Resource requirements of inclusive urban development in India: insights from ten cities

Abstract

This paper develops a methodology to assess the resource requirements of inclusive urban development in India and compares those requirements to current community-wide material and energy flows. Methods include: (a) identifying minimum service level benchmarks for the provision of infrastructure services including housing, electricity and clean cooking fuels; (b) assessing the percentage of homes that lack access to infrastructure or that consume infrastructure services below the identified benchmarks; (c) quantifying the material requirements to provide basic infrastructure services using India-specific design data; and (d) computing material and energy requirements for inclusive development and comparing it with current community-wide material and energy flows. Applying the method to ten Indian cities, we find that: 1%-6% of households do not have electricity, 14%-71% use electricity below the benchmark of 25 kWh capita-month −1 ; 4%-16% lack structurally sound housing; 50%-75% live in floor area less than the benchmark of 8.75 m 2 floor area/capita; 10%-65% lack clean cooking fuel; and 6%-60% lack connection to a sewerage system. Across the ten cities examined, to provide basic electricity (25 kWh capita-month −1 ) to all will require an addition of only 1%-10% in current community-wide electricity use. To provide basic clean LPG fuel (1.2 kg capita-month −1 ) to all requires an increase of 5%-40% in current community-wide LPG use. Providing permanent shelter (implemented over a ten year period) to populations living in non-permanent housing in Delhi and Chandigarh would require a 6%-14% increase over current annual community-wide cement use. Conversely, to provide permanent housing to all people living in structurally unsound housing and those living in overcrowded housing (<5 m cap −2 ) would require 32%-115% of current community-wide cement flows. Except for the last scenario, these results suggest that social policies that seek to provide basic infrastructure provisioning for all residents would not dramatically increasing current community-wide resource flows.

All urban areas’ energy use data across 640 districts in India for the year 2011

“…For example, Nagpure et al . (2018) showed that per capita electricity use in the highest 20% income stratum is 5.5 times that of the lowest income stratum 29 . The effectiveness of this approach is evaluated by comparing against utility reported data at the city level (see Technical Validation).…”

A Review of Integrated Urban Planning Tools for Greenhouse Gas Mitigation

“…However, savings in the cost of horizontal infrastructure requirements (streets and pipes) can reliably be estimated with knowledge about the geometries and spatial layout of street networks, as can savings on construction materials per square foot when transitioning from single-story to high-rise construction. These are documented in multiple countries and literatures (Nagpure, Reiner, and Ramaswami 2018).…”

“…Similar influences in developing economies such as China and India have also been documented in a few cases. For example, moving from single-story to high-rise construction in India can result in material use reduction of around 30 percent; infrastructure pipe network requirements in Delhi range from 1.4 m to 5.2 m sewerage piping per household in various neighborhoods based on density and spatial arrangements (Nagpure, Reiner, and Ramaswami 2018). A single study in China has found that horizontal infrastructure costs may be reduced by 50 percent in a compact growth scenario.…”

“…c. Tracks vacant housing rates and proximity to amenities such as schools, hospitals, places of worship, etc. d. See Nagpure et al (2018) for a discussion of basic infrastructure provision and energy access in India. e. Tracks per capita residential water and energy use only.…”

“…More detailed examples of such KPIs with specific city applications can be found by referencing the Global City Indicators Facility and ISO 37120; see alsoHillman and Ramaswami (2010) addressing eight U.S. cities; andNagpure et al (2018) addressing inequality in Indian cities.…”