Planning, Housing and Infrastructure for Smart Villages

Hemanta Doloi, Ray Green, Sally Donovan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780815365648
• eBook ISBN: 9781351261067
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Sustainability in Architecture

Some 7.3 billion people currently live on the planet. Of these, 3.4 billion live in rural areas. In just a few regions—Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa—less than 50 per cent of poverty is now located in rural areas. But for the rest of the world's regions between 55 per cent and 80 per cent of the poor continue to live in the countryside. Progress is being made, but much of the knowhow needed is not disseminated outside of a small coterie of professionals who work in the area. With urban development attracting a great deal of attention lately, poorer rural areas deserve the same and new knowledge for empowerment of rural communities is urgently needed.

This book provides an overview of current thinking and practices that have emerged over the last thirty years for uplifting rural communities in developing economies. Drawing on a body of knowledge across a spectrum of relevant disciplines, this book provides a range of innovative ideas for rural planning, housing and infrastructure development.

Governments in many emerging economies, where rural poverty is often most acute, have attempted to improve livelihoods. Approaches and techniques that have been used for urban development are often not applicable to rural communities. Studies show that money allocated for rural development is often not effectively spent due to distance, lack of infrastructure, lack of education, poverty and other factors. Meanwhile, the gap in development between the city and country continues to grow, sometimes leading to social and political instability, in both developing and developed countries. This book seeks to provide a guidebook for meeting such challenges.

Through in-depth enquiry of global practices and thinking about rural development, and selected case studies, the authors argue that careful consideration must be given to incorporating issues of resilience, resourcefulness and the involvement of communities at grassroots levels in realising the transformation of rural settlements into Smart Villages.

1 Introduction

Rural settlements

Rural settlements, which are home to more than 40 per cent of the world’s population, are a lot of things – repositories of culture, producers of food for urban populations and in some cases stewards of the natural environment. Planning, Housing and Infrastructure for Smart Villages seeks to shed light on the interrelated aspects of rural development in the context of developing countries. The Smart Village Model (SVM), as presented in this book, envisions an integrated approach to the design of rural settlements that aims to achieve improvements in living standards for inhabitants while simultaneously making their homes, villages and lifestyles more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable in the face of ever-increasing environmental and societal changes. The SVM presented here combines the best attributes of traditional forms of rural development and design with newer, “smart” approaches. The word “smart”, as conjured by notions of “smart cities” and “smart homes”, has become synonymous with internet connectivity and digital technology – smartphones and other digital devices, smart TVs, and household appliances you can interact with remotely. Digital technology and internet connectivity have a key role to play in helping rural communities adapt to the 21st century, however, the SVM presented here promotes an approach to the design of rural settlements that goes beyond simple adoption of digital technology and proposes a range of initiatives aimed at providing a better quality of life for rural communities, one that allows people to thrive and not simply survive. It is not a “one-size-fits-all” model, but seeks solutions to problems tailored to local environments, people and the specific problems each community is facing.

What is a Smart Village?

A Smart Village is one where people’s housing and infrastructure needs are met, resulting in improved comfort and functionality for residents yet still being affordable. It advocates for houses that take advantage of new technologies while still reflecting traditional ways of design, construction and operation where this is appropriate.

Cultural sustainability is an important dimension of the Smart Village Model. Many rural communities, often more remote communities, have been able to hold on to their cultural traditions. In urban areas such traditional culture has often been lost or distorted for commercial gain. Preserving and/or reviving cultural traditions is one way a village can achieve economic sustainability, for example through promotion of cultural and ecotourism or the production and sale of crafts and other items derived from local resources. Many rural settlements have, however, lost, or are in the process of losing, connections with their traditional cultures due to the pervasive forces of globalisation. Therefore, reviving and conserving a village’s tangible and intangible heritage, in the context of the homogenising effects of ever-expanding urban economies and cities, is a key factor in the making of a Smart Village.

Smart Villages are also places that are economically sustainable, made possible, for example, through providing educational opportunities relevant to the activities that are essential for taking advantage of economic opportunities.

Resilience to withstand disruptions, and preparing for future changes, is another aspect of a Smart Village. Future changes may not be like anything seen in historical times and rural communities need to be prepared. In this respect, the notion of a Smart Village is concerned with working in harmony with the natural environment, understanding the risks it can present, conserving nature, reducing greenhouse gases, wisely managing waste, and many other actions that can make a village more environmentally sustainable.

Many rural communities are experiencing decreasing and aging populations, and this is limiting their ability to maintain sustainable workforces over time. Mitigating this outward migration of people from rural to urban areas is key to the economic survival and sustainability of many villages. But stopping this outward migration requires offering people, particularly younger people, reasons why they would want to stay and live in their village rather than seeking employment in a city that is often far removed from their rural homes. This outward migration also poses a significant threat to the sense of community and social connectivity within villages, another integral aspect of any Smart Village.

Rural people who work within the limits of the finite resources available to them, and still find ways to provide for themselves and their families on a day to day basis, possess knowledge passed down through generations, sometimes over thousands of years, that can be tapped into in creating Smart Villages. The idea is to find innovative solutions to problems facing rural communities that blend traditional and new technology in the planning, design and management of villages for the future.

Matthew Harris, in the School of Public Health, Imperial College London (Bhatti et al., 2017), suggests: “There appears to be an unspoken attitude that poorer countries learn from richer ones and not the other way around.” During his research into healthcare practices in developing economies he discovered a range of innovative solutions for medical procedures based on local knowledge, ingenuity and available resources. For example, surgeons in the United Kingdom use orthopaedic drills during surgery, which are made with heat resistant materials that allow them to be easily sterilised between patients, but at a cost of around 30,000 Pounds Sterling. In Uganda, where money is tighter, surgeons use ordinary household drills, wrapped in a sterilisable material, to achieve the same result for much less money. Such simple innovations are often highly effective and more affordable solutions. Simple innovations eventually result in lesser reliance on assistance from outside bodies such as governments and NGOs.

Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals (United Nations, 2015a) are laid out in a document signed by the leaders of 191 nations, who committed to working towards achieving them by 2015. The eight key goals outlined in this document directly relate to objectives of creating Smart Villages and include:

1 Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger

• The number of people living on less than 1.25 USD a day has been reduced from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015, narrowly missing the target of halving the proportion of people suffering from hunger worldwide.

2 Achieving universal primary education

• Primary school enrolment figures have increased significantly from 83 per cent in 2000 to 91 per cent in 2015, but not quite reaching the goal.

3 Promoting gender equality and empowerment of women

• Around two thirds of developing countries achieved gender parity in primary education.

4 Reducing child mortality

• Child mortality fell from 90 to 43 deaths per 1000 births, not quite reaching the two thirds target.

5 Improving maternal health

• This also fell by around a half, not quite reaching the goal of two thirds.

6 Combating HIV/AIDs, malaria, and other preventable diseases

• HIV/Aids infection fell by approximately 40 per cent between 2000 and 2013.

7 Ensuring greater environmental sustainability

• The target of halving the proportion of people without access to potable water was achieved in 2010, five years ahead of schedule, but 663 million people still do not have access to clean and readily available water.

8 Developing global partnerships to achieve better outcomes

• Overseas development assistance to developing countries has increased by 66 per cent from 2000 to 2014.

Although the world has come a long way towards achieving the eight goals outlined above, distribution has been uneven, and inequalities between urban and rural settlements and their communities exist. A new set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals came out in 2015 (United Nations, 2015c). These incorporate the Millennium Development Goals plus include more targeted goals specific to environmental problems such as greenhouse gas emissions and waste management. The aim is for the signature countries to have achieved these goals by 2030. The new targets are more concerned with reaching poorer rural communities, rather than the “low hanging fruit” of the urban voting population in densely populated urban areas as opposed to rural and remote areas that represent fewer votes.

Discrepancies between rural and urban areas can sometimes be dramatic. For example, only 56 per cent of births in rural areas are attended to by skilled health personnel compared to 87 per cent in urban areas (United Nations, 2015b). About 16 per cent of people in rural areas do not have access to sources of safe drinking water, compared with only 4 per cent of urban populations. Some 50 per cent of people living in rural areas lack improved sanitation facilities compared to only 18 per cent of people in urban areas. The average out-of-school rate in rural areas, based on a survey of 63 developing countries from 2008 to 2012, was twice as high (16 per cent) as it is in urban areas (8 per cent). Mortality is also higher for children in rural areas compared to urban areas. In fact, rural children are some 1.7 times more likely to die before their fifth birthday than children in urban areas.

Maternal education remains the most powerful determinant of inequality in terms of survival of children in rural as opposed to urban areas. Mothers with a secondary or higher education are almost three times more likely to have children that survive past five years than do mothers with no education. In addition, there is a disparity between rural and urban in knowledge about HIV and its transmission among communities (23 per cent to 36 per cent).

Notably, rural areas have, however, been changing rapidly across numerous fronts and improving community bottom lines. For example, the proportion of the global rural population without access to improved drinking water has declined by more than half since 1990, from 38 per cent to 16 per cent in 2015. Since 1990 the proportion of the global rural population without access to improved sanitation has declined by nearly a quarter, and open defecation rates in rural areas have fallen from 38 per cent to 25 per cent by 2015. Still, nearly half of the people living in rural areas do not have access to improved sanitation facilities, and one in four still practise open defecation.

Globally, the proportion of people owning a mobile phone was 97 per cent in urban areas by 2015, but only 64 per cent in rural areas with an estimated 450 million people still living in rural areas with no internet connectivity.

Making a Smart Village

A Smart Village is one that meets not only the UN development goals as outlined above but also many other relevant location-specific goals found in the Organis‑ ation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) regional well-being framework (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2016). The first step is identifying the current status of a village: what are the current problems they are facing and what steps do they need to take to be improved? Are there barriers that could be limiting the success of implementing the types of steps called for in addressing problems? If so, how can we avoid/overcome these barriers?

In summary, a Smart Village is one that has adequate reference to all the key elements as depicted in Figure 1.1:

• Jobs/Income: A Smart Village is one where everyone has an income sufficient to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

• Education: In a Smart Village everyone is literate and has access to learning opportunities, which can be delivered face-to-face or through the internet, and which allow skills to be acquired to gain employment.

• Housing: A Smart Village is one where everyone has somewhere to live, which is warm and dry, clean and safe.

• Healthcare: A Smart Village has adequate sanitation, with clean water available for drinking and washing and where waste is treated in a safe and sustainable manner. It is a place where medical care is available to everybody on both an emergency and regular care basis.

• Environment: A Smart Village is one that is in harmony with the natural environment, and a place where natural environments are conserved, and degraded environments are restored wherever possible. This means providing appropriate and safe habitats for wildlife and preserving the ecological patterns that shape those habitats.

• Access to services: A Smart Village has enough energy, ideally from carbon neutral sources, for everybody’s cooking, heating and refrigeration needs. This also applies to healthcare and educational facilities in terms of safe food handling and management and for cooling and heating. Waste removal, recycling and treatment (e.g. as a potential source of employment, fertiliser and an energy source) is implemented wisely. Communication services (mail, telephone, television, radio), and importantly the internet, are integrated into the daily lives of people, for example to inform them of potential dangers (incoming bad weather etc.) and access to neighbours, relatives and government bodies.

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Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Income Generation
• 3 Education and Skills Development
• 4 Agriculture
• 5 Housing
• 6 Energy
• 7 Waste
• 8 Water and Sanitation
• 9 Transportation
• 10 Health and Well-Being
• 11 Environment
• 12 Governance
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index