Sustainable cities

Filipinos voted for change rather than continuity, but it was the opposite in most of the local races in Metro Manila.

With the winners proclaimed and the sore losers crying that they were cheated and planning to file protests, it’s clear that voters wanted the same local executives or at least the relatives to continue running their cities. Only Pateros and Marikina went for new mayors; the rest of the cities reelected their chief executives or else picked a relative of the incumbent. In Makati, voters who installed Junjun Binay as mayor in 2013 restored the clan in power, giving all but two elective seats in the city to the Binay-led United Nationalist Alliance.

In a democracy, the people’s will prevails. The choices mean it will be business as usual in most of the 17 cities and municipalities in Metro Manila, home to more than a tenth of the nation’s population and Ground Zero of urban blight in the Philippines.

Some cities in Metro Manila are better run than others – meaning they are cleaner, with most streets well paved and well lit, with better public education and health services and satisfactory social welfare programs. Traffic is managed despite the high vehicle density; there are green areas; waterways are regularly cleaned up and garbage is collected properly.

Most public services in Metro Manila, however, are best delivered with close coordination among the local executives. This is not possible under the current autonomous setup wherein each city or municipality behaves like an independent republic.

There is a Metro Manila Development Authority that coordinates traffic management, but beyond that, the MMDA chief, who is appointed by the president, gets little respect from the elected mayors.

Incoming president Rodrigo Duterte has said he is giving priority to overhauling the government for a shift to federalism – a move that requires rewriting the Constitution. With Charter change, he should consider creating an elective position for governor of Metro Manila – one whose principal task will be to synchronize and streamline the delivery of basic services while still allowing the mayors a degree of autonomy in their respective turfs.

Among the tasks that need to be coordinated under one office are the cleanup of waterways plus flood control, disaster prevention and mitigation as well as garbage collection and disposal. Rules for opening, operating and closing a business must be simplified and made uniform and transparent, with the playing field leveled so that local executives do not give undue advantage to their relatives and cronies.

The elected governor may also take charge of the development and management of Metro-wide inner-city mass transportation, in coordination with the Department of Public Works and Highways. This will allow the Department of Transportation and Communications to concentrate on national projects.

Nations are moving to develop smart, sustainable cities. This is not possible for Metro Manila under the current setup of independent republics.

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Developing smart mega-cities was among the key topics at last week’s annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in the world’s most sustainable city, Frankfurt.

The ADB’s governor for Germany, Hans Joachim Fuchtel, noted that cities account for 75 percent of global carbon emissions but occupy only two percent of the planet’s land area.

The annual meeting kicked off with delegates from the ADB’s 67 member states jointly planting trees on the campus of Frankfurt University for the creation of the world’s first “Green Reading Room” – a symbolic gesture of commitment to fight global warming. Similar rooms will be created in other ADB member states.

Transformation from urban blight is possible. Fumiko Hamashi, the female mayor of Yokohama, Japan’s largest city and next year’s ADB meeting host, told us that the city used to be plagued with air pollution, dirty creeks and severe flooding.

What did they do? Hamashi said they built a subway and railway service to reduce dependence on motor vehicles, cleaned up waterways, and encouraged citizen participation in creating a livable city. They are now turning to e-vehicles and using technology for a home energy management system that has brought down energy consumption at peak hours by 15.3 percent.

Cities that have been there, done that are prepared to share their experience with those in developing countries. Under the Asia Smart City Alliance, Yokohama is sharing its experience with its partner city Cebu for wastewater management. Frankfurt has similar partnerships.

Pedro Ortiz, the former deputy mayor of Spanish capital Madrid and author of “The Art of Shaping the Metropolis” pointed out that every day around the world, 300,000 people move from rural areas to urban centers.

Metro Manila, where 66 percent of the Philippines’ economic activities are concentrated, is managed individually when it should be “as an aggregate,” Ortiz told an ADB seminar.

Ortiz, whose diplomat father was assigned in the Philippines, was born in Manila and is familiar with the mega-city.

He said any city with a population beyond three million requires mass rail transportation and integrated urban systems. Congestion, traffic and carbon emissions can be eased through polycentric approaches and developing the peripheries so that not all activities are concentrated in city centers.

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There are Filipino urban development experts who have stressed the same points. The problem has always been the implementation of good ideas. Railway plans in particular have been derailed by incompetence and accusations of large-scale corruption in the DOTC.

Andrew McIntyre, who manages the ADB’s Future Cities Program, told us that 520 million people live in slums in Asia, with 120,000 migrating daily to urban centers. Cities account for 80 percent of national GDPs.

This calls for substantial investments in infrastructure, with economic growth maintained in livable cities, McIntyre said.

“We need to improve the quality and efficiency of our cities,” he told us.

Metro Manila must be a sustainable engine of growth. The road to sustainability and livability is tortuous under the current setup.