and provide a lens for further analysis. Case studies from Belgrade, Serbia; Moscow in the Russian Federation and Edinburgh, Scotland are examined—looking particular at opportunities for citizen participation to influence spatial development.

The three cases reveal commonalities in how city governments approach entrepreneurial models of development, albeit within vastly different political regimes. The study confirms a relationship between politics and planning that influences the type of community engagement that accompanies spatial transformation in each case. The chapter provides insights into how communities approach issues related to spatial development within different political contexts, and the mechanisms available to them to influence urban policy in each. Included are relevant themes from literature review that background the political and cultural context of spatial inequality in the chosen cases—with reference for example to previous sociopolitical systems such as those relying on forms of self-management, as is the case in the former Yugoslavia. The research strengthens findings from previous research on how aspects of ownership and participation in planning are aligned to the nature of the surrounding political ecology. It reveals how different forms of participation including networked opposition and organisation—can open up decision-making in the medium to long term—and contribute to a sustainable lasting social investment from urban development.

#### **2. Situating hard and soft power in planning and placemaking**

The global pandemic has demonstrated the need for resilient social infrastructures, and the highlighted importance of co-creating social value through placebased approaches. Such values are in immediate conflict with pro-growth models of development that prioritise global flows of capital, and the commodification of property and urban assets [1]. At the city scale, pro-growth and competitive modes of urban governance can result in ill-defined forms of collusion between state and

#### *Devolution of Decision-Making: Tools and Technologies towards Equitable Place-Based… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102555*

market actors—necessitating the need for transparent participation mechanisms for public oversight of planning. Top-down governance—from authoritarian to laissez faire—inhibit nuanced conceptions of public value that promote alternative measures of social capital [5]. In what Swyngedouw [6] calls the post-democratic city, one-way or tokenistic forms of participation in planning spread further disillusionment and disengagement—and eventually post-politicisation of the built environment. In a challenge to increasingly technocratic global governance, agile and insurgent approaches to defend spatial rights are emerging borne out of networking at the grassroots [1, 7].

Within a development context dominated by smart city narratives, and topdown platform approaches to urbanism that rely on big-data, interest has grown around policy-making that engages with the financialisation of the built environment [8]. Funded by the European Union's *Horizon 2020* research and innovation programme, the *Urban Maestro* action involved UN-Habitat and academic partners in order, "*to understand and encourage innovation in the field of urban design governance through a better understanding of alternative non-regulatory ('soft power') approaches and their contribution to the quality of the built environment*" [9]. Collecting best practice from a host of cross-sectoral activities the project was built around a premise that soft coordination mechanisms create a common vision to promote alignment of a large number of stakeholders towards the same objectives. The project looked at the relationship between financial mechanisms and informal tools of urban design governance—looking at how synergies between such tools have the potential to make both approaches more effective in attaining their desired outcomes. A survey conducted for the project among European countries revealed under-exploited potential to use financial tools in urban design governance to reward good behaviour, and discourage poor behaviour. Bento and Carmona [10] found that while the role of the state should be to incentivise high quality development over development for development's sake, many administrations across Europe are "*attempting to do this with one hand tied behind their back*". The authors concluded their report with a reminder that "*the public sector nevertheless has a special responsibility for creating the conditions within which a high quality built environment can flourish*" pointing at a host of tools already available to governments [10]. These ranged from tools for evidence gathering, knowledge dissemination and proactive promotion, to structured evaluation and direct assistance tools that seek to develop community capacities for placemaking.

It is within this research context that the three cases below are considered seeking to understand how decision-making is facilitated (or not) within a set of different political environments. Findings reveal persistent concerns around citizen engagement platforms in Russia, while in Serbia an engagement vacuum has activated networked approaches to achieving combined social and spatial rights. Despite a pro-market planning agenda in Edinburgh, an enlightened policy context in Scotland has allowed for sophisticated co-production in the planning process that is more compatible with strategies for an inclusive growth. This chapter offers insights into how cities can look to enhance practices of urban design governance within Europe and beyond, for the ultimate benefit of all citizens delivering betterdesigned places. It demonstrates how spatial equality can provide a lens for wider democratic deficits, and that while technology allows for participation, it may also give voice to propaganda that mask unsustainable unequal spatial reorganisation.

#### **2.1 Active citizenship in Moscow?**

Horgan and Dimitrijević [11] identified that for citizens seeking to participate in spatial decision-making technology can be both a force for good—connecting

communities of practice united in the struggle for spatial rights—yet can also be tools to advance neoliberal policies and planning orthodoxies. Their study looked at technology-enabled approaches to engagement, alongside tools to facilitate spatial decision-making in the community setting, such as Scotland's Place Standard [11]. This research follows warnings from a number of scholars that caution how technology is not a panacea to enable participation, and how seemingly 'smart' approaches to urban governance are driven by neoliberal ideals in conflict with the citizens' desired social outcomes [12–14]. That study, which focused on a case study from Moscow in the Russian Federation, revealed a technology-enabled approach that embraces tokenistic participation in planning, allowing city governments to shape dialogue around urban development to suit their own speculative strategic ends. These findings are supported by Wijermars [15], who found that alongside an increase in the number of internet users, the country saw a drastic increase in regulation over Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) which gradually decreased its salience as an object of participatory socio-political construction. Recent years have seen the development of the Internet as a critical form of modern communication infrastructure that supports citizen's lives, as well as being used by governments as a tool of political influence. In their pre-pandemic study, Horgan and Dimitrijević [11] found that through a joint venture, the city of Moscow developed an online engagement platform—*Active Citizen* (Активный гражданин)—to support urban development decisions and others as part of its smart cities strategy. Through interviews with a number of citizens in the city, the authors found widespread suspicion around the platform, and concerns at how it was being used to demonstrate support for large-scale demolition and urban renewal on valuable sites in Moscow. The article noted that alongside questions around how such platforms are used for explicit political means, major concerns exist around aspects of ownership, governance and participation on the platform itself. When decision-making is required on highly impactful issues such as large-scale urban renovation or displacement, there is no substitute for offline face-to-face engagement through incremental and iterative engagement [11].

In an article by the Russian newspaper *Novaya Gazeta*, data analysts found that voters on the Moscow platform had done so in several neighbourhoods at the same time, suggesting some people participated in polls about things without any informed knowledge [16]. The investigation found that rewards for users in casting votes and posting to social media often skewed the voting process, and that in some cases users could claim rewards for simply liking an improvement. The article referred to a number of voting anomalies identified by several sources, including too-regular voting behaviours and seemingly fictitious users. The newspaper cynically suggested that the platform had undergone a tremendous evolution towards emulating the free expression or the will of living people, since earlier well-publicised failures in the system's credibility. Emerging from the success of Active Citizen, a version of the portal is being developed for all cities according to the requirements of the Ministry of Construction of Russia. In fact, cities should procure a platform to comply with the roll out of the Ministry's *Smart City* programme across the federation. A white-label version of the portal sold by LLC "Internet business systems" provides cities with technology to facilitate citizen polls as part of urban renewal projects and policymaking, towards a comfortable urban environment. Already online in cities as diverse as Ulan-Ude and Chelyabinsk, the platform allows citizens the chance to vote on minor aspects of urban development, at a point where any significant influence on urban strategy is impossible.

For example, a scan of posts on a regional platform offered citizens the chance to decide the phasing of a development rather than provide feedback on anything of strategic importance, without revealing anything related to procurement or the

#### *Devolution of Decision-Making: Tools and Technologies towards Equitable Place-Based… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102555*

tender process. The veneer of transparency around urban development given over by these technologies obscures the relationships between local government and development actors, offsetting public scrutiny. An academic looking at critical area studies, and an expert on Russian *blagostroitsva* (improvement)—initiatives that promote amelioration of the public realm—confirmed that these platforms were an integral part of a strategy to foreground top down decision-making in planning with vague policy rhetoric around the smart city. In a semi-structured interview, the informant explained how the platforms are meant to sit alongside strategies for urban renewal in Russia's regions, and are tied to policies towards promoting a perception of decentralisation of power and constitutional reform to the population. This process, which began under President Medvedev, was piloted by Moscow mayor Sobyanin, and is continued through the work of Russia's Ministry of Construction in other cities.

It has the effect of keeping dissatisfaction with governance at bay within the general populace through the spectacle of improvement, mirroring neoliberal progrowth approaches to development in other areas of the economy. Undeterred by supply chain disruption during the pandemic, Moscow—and cities across Russia's regions—are still carrying out large scale urban reorganisation at an unprecedented scale, as part of a strictly authoritarian modernisation agenda. The academic informant emphasised how that in Russia, the *Active Citizen* portals follow a model where economic actors conspire to present a speculative development project as a bottom-up intuitive—using participative technology to sanction interventions on public land. Such a model is important following the success of consortia in cities such as New York to convey speculative development in the public as a public good—such as the High Line—while local developers and funders make massive returns on investment on adjacent lots. This approach takes advantage of loosely defined ownership status in Russian law, and is emblematic of how broader privatisation disinherits the community of what was social property under the Soviet system. What is hidden by simulated engagement in the form of what has been described by Asmolov [17] as 'vertical crowdsourcing' platforms, is the incremental transfer of state assets—once part of a socialist commons—to new forms of organisations, and attributed to spatial redevelopment in the public good. While motivations for participation in online polls can be driven by a host of reasons—from incentives to active citizenship—a lack of transparency around the initiators of development proposals, means that users are often willingly championing neoliberal development with little other option. While those can afford to shape how the city is remade, without levers to exercise democratic control, everyday citizens are often passive participants in decision-making that govern place.

Evidently the pandemic has increased tendencies in governments worldwide to substitute online platforms for direct democracy opportunities in real life, the need for greater transparency over online platforms also increases. The likelihood of spatial policies informed by the logic of crisis urbanism means that citizens are likely to become further disenfranchised from decision-making, as city governments use paradigms of austerity and recovery to sanction the absence of public oversight and participation. Writing on urban policy making after the global financial crisis, Theodore [18] found that the financial crisis saw a "*redefinition of the state's role in fostering a globally competitive environment through marketisation, deregulation, and fiscal conservatism*". In the article, the author shows how the resort to austerity has been highly regressive, socially as well as politically all over the world—aggravating spatial inequalities. For Theodore [18], austerity-led development represents, "*the consolidation of neoliberal urbanism, driven by its underlying logics and deepening its effects on governance arrangements and everyday life*". This follows authors such as Peck [19], who noted that following a brief period of economic introspection,

"*commitments to the antisocial credo of market fundamentalism were soon […] renewed and reinvigorated*" around the world. There is a growing scholarship documenting insurgent tactics being used by communities to challenge neoliberal orthodoxies in planning, and safeguard the right to the city for citizens [6, 20–22].

#### **2.2 The right to a new Belgrade?**

The shock of regime change has often provided an excellent foil for sweeping changes to urban governance, policy and development structures, in particular in relation to the provision of housing [23]. Prior to the collapse of its uniquely iterative economic system of market-socialism, housing was confirmed as a social right in Yugoslavia. In building a national state at the confluence of imperial powers, its early federal government saw housing for all as a significant policy objective in bringing about a prosperous and aspirational egalitarian society [24]. As a mechanism for equal distribution and management of society, a right to housing was introduced as part of the socialisation of property after the establishment of the socialist state [25]. In fact, the concept of Yugoslavia itself became an inspirational platform for social innovation in architecture—translated into the production of socialised housing informed by an expert evidence base and knowledge culture supported by high-quality research, technical prototyping and testing on smaller scales [26]. Yugoslav urban planning was a spatial application of a set of ideas for community, providing for genuinely heterogeneous neighbourhoods, the outcome of a distinct economic system of self-management. Within this polycentric governance system, a unique ideological framework for society was constantly being negotiated [27].

Self-management allowed for successive economic reforms and policy experimentation that set Yugoslavia apart [28]. While it did not solve the housing crisis in the federation, it made possible large-scale residential developments with a capacity to house 5000–10,000 inhabitants, managed by locally-elected units [29]. While the virtue of participation emphasised in self-management doctrine did not translate into a genuine participation of citizens in urban or regional planning, the participation of state enterprises encouraged a culture of open innovation [30]. During the 60s and 70s, New Belgrade continued to be one of the largest building sites in Europe, whose housing typologies and designs were as much influenced by socialist thinking in neighbouring countries as the architecture of the welfare states of Northern Europe [31]. Despite its limitations, the system allowed workers to participate in decision-making related to their enterprise that led to improvements in their general quality of life, including housing [28]. Ultimately the Yugoslav system unravelled as unscrupulous actors exploited inconsistencies in its nuanced understanding of Marxism, which was unable to withstand mounting individualism at all levels of society. The nationalist parties that emerged to lead the newly independent states introduced a neoliberal capitalist economic system that allowed foreign capital to cheaply purchase production resources in former Yugoslavia, previously owned by the workers [28].

Belgrade is still reeling from the upheavals of the late twentieth century, which saw the stock and production of public housing reach record low levels [32, 33]. An estimated 53% of housing stock in Belgrade was socially-owned apartments in 1991 [34], dropping to less than 1% today [35]. While the politician vacuum and population movements in the period during and after the war saw a significant demand on housing and space in the city, and overall lack of strategy for is one of the most significant outcomes for the built environment since the introduction of free-market capitalism in Yugoslavia [36]. Hirt and Petrović [32] (2011) note that globalism and the collapse of the old system are to blame for the spread of gated housing in

#### *Devolution of Decision-Making: Tools and Technologies towards Equitable Place-Based… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102555*

Belgrade—evidence of ever decreasing social and spatial solidarity. Projects such as Belgrade Waterfront are emblematic of a speculative approach to planning in the city which prioritises high-wealth individuals in access to public space and spatial decision-makers [37]. In the absence of a coherent strategy put to public consultation, large scale public assets such as the city's main train station are relocated in favour of projects concerned with the exchange value of property rather than social value, and the actual needs of society.

Indeed, movements for spatial rights in Serbia have grown, perhaps in parallel to an ever-growing discontent with urban governance and a litany of unpopular planning decisions and actions across the country. In a study on frameworks for social innovation. Horgan and Dimitrijević [1] identified organisations in the city working to achieve combined social and spatial rights, and address a democratic deficit in decision-making. Spatial activism and organisations such as *Ne Davimo Beograd* (NDB, Do not strangle Belgrade) and *Ministarstvo Prostora* (MP, Ministry of Space) present parallel political movements offer hope for Belgrade as development can be impeded by a lack of strategy and perceived kleptocratic governance [38]. These organisations employ shared methodologies, management and governance to offer ownership to citizens. An interview with the organisers of NDB in a year since the outbreak of the global pandemic, suggests that the top-down spatial development approach in the city is increasingly trending towards monumentalism, following Northern Macedonia's model for statecraft through urbanism in Skopje. While interventions are presented as strategic, *NDB* cannot figure out the pattern in Belgrade's spatial development, which they consider to be harsh and inconsistent, ignorant of the needs of citizens. The group sees no clear divisions between branches of government in Serbia, no independent institutions or transparency over city authority. Since the introduction of a market economy in the 2000s, a privatised state has emerged, producing a stark deterioration of the public sphere, visible in housing issues and everyday life struggles. A perception that political and economic actors are basically one has been behind widespread criticism of monumental projects such as Belgrade Waterfront, which since 2015 has advanced sweeping changes to the city's urban fabric [37].

For spatial activists, the urban development approach combines symbols of raw capital and raw power, that mask a captured state with weak social institutions. Since the coronavirus pandemic the market in Serbia has been stagnant, making it easier to identify opaque relationships in small scale residential developments on key strategic sites in the old city. Often these sites are on formerly state-owned industrial assets which have lain vacant after years of unsuccessful privatisation. It is within this context that *NDB* and their partner organisations have been successful in making an incremental impact towards spatial equality. Their approach has been a mix of hyper-local and regional campaigns that engage citizens on environmental issues such as air pollution and the lack of adequate sewage systems common across peri-urban areas of the former Yugoslavia. Campaigns have focused on topics as wide as forests in the city's development plan to the upgrading of former bomb shelters and other shared public amenities, and included solidarity actions around the pandemic. Tactics have sought to bring about policy change through greater awareness, bringing undisclosed issues into the public domain and mainstreaming dialogue around urban planning—in a country with a polarised and limited media. This is not a linear approach, and its agility comes from an ability to connect public and expert spheres, social and environmental movements within a community of practice.

This networked approach to social innovation is important in driving a rise in new civil society actors in Serbia, and grow participation in spatial decision-making. Without giving these networks the tools to influence development frameworks,

and co-produce imaginative social architectures, prevailing political ideology will always stand in the way of change [1]. Belgrade's city government has attempted to develop ownership to citizens through its attempts at participatory budgeting, however the lack of a feedback loop in the process brought attention to the state of the city's badly neglected public services, ultimately derailing the project. For those at the helm of *NDB* the biggest challenges related to a lack of human resources, made worse by an ever-present brain drain from Serbia. This presents challenges for those seeking to grow collective rights, and reinstate some of the innovative forms of ownership of the former socialist federation. Also difficult is the promotion of shared or holistic narratives for spatial development within a system where privatised development is seen to deliver functioning security for those who can afford it.

#### **2.3 Enlightened engagement in Edinburgh?**

In a study of the enlightenment in Edinburgh, Scottish author Murray Pittock [39] uses the methodology of urban innovation to describe the civic networks and cultural change at the heart of what made Edinburgh a smart city in 1700. This analysis reveals that civic development produced the innovation and dynamism that made social transformation in the Scottish capital possible and the political power of the gentry and patronage [39]. The current neoliberal turn in the city's mode of governance has been lamented by many, and is visible across a whole host of spatial strategies, from planning for festivals and tourism to economic development. Tracking contested development proposals in the city, Ballard Tooley [40, 41] found that the political and economic logic of urban development in Edinburgh privileges economic growth within a system of interurban competition, by prioritising the needs of business over citizens. The studies explore tensions between the values of community and efficiency in urban development, and reveal how community engagement itself unearthed conflict between political visions of a pro-growth urban renewal agenda with neoliberal realities for local residents. Edinburgh's growth to become the second largest financial centre in the United Kingdom after the City of London has rested on the service sector, is a major contributor to the local economy with culture, consumption and knowledge exchange vital pillars for economic development. Sutherland [42] found that the complexity of devolution in Scotland means that policy priorities, notably inclusive growth and approaches to reducing economic and social spatial disparities differ greatly from that of the Westminster government. For Sutherland [42], evidence of neoliberalism can be found in urban developments, in place-marketing to multinational corporations, and in the competition to attract city investment—efforts which are often at the expense of engagement with citizens, and public service innovation. It is apparent in Edinburgh's ambitions to become the 'Data Capital of Europe', an entrepreneurial framing of the smart city concept, yet difficult to disaggregate in practice. This ambition is anchored by Edinburgh's City Deal—part of a UK government framework to reduce spatial imbalances between London and other parts of the country a combined investment from the United Kingdom and Scottish governments and match funded through capital investment from universities and other sources [42]. Sutherland [42] notes that Edinburgh's growth faces significant bottlenecks, in the availability of skills and housing, and is almost certainly destined to draw activities and people away from other places, whether in the UK or further afield—necessitating massive spatial reorganisation.

In a study looking at the establishment of a Commission on climate change in the city, Creasy et al. [43] noted a persistently technocratic model of governance in Edinburgh, where a "*fast-tracked conceptualisation of place, instigated from the top-down*", legitimises a focus on policy-making through 'expert' knowledge. The *Devolution of Decision-Making: Tools and Technologies towards Equitable Place-Based… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102555*

authors found such an approach to be in direct conflict with Massey's [44] relational interpretation of place, which seeks to engage with citizen's place-based knowledge on the ground. Creasy et al.'s [43] study indicated that in the process of establishing the commission, the city was moving towards more experimental approaches to urban governance, seeking opportunities to unlock new resources and possibilities with new partners, as opposed to "*feeding the zero-sum game of carving out resources from existing local allocations*". The project has helped to amplify the place-based agency of the city at the grass roots, helping to "*to balance the vital networking and learning opportunities they facilitate with resisting a one-dimensional and static interpretation of the 'places' that they seek to network together*" [43]. In Scotland however, place-based principles are an integral part of a National Planning Framework that mandate levels of community participation in the planning process—in both spatial and community planning—which has encouraged the development of a host of tools and methods that support collective decision making [11]. This means that while economic agendas may drive urban strategy to an extent in Edinburgh, negative impacts and social exclusion may be mitigated against through focused and targeted engagement with specific cohorts. Even as development strategies focused on growth prevail at the policy level, socially innovative place-based approaches to decision-making at the community level—generating ownership over changes in the built environment.

Such an approach is visible in the work of Edinburgh's Living Lab (ELL, part of the University of Edinburgh), whose work takes a holistic perspective that integrates data innovation and place-based practices that put people and sustainable futures at the heart of decision-making. Through community engagement, applied researchers at the ELL help to define these options for the City of Edinburgh Council—providing them with information that allows for a better understanding of multiple perspectives, usage patterns, and aspects of neighbourhood and place—to enable evidence-based decisions. Working with the City of Edinburgh Council, the Living lab produced a report on Data and Design for Property and Planning based around a collaborative placemaking project with a community in the Gracemount area of the city [45]. Through their service design programme the local authority worked with the lab to test an embedded data-and-design methodology to make better decisions about significant changes to the council estate. Project objectives included an audit and analysis of local authority data to address key questions about building use; a process to identify key community values to support the management of assets and service delivery in the area; the definition of future options for the future of buildings; and a set of guidelines for replicating a similar approach in other areas of the city.

The developed placemaking methodology evident in the work of the Edinburgh Living Lab, works to offset impacts of neoliberal economic planning by allowing citizens to participate in decision-making at the neighbourhood scale—building out capacities that may contribute to better urban governance at higher levels of organisation. Their work in Gracemount, Southhouse and Burdiehouse neighbourhoods made better use of data held in the Council to open up the planning process—to explore and validate community perceptions and priorities alongside those of the council, ultimately arriving at a shared vision for social transformation. The planning report found that collaboration between different service, building, and community stakeholders helped build relationships and strengthen project outcomes [45]. Specifically, the process helped the property directorate join up their decision-making with other departments to deliver better services with less resources, making cost savings and optimising the Council estate. Since the project, the report found the narrative had changed from council to community, meaning that communities are more engaged in decision-making, participate in making

difficult decisions, understand and are therefore more likely to accept outcomes. An active engagement methodology facilitates ongoing engagement with communities, while spatial data from multiple sources provides more of a holistic insight into access to and exclusion at an appropriate scale.

The methods developed by the ELL in Gracemount have informed another project in Edinburgh which combines citizen engagement and co-design with urban data and research to help support the high street to become a more successful and liveable place as communities emerge from the global pandemic. Scaling tactics developed with other communities the 'Future of the High Street' project led by the Edinburgh Futures Institute (in collaboration with Edinburgh Living Lab) will develop a toolkit of 6 possible ideas to tackle common high street challenges through digital co-design workshops with local businesses and other stakeholders in Gorgie-Dalry high street and Dalkeith town centre—with two ideas selected to be rapidly prototyped. Limited by social distancing requirements, wider digital engagement with residents, young people, local organisations and other stakeholders is designed to focus more holistically on the high street as a 'place'—helping to understand how the high street may be adapted or accommodate new and innovative uses. This helps to address common challenges experienced by local independent businesses and residents that would make the high street more liveable and successful—leaving an actionable legacy.

The Future of the High Street project incorporates use of urban data through baseline assessments of land use, character and business data alongside existing reports and reviews of previous consultation—to respect both this prior work and citizen time and input that had already gone before, in former community engagement. Important here is to emphasise a feedback loop—and two-way relationship between community, the project team and council—and to put forward a nuanced understanding of challenges and opportunities that can inform a robust evaluation of pilots, across a set of common indicators. As ELL continue to refine the methodology use in the Gorgie-Dalry pilot, legacy impacts are already visible in changes to the built environment and public realm at the neighbourhood scale—which involve the prototyping public realm improvements, and artistic installations—based on learning form the pilots. It is hoped that these tactics will influence historically top-down planning with respect to the public realm—and wider infrastructure—in Edinburgh. For many communities on the periphery of Edinburgh's growth, their participation offers a safeguard against social exclusion and spatial inequalities that accompany top-down planning approaches. For communities on the edge of more speculative developments closer to the centre of Edinburgh's financial core, it remains to be seen if the council will offer them the same opportunities to influence development decisions. This raises important questions regarding the political ideologies that govern offers of participation, and whether ownership over such processes is ever truly devolved to citizens.

#### **3. Conclusions: towards a collective urban governance?**

As recovery from the great slowdown necessitates capacities for more sustainable social, economic and environmental resilience, urban governance must seek to achieve a balance in the organisation of settlements to support equitable work, housing and economy. Concluding in early 2021, the *Urban Maestro* project found that while "*European cities have developed sophisticated laws and regulations ('hard power') to secure diverse public interest objectives through the governance of urban design, the quality of the resulting urban places can be disappointing […] often outcomes are not aligned with commonly shared objectives such as creating environmental* 

*Devolution of Decision-Making: Tools and Technologies towards Equitable Place-Based… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102555*

*sustainability, human scale, land use mix, conviviality, inclusivity, or supporting cultural meaning*" [9]. Thus, decision-making related to the built environment must become much more developed to citizens, allowing communities to generate their own set of indicators, and base decision on informed empirical evidence presented in a way they can use effectively. Towards a useful typology of tools for urban design governance, means recognising that the urban environment is shaped by various interventions and policy decisions over time and reflects the collective work of multiple stakeholders. *Urban Maestro's* recommendations promote extensive discussions, whatever the local circumstances, and identify 6 fundamental factors for improving the quality of the built environment to be based on: culture; capacity; coordination; collaboration; commitment and continuity. These factors are important considerations for cities seeking to open up decision-making to the public, private and community actors who co-produce the city. Importantly, the project assembled a wealth of best practice that supports how soft power—and social innovation—can influence levers of hard power present in cities by focusing on the process of carrying out an urban project rather than the end product itself.

The findings in this chapter suggest that for the methodologies promoted by Urban Maestro to have impact, city governments must divorce the planning process from politics, and allow for feedback loops in the system through honest engagement processes. Short term political or economic advantage is often at the expense of longer-term sustainability, blocking processes that encourage the development of capacities for resilience in communities. We should not underestimate the role of visions, narratives and cultivated propaganda in the governance of urban design and the need to challenge established political ideologies that inhibit social innovation in the built environment [1]. Launching the European Union's *New European Bauhaus* initiative, Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen announced it was not just an environmental or economic project, but a new cultural project for Europe. The policy calls for, "*a collective effort to imagine and build a future that is sustainable, inclusive and beautiful for our minds and for our souls" and "sustainable solutions that create a dialogue between our built environment and the planet's ecosystems*" [46]. In working towards these objectives, cities in Europe and around the world need to provide meaningful opportunities for participation in decisionmaking that allow stakeholders at all levels to influence urban development, while keeping the barrier for entry low. This means a more concerted effort to design and deliver opportunities for co-production that devolve new capacities to the communities who participate—without further perpetuating processes of social and spatial exclusion [47, 48].

#### **Notes/thanks/other declarations**

The author would like to thank all informants who gave their time or interviews in each case study.

*Sustainable Development Dimensions and Urban Agglomeration*

### **Author details**

Donagh Horgan

Department of Work, Employment and Organisation, Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland

\*Address all correspondence to: donagh.horgan@strath.ac.uk

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

*Devolution of Decision-Making: Tools and Technologies towards Equitable Place-Based… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102555*

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## Section 2
