Urban VS Rurban: Road not Taken

Let’s develop Nepal with Nepalese characteristic than imitating European model

Nepal is considered as least developed country striving to reach the status of developing nation by 2022. The grand dream of “Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepalis” will only be possible when Nepal adopt its own development model accordingly with its national context. Rural population in Nepal was reported at 81 % in 2016, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Every year certain portion of population from rural Nepal migrates to city area in search of better life and upon arriving the urban land they soon get fed up with its decadences in many aspects. Such tendency of Nepalese people indirectly reinforces the fact that despite preferring village life than city, they are forced to migrate in search of better facilities. So our development model should be more focused on providing facilities to its 23 million rural populations and make them happy to achieve national agenda of “Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepalis”.

In case of today’s Nepal, the first step of national progress should begin from rural development. Of course! The government tried hard to urbanize many rural areas by changing VDCs to municipality but without meeting basic development criteria. Ironically this ‘Old wine in new bottle’ model will never change the doomed face of Nepal. Change of word will yield nothing unless we make change on ground.

In recent decade Nepalese leaders have built a kind of tendency to equate urbanization with development. But the real challenge for today’s Nepal is to provide urban facilities in rural areas. Urbanization is not the favourable model of development for Nepal as it will be hard for the country to endure its consequences. Just look at Kathmandu-the dark face of urbanization embedded with pollution, overpopulation and haphazard human settlement. In such scenario the government of Nepal can learn from international societies and experiment with new development initiatives. Social transformation has offered new outlook to perceive urbanism and pursue new model of social progress in every fronts. Amid such context Nepal as a country should seek innovative approach of spatial development.

If we look at the newly initiated Indian village development model, Narendra Modi in February 2016 lunched “Rurban” mission to improve facilities in rural areas. This mission aims to “transform rural areas to economically, socially and physically sustainable spaces” by breaching the development gap between rural and Urban. This program can also be considered as evolved version of “Providing Urban Amenities to Rural Areas” (PURA) concept discussed by former Indian president Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in his book “Target 3 Billion”. Nepal can adopt similar development model to improve the condition of our rural space by providing urban amenities. While commenting on new budget, same idea was referred by Honourable Pradeep Giri in parliamentary speech session.

If we see the international scenario, unlike Nepal, the spatial planning of some European cities are specially planned to meet the demand of changing public lifestyles. In many parts of countries like Sweden, Netherland and Denmark, the line of distinction between urban and rural is slowly fading away. Their settlement seems organic, with heterogeneity yet very well reflects the interwoven social fabric. After the evolution of the new type of settlement area with diffusion of urban and rural activities which is termed by the Scottish planner Patrick Geddes as “Rurban”, the conventional notion of development has transformed a lot. These Rurban space are often governed by rural local bodies and the activities available in these areas are of urban in nature. Rurban simply means providing urban infrastructure and services in rural space to create economic opportunities outside of cities. Such as the physical connectivity by providing advance roads, electronic connectivity by providing communication networks, knowledge connectivity by establishing professional institutions and other facilities like health, security, employment opportunities etc. As suggested by famous city planner Patrick Geddes developing a city worthy of civic pride rather than imitating European models can be ideal prototype of sustainable development.

Our leaders seems obsessed with some sophisticated word like ‘smart’- in many political speech we have heard the word “smart city and satellite city”, are we really in position to envision such dreams ? The government which has not been able provide proper road, drainage system and even the visible zebra crossing in its metropolitan space; such big dream will merely be like magic realism for Nepal. For many years some of our leaders sold the romantic narrative of making Nepal like Switzerland. Why can’t we make Nepal like Nepal by embracing its pristine natural faculties, socio-cultural vibes and traditional, yet civilized lifestyle? The government should ponder over this idea.

Just the slogan of ‘return to village’ would yield nothing unless the government find some innovative ways to equip village with required facilities as available in urban areas. Let’s awake our village in new age of agricultural production than polluting industries, lets revive the culture of reciprocity than online shopping, lets decorate our house with kitchen garden (karesabari) than Japanese grass, lets buy homemade products in haat bazzar than foreign goods in supermarket and lets develop Nepal with Nepalese characteristic than imitating European model. Afterall it’s all about providing easy facilities to people, either by traditional or modern ways.