Urban planners are faced with the challenge of maintaining infrastructure service amidst budgetary constraints, restrictive regulations, and – most of all – growing demand. In many parts of rapidly developing Asia, it is often assumed that infrastructure can appear with the snap of a finger. The argument is that the West is old, crumbling, and inefficient, while Asia has a clean slate, deep coffers, and strong political authority. However, Asia faces significant headwinds in infrastructure development, not least of which is population growth. Infrastructure strategy should be part of a holistic policy effort to manage demand through population control.
During the early modern era, infrastructure innovations in the West applied new technology to improve lifestyles, first through water-bound transport and ultimately through mass transit, electricity, and modern construction methods. Limited international benchmarking and vast differences in wealth generated an infrastructure gap between the West and the rest. Since the mid-20th century, however, Asia has outpaced the West in infrastructure growth. In addition to policy systems unfettered by democratic obstacles, relative fiscal stability has enabled rapid and widespread development. New airports, rail systems, highways, and dams have quickly transformed the Asian landscape.
By contrast, the West seems stuck with legacy infrastructure as development restrictions and limited fiscal resources stunt progress. For example, Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport has been planned since 1990, and a quarter of a century later is still under construction. Heathrow’s Terminal 5 took 20 years from planning to operation, and a new runway project figures to encounter crippling opposition. By contrast, Shanghai’s Pudong Airport took less than a decade from planning to operation, and two years to construct. The 300-kph maglev train from Pudong Airport to central Shanghai was completed in only four years.
However, not every Asian project develops smoothly. Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport was beset with delays from protests, corruption, and political instability; nearly three decades separated initial planning from operation. Increasingly, the idea that Asia is outpacing the world in infrastructure development is simplistic and difficult to prove. Among other complicating factors is massive demand, which strains existing infrastructure and hinders its growth. As in the West, Asia must also work around legacy infrastructure. The challenges facing both are how to build over, through, and around existing systems while maintaining service continuity. In cities like Saigon, Bangkok, and Jakarta, development of new infrastructure severely disrupts neighborhoods, with multi-year construction projects (e.g. subway systems) significantly altering neighborhood economies. Despite a lack of draconian development regulations and urban growth boundaries, Asian cities are still densely populated; bringing services to urban residents often requires a destroy-and-rebuild approach that has significant peripheral impacts. Such programs in the American urban redevelopment era negatively impacted low-income residents, and the same is now true of both private and public development in Asia. The idea of the clean-slate is largely unfounded.
Nevertheless, Asian cities continue to grow outwards. Suburbs, satellite towns, and industrial estates are lavished with public and private investment. The feeling that space and land are plentiful reflects the spirit of America’s Manifest Destiny years – arguably a philosophy that supports the continued sprawl of its cities. However, one problem is that development is not always located wisely in response to demand. China’s ghost cities represent a wildly speculative bet on people’s willingness to uproot. Despite these few and highly publicized cases, population seems to catch up with new infrastructure sooner than expected.
Quality infrastructure service is a product of two factors. First, anticipating the need for expanded capacity and the absorption of innovations is a critical element of good design, particularly in an era of high population growth and exponential technology progress. These issues have been robustly addressed in both scholarship and commentary. Such planning is arguably less politically expedient in an era of short-run management and ribbon cutting ceremonies. Building possible scenarios into design and construction raises costs; the public wants good service, soon and cheap. One leader’s promise (and proud legacy) becomes another’s incessant burden, particularly as highly complex projects lose budgetary control and miss deadlines.
The second factor behind infrastructure development is demand management. Smarter land use planning has been used to manage transport demand; conservation campaigns have been used to manage electricity and water demand; public health efforts manage hospital and service demand. All of these strategies strain to manipulate behavior but miss the obvious fundamental challenge: overpopulation. The idea of population control has few adherents; China’s one-child policy has recently been criticized for disrupting the country’s gender balance. Academic arguments for controls are ridiculed for being neo-Malthusian and quaintly autocratic. However, population hyper-growth remains a critical obstruction to development, and is a bigger threat to Asia than to the West. Even the smartest systems cannot always accommodate over-flooded demand.
It is not politically expedient to even mention the issue of overpopulation; indeed, the decision to have children is deeply personal, and for rural families a matter of livelihood. However, better healthcare has reduced the need to hedge against premature deaths by having many children. Technology-based agricultural productivity improvement has reduced the need to have more kids for labor. Do these advancements signify the end of the 10-child family? The better question is whether families will adapt, or continue to have children out of tradition, societal expectations, and related ideologies. In the end, the effectiveness of infrastructure, as with most things, is only as good as the choices of individuals. Behavior is largely beyond the bailiwick of public policy.
In conclusion, Asia has neither the resources nor the clean slate to simply white-wash legacy infrastructure in favor of advanced systems. This can be done haltingly and only under the most favorable circumstances, but it is not a strategy on which urban leaders can permanently rely. A two-pronged approach should be considered: pragmatic planning must deliver infrastructure amidst existing systems, rising congestion, and fiscal constraints. Countries also must find a way to manage population growth. One ride on India’s commuter trains – with people laying on roofs and hanging off doors – would raise awareness. One attempt to cross the street in Hanoi during rush hour – with thousands of motorbikes cramming even the sidewalks – would raise awareness. One afternoon in a 50-lane Chinese traffic jam, one hour waiting to board a subway during Beijing’s peak commute, or one taxi ride through Jakarta would be evidence enough. Will fluid function of infrastructure become the impossible dream? The costs of gridlock and over-population to both the economy and quality of life are rising. There are simply too many people.
This article first appeared in The Planner, the magazine of the Royal Town Planning Institute. Read more about international infrastructure and other planning issues at www.theplanner.co.uk
“Overcrowding on the Orient Express” The Planner (Royal Town Planning Institute UK), 25 Feb 2016.