A BROADER, INTEGRAL VIEW AT REENGINEERING BIG CITY INFRASTRUCTURE: EXAMPLE COLOMBO, SRI LANKA Solid waste collection: First,

, clean up the city streets at any cost; goes a long way to educate people. I myself have to fight the temptation to dump trash at a dirty street corner. For an integrated approach to this problem, start with educating the actors involved: the vendor, consumer, homeowner and the politician. The municipality should assign formal vending spaces for pavement and travelling vendors because the informal economy carries the biggest responsibility for dumping garbage. (Yes, Mayors fear political fall-outs, but even a place like Riobamba- Ecuador, invaded for years by rural migrant vendors, managed to get most of them under roofing. If in doubt, ask Susana Villarn, Mayor of Lima, who just survived a recall vote through the support of citizens appreciative of her efforts to clean up the mess.) Putting a hefty tax on unrecyclable one-time-use bags, plates, etc., will force the vendors to use alternatives. Here the politicians should collaborate in subsidizing, in the beginning at least, recyclable alternatives (we all will gain at the end) so that the consumers wont grudge. Next, educate the consumers, shop and home owners to separate trash. Here I would include urban composting and gardening lessons too. (Municipalities should promote urban organic gardening, on the ground or on roofs, with subsidies on seeds and other products, as that will trap rain-runoff, reducing waste water treatment costs and urban flooding.) Accompany that with city regulations that force every flat, home or office owner to sweep ones portion of the street, at least once a day. It makes them come face to face with what they threw away around the corner and not simply pass-on the problem to the municipality. If the municipality had hired people to do street sweeping, they wont lose their jobs; they can be re-directed to daily collect the sorted trash in their carts and put them in large bins located at strategic points every few blocks. (If the municipality had been using those monster gas-guzzling sweepers, better fill the dump with them first, where they really belong.) Making the garbage trucks approach only the collection points located far-between will eliminate: those pathetic morning-shows of garbage-racing; a major obstacle for street traffic; and the biggest culprit in destroying the streets. The municipality can send the recyclable items (including composting materials) to rural villages near-by, and organize small business ventures with them so that they sell back the separated items and the compost. Sorry, I have reduced the profitable trash-traffic for the vulture businesses, but dont we have too many rotten politicians that nobody wants to recycle? Nowadays, nobody wants to have in their backyard a sanitary landfill (mostly a perfumed name for foul-smelling dumps). But every city boundary is littered with large building material quarries, mostly abandoned without any vegetation restoration. These are ideal locations for trashdumping, as the soil cover there is pretty much scraped out to reveal hard rock. As such, preventing the leachate (water seeping through the trash) from filtering into the ground becomes

much easier and cheaper in those lands. If no toxic materials are dumped, these old eye-sores can be turned into beautiful public parkland after the landfill is closed.

Reducing urban flood risk: Urban flooding may occur in two modes: 1. Cities that occupy low-lying areas in river mouths may find it difficult to evacuate surface runoff from rain when confronted with high tidal or river flows (e.g., Colombo, New Orleans and Guayaquil); 2. Neighborhoods located adjacent to rapid-flowing streams or rivers may face flooding and erosion when the stream runoff overflows its banks (Caracas, Rio de Janeiro and Quito). In the first case, speculative, and mostly illegal, land-filling and neighborhood construction reduces the wetland area that could have absorbed floodwaters. The second mode of flooding has its roots in stream-encroaching roads, culverts and retaining walls, trash-plugging of the waterways and sediments that elevate the stream beds, which contribute to some extent for flooding in the first situation as well. Believe it or not, our forefathers had shown us how to tackle such floods, over 2000 years ago (http://kyapa.netau.net/crianza/waternurt.htm). Unlike today, their way of living did not contribute to population agglomerations in humid regions, because there, the nature provided sufficient resources for everybody to get-by if one lives far from the other. Even in those rural settings, they had to implement corporate efforts to live in harmony with excess water and not face undue risks. Their principles were simple: in higher grounds, they let the most amount of runoff be absorbed by the soil itself; in low-lying areas they would receive high river flow with open arms and divert it to wetlands through wide canals. So, even in low-lying cities, the work should begin with upper catchment areas of the drainage basins. In the case of Colombo, lower Kelani River and Bolgoda Lake drainage basins are the most critical areas to work with. If we slow down their flash floods, we would reduce the flood levels at the bottom of the basing and can gain more time to evacuate the city-wide runoff. The local communities should be involved in reforestation and erosion control works in individual lands because the farmers also benefit enormously. That essentially slows down the runoff and reduces sedimentation. I would also involve the farmers in constructing small reservoirs there, so that they obtain more irrigation and spring waters. If you offer irrigation water to highland fields, you can buy-out less-productive, low-lying agricultural fields which really are better off as canals and wetlands. Here the local governments should forcefully apply the rules on illegal landfills, which are inflating these land values. By linking all these wetlands to streams through wide, clean and unobstructed canal systems, you can move a huge volume of water away from the rivers and into wetlands during heavy rains. Using wetlands to store runoff, we also eliminate the effect of high tide from urban flooding. Once you prevent the trash and sewer water from entering a wetland, it becomes a real valuable asset: it not only absorbs flood waters but helps decontaminate the grey water; promotes natural fish, bird and plant habitats; moderates the air temperature; provides irrigation

water in droughts; permits aquatic transportation routes and recreational navigation; and of course, sends sky-high the value of the land around it. The other half of the urban flood issue is solved if we allow the soil to absorb the rain, also within the city. As I said before, promoting individual home gardens and porous paving surfaces (like gravel walkways or parking lots) can store large volumes of water under intense rain, and when that water seeps out to the drains, the flood would have already passed! I would recommend property tax reductions for homeowners letting more of their land surface absorb water. The municipality too should replace much of its impermeable paving areas before preaching to the citizens. In densely populated areas, the trick is to not transport the runoff far, but temporarily contain most of it within each city block, using small flower plots, green recreational areas, etc. The new home builders should be encouraged to collect, decontaminate and irrigate green areas with grey water. After all that work, there may still be residential zones prone to regular flooding. If new landfill rules are correctly enforced, relocating those residents in high grounds and keeping the areas as wetlands may make better economic and social sense, though the issue may become a political hot potato. Generally, to save such areas, the technocrats try to dike-off water ways and install pumping stations. However, it undermines the whole thesis behind the use of wetlands to absorb flood waters. Free flow of water, to and fro between the river and the wetland, is essential also for all the complementary benefits it brings: nutrient transport; fish migration; navigation; prevention of mosquito breeding; and keeping the operational costs to a minimum. Of course, there would always be flood-prone spots here and there, but you cant solve those problems with fixed pumping stations. Instead, keep a few mobile pumps at strategic points, if the need arises.

Easing traffic congestion: My philosophical approach to this issue: integral solutions need to consider both the rich and the poor; private cars, buses, trains, pedestrians, cyclists none should have priority over the other. You can move people from private, individual modes of transport to collective modes by providing other cheaper, quicker and convenient facilities, but not just by law. Recommend creating free public transportation services around the worst traffic bottle-neck areas. Yes, FREE! See how it grabs your attention? It would catch the eyes of car owners the same way. Why would you burn gas, bump into crowds, pay exorbitant parking fees and expose the car to theft, if you can move about free? Well, the catch is, it is free for short hops only; you can get in the bus and get out free, within a 1520 block area of the congested zone. This service can be provided by frequent, small buses running on electric battery-packs (for better maneuverability and reduced emissions) crisscrossing the area. The municipality should install 4 or 5 transfer stations around this zone for fee-charging feeder-buses. This feeder service may operate between: 1. transfer stations around other

congested areas; 2. long distance bus/train terminals at city perimeter; 3. and cheap and secure car-parking lots, again located along the city perimeter. To get around the city, people may have to transfer to several buses, so a single fare should take a person to the final destination. Also I recommend a less frequent circular bus service, for people carrying heavy packages and for those who enjoy sitting in one bus. Provide some express feeder services also, but at a slightly higher fare. Providing exclusive lanes for collective transportation is a great idea, but only for those who sell subway systems! Such lanes, in theory, provide its commuters with the quickest and most convenient travel. But their negative effects accumulate: from day-one, they make life inconvenient for other users of the same roads; half the service on exclusive lanes runs empty at peak times; as the alternatives are nightmarish, more and more passengers are trapped and squeezed into exclusive-lane traffic; the jam-packed service forces the better-off back into their cars or taxies. Cursed by the jam-packed and the traffic-jammed alike, the exclusive-lane system collapses, and the subway is forced down the citizens throats, affordable or not. Within Colombo, the surface train service demonstrates how pathetic the exclusive lanes can be. (Dont get me wrong, I am a great fan of the train, but only for long distance travel.) Within the city, it disrupts the flow of other traffic; occupies valuable high ground; and makes life miserable for those living close-by. Yes, it moves a lot of people, but mostly packed like sardines, and dumps the commuters at spots where, to reach their final destinations, they now have to fight the trafficchaos created in part by the same train lines. You simply cant make exclusive lanes to every corner of the city. Water ways, while easing flood risks, can provide transportation services too, but I would not want to see speed boats competing for passengers, as I saw in Amazon and Orinoco. They destroy aquatic life and natural stream banks, while creating a noise nuisance. I would advocate only leisure travel on water, unless you can find an economic hovercraft.

Alternative housing for slum dwellers This issue is generally considered a social problem, not requiring any infrastructure modification, and the typical treatment just relocates the problem to another area. Every city has its own version of slums, located in the periphery and/or right in the middle of the city center (like in Colombo, Chicago and Bogot.) At times these are in swamp lands, illegally occupied by the poor, at other times uncontrolled commercial developments grow around islands of dilapidated housing. The moment any of these slum areas is razed, its land value shoots up to the sky because of the proximity to the city infrastructure. That explains two fundamental characteristics of slum dwelling: in spite of the unsanitary and difficult conditions of living, slum dwellers dearly cling to their slimy pieces of land; outsiders quickly identify the slums with extreme violence, because thats the only weapon of self-protection the dwellers have against the speculative vultures hovering over their lands.

Thus, whatever alternative one offers to slum dwellers should consider not just housing, but also the whole set of facilities they previously had easy access to: jobs, schools, transportation, markets, hospitals, shops, etc. One easy solution some cities (like Colombo) promote keeps the people in the same location, but packs all of them into high-rise, compact (shoe-box) apartments, freeing-up land for commercial ventures, sufficient to pay for the housing blocks. In this solution publicly funded new infrastructure are not needed, but unless the low income housing is satisfactorily buffered from the commercial zone, plummeting land values would soon doom the project. Making slum dwellers follow apartment-living norms would not be achieved clustering all of them together, but by interspersing some role models. Middle-class families can be lured into the buffer areas through subsidized housing, which may also open up jobs for domestic helpers, small shops, etc., within the community. The new low income apartment owners may not have the means or the experience to maintain the blocks either. So, sufficient initial funds need to be reserved for housing administration till such time when the owners themselves can afford to pay for that. Complete relocation of slum dwellers may provide lot more funds from redeveloped lands, but the new location may demand quite a bit of those funds for infrastructure development. Again, only an integrated community, with an intermingled presence of all social classes, may lead to a successful relocation and rehabilitation of former slum dwellers.