Megacities and the Global Environment

Muramatsu Shin RIHN

okabe Akiko Faculty of Engineering, Chiba University kagotani Naoto Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University kato Hironori Department of Civil Engineering, the University of Tokyo tanigawa Ryuichi Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo hayashi Kengo RIHN fukami Naoko Organization for Islamic Area Studies, Waseda University murakami Akinobu Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba yamashita Yuko Graduate School of Commerce and Management, Hitotsubashi University

Over half of humanity now lives in cities. By 2020, it is estimated that one in four people will live in megacities - cities with a population of more than 10 million - many of which will be located in the developing world. Cities can provide rich sites for individual and community life, but they also impose tremendous burdens on earth environments. This project approaches the great question of how to make megacities earth-friendly while also increasing the present and future welfare of their inhabitants.

Megacities and “new eco-urbanity”

Photo 1  Landscape of Jakarta

Jakarta, the primary megacity of Southeast Asia, where skyscrapers and traditional houses coexist.

Population growth and increasing economic wealth is transforming Jakarta, Indonesia (Photo 1), into a megacity of expanding consumption and waste. This project investigates the developmental factors driving this transformation and the kinds of governance that can address, in a unified manner, the urban ecosystem and the key human institutions affecting it. In order to do so, we seek to identify the potential practical advantages in being a “latecomer” megacity (i.e. fast growing and without longestablished urban patterns), and the relevance of customary patterns of behavior and urban life to contemporary social processes and ecological problems. Finally, on the basis of the above analyses, we intend to propose specific policies than can support a kind of eco-urbanity.

Project methods 1: A diverse but integrative examination of cities

Historically, people have gathered near lakes and rivers, sources of water and life. Early peoples fished, hunted and later cultivated land in these areas. In time, they produced surpluses, developed trade relationships and constructed buildings, industries and infrastructure, and such areas became centers of social organization and political power. In cities people, things, information, and capital have mixed together in unprecedented and unpredictable ways. Cities continue to increase in size and number (Fig. 1, 2); their success depends on humanity's ability to increase its archive of ‘urban knowledge’. Meanwhile, the cumulative wisdom that enabled humankind to coexist with ecosystems, what we here call ‘ecoknowledge’, has been gradually buried deep within the collective human memory.

In this project, we use the phrase “urban sphere” to describe the entirety of human-made elements, human inhabitants, and natural features (subsurface and surface environments and atmosphere) that create and support cities. We focus our study of the urban sphere on the 3E-ICH elements: the Environment, social Equity; and Economy, which are examined in relation to Institutions, Culture, and History.

Project methods 2: Integration of traditional and contemporary eco- and
scientific-knowledge

Addressing the contemporary problems of megacities (Fig.3) requires scientific and technological measures as well as greater understanding of the local and everyday knowledge, practices and patterns that have historically enabled urban life in particular places and environments. This project seeks solutions to contemporary urban problems through synthesis of urban studies from the social and natural sciences and engineering. It also uses existing literature and social observations to identify the specific customs and patterns of life that have enabled the coexistence of large numbers of people in dense settlements. We will document not only such elements as housing style and local living practices (such as sprinkling water on the streets, and moderating activity in hot parts of the day), but also describe their deeper roots in local philosophical, religious, and aesthetic traditions.

Rich fruit year after year: 2010 objectives

We expect this project to bear rich fruit in each of the coming years. In 2010 we have four main goals: 1) to improve our qualitative description of megacities and to develop a method for graphically representing their principal characteristics; 2) to formalize the specific criteria we will use to assess 3E+ICH issues; 3) to rapidly collect and organize the 3E data; and 4) to describe and propose explanations of how exhaustion of resources, deterioration of natural environment, and degradation of amenities are related in Jakarta. To achieve these goals, project members need to collaborate closely and deepen their personal knowledge and experience of the study sites (Fig. 4). Each of the project members should walk around the city, observing deeply and thinking flexibly of the pleasures and practical necessities of life in Jakarta, and in urban areas around the world.