DEUTSCH
Urban Development
Date: 21st July 2011
Time: 04.00 PM
Space: Hall Cardiff (Millennium Hotel)
Since about 2008 more than half of the world population is living in cities. The number of so-called megacities with more than 10 million inhabitants will grow from only five in the year 1975 to an estimated twenty-six in 2015, twenty-two of which are in developing countries, four of them in India.
The Indian population grows at a rate of 1.5 percent per year. Thus, India currently has the greatest absolute growth rate of all countries worldwide and by 2045 will have replaced China as the most populous country in the world. At the same time, Indian economy is booming, with a GDP growth of 6 to 8 percent. Such tendencies have the consequence that India's cities are rapidly growing - along with all the opportunities and problems that come with such growth. Cities suffer from the chronically overcrowded transport systems and congested roads, from poor water supply and sanitation and from immense problems with waste disposal. The central problem however is the inadequate governmental control, caused by bureaucracy, corruption, and nepotism. A lot of hope is pinned to the large number of comparatively well-educated young people, to the economy and to the resultant middle class.
The highly dynamic development of Indian cities and the contrariness of especially urban areas of India are in the focus of this Tea Talk. 'City expert' Dr. Angela Jain of nexus Institute, Berlin has years of experience and is currently analysing the megacity Hyderabad with regard to aspects of climate change, sustainability and governance structures, as part of a research project (www.sustainable-hyderabad.in).
Speaker
Dr. Angela Jain is a scientific staff member and divisional director with Nexus Institute for Cooperation Management and Interdisciplinary Research in Berlin, with expertise in the demography of East Germany, in socio-scientific mobility research and in her focal areas of work., i.e. in mobility and tourism (recreational traffic), in sustainability research as well as in landscaping and urban and regional planning. She earned a doctorate in agricultural sciences at the Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture at Humboldt University of Berlin. Dr. Jain is a graduate engineer of Landscape Architecture and her professional experience includes having worked as a lecturer at the Institute of Geography at Berlin's Humboldt University and as a scientific staff member with the Institute of Agricultural and Urban Ecological Projects in Berlin. There are numerous publications by Dr. Angela Jain.
