"The 21st century will be the century of cities," says the 2007 Worldwatch Institute study: 'Our Urban Future." Decisive battles for humane lives will be fought in city alleys or crammed slums in a struggle "we are poorly equipped for."

That includes the Philippines . At last count, we had 123 cities, up from only 60 in 1990. City shingles were posted, this month, by Bogo in Cebu, San Juan in Metro Manila, Baybay in Leyte, Catbalogan in Samar and Lamitan in Basilan. Six are still in the queue, including Bayugan in Agusan del Sur.

The President didn’t sign the bills creating them. Most don’t earn P100 million yearly “the rock-bottom minimum, pegged by the Local Government Code to join the club." Instead of buttressing local revenues, they wangled exemptions from Congress in an election year. Come December, we’ll have a glut of 129 cities.

Many can’t even meet RA 9009’s bare-bone criteria, notes Iloilo mayor Jerry Trenas who heads the League of Cities. “Can they deliver as cities?" No, they can’t. Nor will they tax idle land, collect business permits, etc. Share of local taxes has shriveled from 31 centavos, out of every peso, to only 20 centavos today.

But new cities panhandle. New cities can wheedle, from national government, heftier Internal Revenue Allotments, chuckled San Juan mayor J.V. Ejercito. “A living beggar is better than a dead King", the Ilokano proverb says.
But new cities panhandle. New cities can wheedle, from national government, heftier Internal Revenue Allotments, chuckled San Juan mayor J.V. Ejercito. “A living beggar is better than a dead King", the Ilokano proverb says.

IRAs for new mendicants would be clipped from revenues of poverty-stricken Muslim cities and fifth class towns. A city shingle means a safety net for fading family dynasties. “You can’t hold back development", Bogo mayor Celestino Martinez III deadpanned. Development is not a larger begging bowl. Rather, it’s the process of empowering people to enlarge their choices, enabling them to rise to more humane standards of living, UN Human Development Report asserts.

“Cities are not problems,” says Jaime Lerner who, as mayor made the Brazilian city Curitiba a world symbol of startling innovation. “They are solutions” but only when leaders craft policies that spur citizens to bind present action a clear perspective on the future. Cities then become a collective dream and, a structure of change."

The old hoary excuse “lack of resources” ( i.e. small IRAs ) only guarantees paralysis, Lerner adds. City officials must have a vision of the ideal but do what is possible today. ‘Solutions for 20, 30 years ahead are pointless because by then the problems will have changed." Begin on problems that will not need decades to show results. “The present belongs to us. And it is our responsibility to open paths."

The first small cities emerged, in 4000 BC, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. At no time since then, have so many people poured into ill-prepared cities. Sometime next year, a migrant will cross a city border and an invisible line, says Christopher Flavin in “State of the World 2007.” That crossing will be the first time in history in which more than half the people on earth “roughly 3.2 billion men, women and children” will live in cities. The flood into cities is unlikely to ebb soon. Even in urban slums, life and economic breaks are fractionally better for many of the poor. Thus, Metro Manila today find itself wedged among 20 mega-cities, i.e. those that have over 10 million people. In 1950, only Tokyo and New York were in the mega-city bracket.

Asian urban population mushroomed seven fold in 55 years, says Asian Development Bank. And In 23 years, 55 out of every 100 Filipinos will live in cities. Already, this region already accounts for 253 cities with population between one and five million. Compare that to 59 in Africa . ‘Almost all of future population growth in Asia will be in towns and cities."
Cities can also die. Borobudor in Indonesia, Angkor Wat in Cambodia , Fatiphurshakri in India as well as Mayan cities, between Mexico and Guatamela, turned into ghostly ruins.

Empty water cisterns, collapse of food systems and misrule wrecked them. Today’s cities can ignore that fatality list only at their peril. There are silver linings Rich and poor communities are bridging gaps left by mendicant visionless governments, says ‘Our Urban Future". A remarkable array of breakthroughs include these:
In Karachi , the city poor built themselves a sewerage system. Pune in India constructed sanitary toilet blocks to replace the “wrap-and-throw” waste disposal. Accra , Beijing , Vancouver and Argentina’s Rosario boost food supplies by farms on rooftops and empty city lots. Over 250 towns in Brazil now have citizens who participate in drawing up their budgets, following the innovation by Porto Alegre . ( Naga City installed a similar system under Magsaysay Awardee Jesse Roberdo.) Singapore is a garden city. Accord 21 building design, in China , reduces energy needs of standard buildings by 70 percent Zababaleen in Cairo recycles 85 percent of what garbage they collect. And Kampala in Uganda staunched water leakages from 51 to 29 percent.

“The cities of the future belong to the children of today." says Worldwatch Institute. New mindsets can bridge that gap, and not extra-large begging bowls. E-mail: juanlmercado@gmail.com