City-Level Decoupling-Full Report

City-Level Decoupling: Urban resource flows and the governance of infrastructure transitions

each other in achieving their shared goal of connecting poor households to sewage mains.

also reduces energy consumption. Underlying all these responses is the vision to construct new or parallel infrastructures within the city.

In Beijing, China, water supply pressures led to the implementation of new legislation that made it compulsory for all new hotels and public buildings over a certain size to install on-site water treatment systems so that waste water could be re-used for non-potable applications like irrigation and toilet flushing. In Lilongwe, Malawi, the problem of inadequate access to piped water and sanitation was addressed in a novel way with the development and installation of 'Skyloos', which are independent of piped water infrastructure and facilitate the collection and re-use of nutrients from human waste for agriculture. A bus rapid transit (BRT) system was developed in Lagos, Nigeria, in the context of serious problems with the city’s transportation network. The existing system was characterized by highly congested roads and highways, very high levels of fuel consumption, poor air quality as a result of engine emissions and unreliable and time consuming transport for the city’s residents. The existing inefficient system of infrastructure involved many different stakeholders and social interests, including 100,000 private operators. Consequently a new infrastructure system needed to be fitted into the city to provide a better quality, cheaper, more reliable and less polluting service. Similarly, planners in Bangkok, Thailand, realised that adding more highways was worsening rather than reducing the city’s chronic traffic congestion. This led to the consideration of alternatives to private vehicle ownership that ultimately led to constructing of the Bangkok Mass Transit System. This has had a noticeable impact on the spatial structure of the city, slowing both the pace and scale of suburbanization. While the core areas of Bangkok have always been vibrant, those areas with access to the transit stations have gained greater advantages than others, and new investment in the city centre has been stimulated. The same has been observed in Medellín, Columbia, where a cable car system has helped to connect poor communities living on mountain slopes to the opportunities of the city, and the areas around stations have become loci for urban renewal.

6.4.1. Drivers and visions

The drivers that shape the development and implementation of alternative or replacement infrastructure systems are responses to problems with the operation and performance of conventional infrastructures that do not provide sufficient access or quality of service, or even produce negative environmental consequences to local users. In the case of Accra, Ghana, urban farmers were unable to afford the additional costs placed on water used for irrigation in the context of competing demands for urban water supply. Building on local experience of using water from liquid effluent streams, urban farmers started to informally construct an alternative supply network to the main water network despite the initial absence of official support or formal policy to develop this alternative system. In contrast, the conventional solid waste management model, shaped by assumptions about the viability of conventional waste management systems, was not a feasible option in the high density, fine-grained informal settlements of Kampala, Uganda. Consequently less than 45% of existing waste was collected and accumulated organic household wastes, causing serious problems in the city’s neighbourhoods. In this case, the collection and use of organic waste to produce animal feed significantly reduced the need for conventional solid waste management systems, and created entrepreneurial opportunities for local residents. In Orangi, Pakistan, inadequate sanitation in low-income areas led to neighbourhood pollution, health problems and building damage. Existing sewage networks only covered some sections of these areas and were in many places degraded to the point of being useless. The government was unable to afford universal service delivery, so a component-sharing model was developed to allow homeowners and government to assist

67