Answer:

think that the best way to manage the challenges of urban areas in developing countries is to make the rural areas more attractive so that a more balanced spatial structure can be maintained. Too many people find that it is not worth staying in rural areas and move to the urban centres where in many developing countries it has long become impossible for authorities to keep pace with the influx of people. In so-called developed countries there is often a trend away from the urban centres to peri-urban or rural places near to the towns as quality of life if better, rent and other costs are often lower and connectivity GOOD so that commuting has become easy.

Many developing countries where big shares of the populating still LIVE in rural areas should put concerted efforts to make people want to stay there.

The challenges in urban areas are dependent on the individual case. Here in Suva, Fiji, it is high costs for accommodation which leads to fast increasing squatter settlements; here people are often exposed to inadequate environmental conditions (flooding when squatter settlements are built into mangrove forests).

Another challenge is TRANSPORTATION, both private and public.

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11th Nov, 2015

Sarbeswar Praharaj

UNSW Sydney

Developing country? Although the term looks homogeneous, there are vast differences exist among developing countries in terms of their level of urbanization, public investments in infrastructure and policy reforms. But if one need to say overarching issues in urban context in developing nations there are primarily three.

First and foremost lack of capital and public investment in urban development and infrastructure. The revenue of urban local bodies are astonishingly low in most of the cities LEADING to inadequate provision of basic services. It also leads to privatization in infrastructure delivery which in turn impact in price rise of utilities and exclusion of poor. Therefore it is essential that cities develop innovation methods to increase their revenue base and gear up public investments in basic infrastructure.

The second most pressing challenge these developing country cities face is concentration of poor in certain districts of the cities generally termed as slums and squatters. The phenomenon is labelled as urbanization of poverty as the people who live in these spaces are mostly rural poor migrated into cities to earn their livelihood. Low income of these communities lead to poor quality of housing and inability to pay for basic services giving SHAPE to poor quality and unhealthy neighborhoods. The way out of this vicious cycle is better land management by the city authorities and provision of serviced land to poor at subsidized rates as well as up gradation of existing house and service quality in slums.

The last but not the least issue is extremely poor capacity of urban local bodies in terms of their institutional setting, professionalism and citizen networking. Majority of the cities in developing world have several institutions providing services and working in isolation. They do not have adequate number of skilled manpower, neither they have professional attitude and work culture. Over and above that most of the public organisations are poor engages with citizens leading to conflict in development. Due to this inability majority of city development plan preparation and implementation are done by consultants resulting in higher cost of development and lower ownership levels. For a change cities need to fastrack institutional reforms, integrate governance systems and innovate with interactive platform for citizen engagement.