City-Level Decoupling-Case Studies

CITY-LEVEL DECOUPLING: URBAN RESOURCE FLOWS AND THE GOVERNANCE OF INFRASTRUCTURE TRANSITIONS

desalination plant in northern Chennai in 2010 illustrates how mega-infrastructure solutions are favoured over simple, decentralised approaches to augmenting the water supply. 271

Overall the Puduvellam initiative was a success in promoting rainwater harvesting as a low- technology solution through the reuse and restoration of pre-colonial infrastructure to recharge the city’s depleted aquifers. In merging an ecological agenda with a matter of local culture and history, Puduvellam was able to capture popular support. However this did not translate into action and this underlines the importance of properly communicating and promoting the message of partnership and co-operation. Above all the case shows how prevailing social conditions resulting from the traditional class/caste structure could not be overcome, even when the initiative emerged from within the middle-class community. The middle-class residents, with a higher regard for more prestigious technological solutions, could have made the project work but their apathy was decisive. 272 Without sufficient access to water wells, and denied access to the temple tank once restored, the poorer communities – those with the greatest need – gained least from the eventual solution. The desalination plant has broadened the gap between water as a commodity and water as a basic right, arguably leaving Chennai’s lower- income residents yet further adrift. 273 Above all, the case exemplifies the difficulties in bridging the green and brown agendas, and how without the awareness and support of key stakeholders and interest groups they can impede one another. The city of Curitiba in southern Brazil has become famous for its achievements in urban planning, and is often considered to be a model of urban sustainability for developing countries. Its long-term planning policy and well-known interventions in public transport and environmental protection have helped the city to achieve a high quality of life for its citizens at a relatively low cost, allowing it to grow in a sustainable direction. Some of Curitiba’s most remarkable successes are its solid waste management and recycling programs. Population growth rates of 5.34% per year during the 1970s combined with changes in consumption patterns resulted in a higher proportion of non-organic waste being generated than ever before and a much faster depletion of the city’s landfill capacity. In response to this, the city of Curitiba started the first recycling program in Brazil’s large cities in 1984, which turned out to be one of the most successful in the world and a leading example of a low cost but effective waste management program. The recycling program - loosely translated as “Garbage that is not Garbage” ( Lixoquenão é lixo ) - was based on encouraging home separation of garbage into organic and non-organic components. Recyclable waste was collected once a week by a private contractor, and taken to a processing centre owned by the city. The facility employs homeless people and recovering alcoholics to sort the garbage into different types of materials that are sold on to recycling factories. 27. Incentivised recycling in Curitiba, Brazil 274 By Oscar Ricardo Schmeiske (GIS Co-ordinator, Instituto de Pesquisa e Planejamento Urbano de Curitiba)

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