33. CLEANING UP THE CITY: Waste-lands in Mumbai and Lagos (+moving capitals, +renaming cities, +urban running events and more)

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Hello, and this month on Urban Radar we discuss: will Uganda move its capital city?
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We talk about the UK's sanctions on Israeli settlements.
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And we look at an Oxfordshire village that has voted to leave the UK.
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We also take a look at urban running.
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We ask what out-of-control artificial superintelligence might mean for cities, and we look at the politics of naming places.
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And, as it's UN World Cleanup Day on the 20th of September, or rather it was, we take a holistic look at waste and sanitation in Lagos and Mumbai with our guests, Deji Akinpelu and Purva Dewoolkar.
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Welcome to Urban Radar, the podcast bringing you an urban lens on current affairs.
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I'm Tom Goodfellow, Professor of Urban Development and CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester.
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And I'm Beth Perry, Director of the Urban Institute and Professor of Urban Epistemics at the University of Sheffield.
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Tom, it's been a while since we've done a radar.
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I've been getting withdrawal symptoms.
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People have found me like shivering with a hairbrush trying to do a podcast in the bathroom.
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We did only have one in August for our summer break.
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Withdrawal.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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So what have you been up to?
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I've I've been in the UK.
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I've been like enjoying, I mean it seems absolutely ages ago now.
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I spent some time in Norfolk and Suffolk by the sea.
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Lovely.
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Enjoying the seaside vibe, having a very uh relaxed time, frankly.
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That sounds good.
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Mostly.
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And then I've been back kind of trying to get on top of things in the ACRC.
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Um just over the last few weeks.
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Yeah, very nice.
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So what have you been up to?
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Um well it's been a big transitional summer for us.
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I've had one daughter home from university and one getting her A-level results and going off to York to do neuroscience.
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So as well as like doing fake podcasts in the bathroom with my hairbrush, you can find me sobbing in the editing suite as I have empty nest syndrome.
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But work-wise, things are very exciting.
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It's always sad when colleagues leave, but we've actually done a clever swap this year.
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Um so our good colleague Zhengli Huang has left the UI for the Politecnico de Torino to undertake a Marie Curie fellowship on port urban interfaces in Mombasa and Djibouti.
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So well done, Zhengli.
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Um but we are welcoming Alberto Vas Gris, who left the Politecnico de Torino to join the Urban Institute on a British Academy fellowship on situated geoeconomics on Mediterranean port cities.
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So we're gonna have to have a conversation bringing these perspectives together at some point.
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Excellent.
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Yes, I can imagine another very productive two-way.
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We haven't we haven't done much on ports, have we?
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We haven't done ports, we've neglected ports.
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We haven't talked as much about coasts as we probably need to talk about.
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And today we will be talking about coastal cities, but not really in their port capacity.
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Uh you've also been doing a little bit of ancestry work, haven't you, Beth?
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Well, yes.
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Um I've found out some things about my family tree, which is it's quite good to know.
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I've got I come from a lineage of social reformers uh on my Indian side, and I found out the name, I didn't know this, of my great-great-great-great-grandfather on my Indian side, uh BL Gupta, who was apparently partly responsible for bringing about legislation that allowed Indians to try Europeans in courts of law in the 19th century.
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And it was very controversial and led to lots of protests and legal battles, but you know, eventually some legal changes that brought a little bit more racial justice into the legal.
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I think it's amazing.
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It's really inspiring to have that in your family history.
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But what about yours?
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By total coincidence, I also have been thinking a little bit about my great-great-great-grandfather.
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I don't think listeners are going to believe this, but my dad did some ancestry work some time ago.
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And one of the interesting things that popped up was a certain Benjamin Goodfellow, who I think is a great-great-great grandfather, who uh invented some kind of industrial piston in the Industrial Revolution uh in the Manchester area.
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And like uh my family were all around, just like quite close to where I now work.
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So I'm kind of I'm connecting with Manchester through my ancestry, and I feel like I want to explore all these towns and villages um around southeastern Manchester to sort of see all the Goodfellow graves and hear more about this piston maker.
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Yeah, it's amazing actually.
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And one thing I did note is that your great-great-great, to the power of many, had much better moustaches than mine, from what I can gather from the photographs.
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There is a picture of someone with a tash, yeah.
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I don't know if it was Benjamin, but um I think all great industrialists probably and social reformers probably would have done better with mustaches.
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So, so listeners, now you know now you know all about our great great-great-grandfathers.
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Should we crack on?
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Let's.
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What is coming up this episode, Tom?
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So on this episode, we are making the most of World Cleanup Day on the 20th of September to think a little bit about waste and uh actually uh quite a lot about waste and waste management, which is a crucial urban issue that comes up periodically.
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We've talked about fly tipping and waste dumps and things before, but we are gonna have guests on to talk about this in detail.
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So, World Cleanup Day is something that started, I think, out of a movement in Estonia in 2008, where 50,000 people uh sort of coordinated somehow to clean the entire country in a single day.
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It's quite hard to believe, but incredible if they managed it.
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I know.
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I don't know how many people there are in Estonia, but like it's it's an impressive act.
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Yeah, I I always strikes me as probably clean, uh especially since 2008.
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But anyway, this is now a global movement.
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It's very topical because of course one of the first acts of Andy Burnham as well, our well, is he still new Prime Minister?
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Let's call him that for now.
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Was to um clean up illegal waste dumps and target fly tipping.
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And there's like some unprecedented pictures of the scale of the problem around the UK in the press this summer.
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So we're going to be joined by two of your Manchester University colleagues and collaborators.
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First, Deji Akinpelu, who is the co-founder of Rethinking Cities, an advocacy group working on urban development issues in Lagos and has been involved in the ACRC Lagos team.
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And also Purva Dewoolkar, a bicentennial research fellow at the University of Manchester, looking at water and sanitation in Mumbai.
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Yeah, we were reflecting on what it means to be a bicentennial research fellow, weren't we?
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I'm sure she's not 200.
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She didn't look 200.
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No, I don't think the university is 200 either.
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Anyway, we'll we'll look into that.
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But anyway, we really wanted to use this as an opportunity to bridge discussions of solid waste management, whether that's organic or non-organic waste, uh, and sanitation, toilets and human waste.
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Because these are huge, um, obviously, challenges in urban areas and huge areas of research as well.
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We we all know many people involved in research on waste, but but quite often they're they're separate people.
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So there's water and sanitation research, and then there's solid waste management.
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But we are going to bridge those discussions because there are all sorts of interconnections in reality, and we're going to do this um through the context of these two iconic mega cities, Lagos and Mumbai.
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So we'll introduce those guests a little bit more later on.
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Yes, but first.
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What's on your radar, Tom?
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Okay, so the first story on my radar, and this is something that actually hit the news in late August, but after we recorded our last episode, is this question of whether Uganda is going to move its capital city.
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And I have not actually heard about this before in Uganda, although apparently it has been sometimes discussed.
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Um, on one level, not surprising, because the capital Kampala is highly congested and you know has all sorts of challenges of infrastructure and it's it's it's very sprawling and so on.
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But there's basically been an idea, it was mooted by a State Minister for Urban Development, one Margaret Mohanga, who raised this issue that maybe they should move the capital to a place called um Nakosongala, which is a small town and district.
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Um this has caused a massive media frenzy within Uganda.
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Now, of course, you know, it's it's not actually that unusual that capital cities do move, and there are lots of examples.
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Um and this is a proposal that maybe they could gradually move government ministries there between now and 2040, but Kampala would remain the economic core city.
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Um, could this really happen and what might it mean?
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Uh neighbouring countries like Dar es Salaam have done the same thing, so the capital moved sorry, neighbouring countries like Tanzania have done the same thing, so the capital moved from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma in 1996.
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Also, the African continental uh sort of most populous country on the continent, Nigeria, moved its capital from Lagos to Abuja in 1991.
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So there's plenty of precedence.
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Um and actually this this issue of moving capital cities is something that David Jackman and I looked at in our book Controlling the Capital, which we spoke about in episode three, I think.
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Um because uh we found when thinking about this, uh and and I'll come to the reasons we were looking at that, that it's really not that unusual.
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And actually, some people have said that every every uh that since the first world war, uh the moving of a capital city has taken place on average every six years.
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And this has been on every yeah, it's quite a few.
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So uh every continent in the world has had some movement, so countries as diverse as Myanmar, Brazil, Tanzania, as I mentioned, also Kazakhstan.
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Um, and actually up to 30% of capital cities are outside the society's largest city.
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So we tend to associate capitals with being the huge primate cities, but very often they're not.
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Now, to me, I think this seems a little bit improbable in Kampala.
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Um, the logic in Nigeria and Tanzania was about relocating from this colonial port city to something in the centre of the country, but Kampala is already reasonably central.
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And also Uganda doesn't really have that record of delivering kind of massive mega projects or new cities like some other countries.
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So it seems sort of unlikely to me that that they would really happen.
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But at the same time, what's really interesting here is that although this state minister was the one to mention it, she made a point that the president, Yahuri Museveni, supports this phase relocation of government ministries.
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And I think that's what caused so much interest.
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It's like the president supports it in a very highly presidential system where he's been there for 40 years.
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Um, and it's a reminder as well that often these moves are very, very political, right?
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So quite often the moves to uh you know shift to capital city, there's a technocratic, planning-related um rationale, but often it's also around this imperative to marginalize or disempower rivals where the government is very unpopular in the city, and it sort of diffuses that somehow if you move the city.
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So uh there's there's a fair bit of research on this.
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Like some people have have examined the the way that governments have moved the capital in cases where there are violent threats to the regime, and that sometimes has actually reduced some of the civil conflict.
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Um, and also some people have argued that there is an association between moving capital cities and authoritarianism.
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Uh so all these things are kind of interesting, and I think the political rationale is clearly there because the president has pretty much no hope of regaining majority support in the capital.
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Uh, as I've I've written about this extensively with my colleagues, Paul McCuire and Susie Mowanga, the government is extremely unpopular in Kampala.
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So I think politically it's uh, you know, it's it seems quite uh uh reasonable to consider, but logistically I find it harder.
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So it'll be very interesting to see how that plays out.
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You remember earlier this year a starting point for me talking about Iran was the move potential movement of the capital city Tehran.
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Um and obviously, yeah, you know, we've talked a bit about the kind of difference between where a political capital and administrative capital might be in these places where you've got that split.
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But actually, I was just thinking about okay, so the politics of doing this overtly and declaring your intentions versus the kind of creep that happens through a decentralisation model.
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Because of course we have number 10 law.
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You knew where I was going.
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I mean, if you just gradually decentralize government departments to other parts of the country and then reassemble, you have a sort of effective movement of at least the administrative and political capital.
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And we do see that idea of entrenched political control being only within London being challenged in the current era.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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So um yeah, perhaps perhaps Manchester will be capital before Nakasungala, but we'll we will see.
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I'm keeping an eye on it.
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Um, so my second issue today, very different, is I wanted to pick up on the UK's sanctions on Israeli settlements, um, announced by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband a little while ago.
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Uh and particularly, I'm not going to say too much about the sanctions and what they may or may not achieve.
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There's been lots of comment about this.
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But what really struck me was that Miliband and others have been very much linking this to the two-state solution and to the idea that Israeli settlements are really preventing a two-state solution from being feasible, and that if we want a two-state solution, then this has to be stopped.
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And I think that was just interesting to me because recently I've heard quite a lot of people who have said that the, and not just, I mean the Israeli government, but others who have said the two-state solution uh has run out of steam as an idea, it's no longer viable.
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And there's actually a group um called Land for All, which is a an NGO and advocacy group comprised of Israelis and Palestinians, around this idea of having one homeland but two separate states, which is an alternative paradigm to the two-state solution.
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Because some of those people are arguing that both Israelis and Palestinians have such strong attachments to the whole land with significant kind of historical legitimacy on both sides, that a two-state solution is not viable, but there is the potential for some kind of uh shared homeland, as people are calling it.
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And uh I've been aware for a while of a research project led by um Haim Jacobi at UCL, among others, which is around this idea of a shared homeland paradigm.
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And they are they are working with the land for all um movement in Israel and in Palestine.
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And what's interesting about this from an urban perspective is um it kind of distinguishes between sovereignty and residence.
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And it has this idea that you can have two independent sovereign states, and there would be borders between Israel and Palestine, but they would become increasingly permeable, and Israelis could potentially reside in Palestine while remaining Israeli citizens, but Palestinians could also reside in Israel while remaining Palestinian citizens.
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Um, of course, there are lots of criticisms of this approach, this idea that like it's it's far too hostile a political environment to imagine a shared land.
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The mutual trust is very, very low.
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But on the other hand, the supporters of this are arguing that actually territorial separation is no longer feasible.
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We've seen kind of what it leads to, and um actually a confederal arrangement better reflects the realities on the ground and could allow people to remain in a place that they're very attached to historically.
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So anyway, the reason I think from an urban perspective, it's particularly interesting, is that when Chaim Jacobi talks about this, he really highlights this um idea of what he calls mixed cities, which are very different from Israeli select settler colonialism in these settlements.
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He talks about how there are many Palestinian Arabs who actually rent and buy in Jewish West Jerusalem and in places like Nazareth.
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And that there is an idea, you can imagine, even though it's very hard to imagine at the moment peace across that whole territory, you can imagine a binational shared city future.
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And if we start from the urban and then work to the national, it might be more promising than thinking about where the state boundaries are, I think is the argument.
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And he makes the point that if we look to South Africa, if we look to Rwanda, if we look to Northern Ireland, Colombia and Bosnia, I mean, some of these things could be challenged, but he makes the point that cities were playing a key role in reconciliation and that we should be starting from that and working up.
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So it's it's an interesting, I just wanted to highlight awareness of that research project, the shared homeland paradigm, whatever people might think about it, but particularly because it centers urban processes as potential solutions.
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I didn't know where you were going to go with this story, but you've given us some hope in amidst a kind of news item that I wasn't expecting.
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That idea that the emer urban imagination could potentially provide a solution at other kinds of scales.
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And we've talked about scale jumping and scalar flexing and all these kinds of things before, but this kind of imaginative leap, you know, actually if hope seems lost, then we have to use our imaginations to try and find ways out of this.
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So that sounds like a brilliant project, and presumably we can put all the details in the show notes.
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It's an ESRC project.
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I think it's about halfway through.
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Um I I don't, you know, obviously I don't know how much hope that there is, but I just it struck me that when you hear people like uh very much the line of our government currently is the two-state solution is the only solution.
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I think there are people who are very committed to overcoming the conflict who have other ideas and it's worth listening.
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So what else?
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Final item takes me back to Oxfordshire.
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And I say back because it wasn't very long we were in Oxfordshire talking about flags, right?
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I'm sure that was an Oxfordshire an Oxfordshire village or a town that banned flag flying in a very different um turn of events in the last few days here in the UK.
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Uh a village called Piddington in Oxfordshire voted through its kind of own referendum that it organized informally to leave the UK.
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Um now this was over the plan to house over a thousand asylum seekers nearby.
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And they made the point this is a very small village and that they would be overwhelmed, and obviously the villagers feel very strongly.
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I'm not going to get right now into the issue of asylum housing and settlement, but it made me think, you know, obviously they did this as a sort of publicity stunt.
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But, you know, are there cases in which uh a town or city population, probably not a village, have actually voted or opted to leave a country and it's they've successfully pulled it off.
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Do you know if if there are cities that have seceded in that way?
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Well, I don't know how places that are kind of autonomous already like the Vatican came about.
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Was that like I'm presuming it wasn't particularly through the city?
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Vatican is interesting.
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I mean it it was quite a big deal in the Middle Ages, like I mean, sorry, in the um ancient world.
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Yeah.
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Uh and you know, city-states in in Greece and Rome were sort of breaking apart and coming together and all of that.
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The only one in modern times you hear about, which is actually a little different, is Singapore, which um seceded from Malaysia in 1965, very much as a city.
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But actually that wasn't through voting.
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They were kind of forced out, I believe.
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The Malaysian parliament voted to expel Singapore, but it then seceded.
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And there are very few other modern examples.
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I think uh after the Treaty of Versailles, Danzig in Germany, now Gdansk, was separated from Germany.
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But that was it became a sep a semi-independent city-state under a League of Nations supervision.
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Uh cities have tried, so Venice apparently has had its own informal referenda a few times to say it wants to leave Italy.
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They've never really worked.
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And there were debates about Montreal as well in the context of independence of Quebec, whether it would secede from Quebec.
00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:17.759
Um, interestingly, also, I don't know if you remember this, but I was uh aware of this, that some people in London wanted London to leave the UK after the Brexit referendum, right?
00:18:17.759 --> 00:18:20.240
Because the majority of people in London voted to remain.
00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:21.440
And apparently there was a whole movement.
00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:22.160
Scotland.
00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:26.240
Lundependence or Lundexit, which is a terrible bad.
00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:27.599
Come on, you must be able to do better than that.
00:18:28.240 --> 00:18:29.680
I didn't make that up.
00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:34.720
I I was aware at the time of people saying London should just leave, and I was like, is that really I don't know.
00:18:34.720 --> 00:18:43.200
Um but yeah, so actually the answer is it it's almost unheard of for a city to vote to leave, although some some have tried.
00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:53.680
But it also reminded me, thinking about these historical arguments, you know, actually Jane Jacobs, in her book Cities and the Wealth of Nations, she makes the point that cities should sometimes secede because they're the true units of economic life.
00:18:53.680 --> 00:18:59.359
And actually, often nation-states sometimes mismanage them and redistribute resources in unfair ways.
00:18:59.359 --> 00:19:01.839
And it also reminded me of Charles Tilley's work.
00:19:01.839 --> 00:19:08.640
So, you know, his famous book on cities-states and how they were formed, how cities and states were formed in early modern Europe.
00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:11.200
He talks about autonomous cities and bargaining cities.
00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:18.000
So there are cities that have loads and loads of capital and wealth and banks and merchants, and they can actually function quite autonomously.
00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:28.720
Whereas there are other cities where there's a lot of coercive power of kings and armies, and actually the bankers and the capitalists have to bargain with them to form a state, so they can't be so autonomous.
00:19:28.720 --> 00:19:37.119
I thought, well, this is an interesting, perhaps in our historical juncture where we're at, where we see kind of unprecedented amounts of military power in states.
00:19:37.119 --> 00:19:46.079
It's going to be so all-encompassing and fuelled by technology, but we also see these huge amounts of corporate power, and yet it's not territorialized in cities in quite the same way.
00:19:46.079 --> 00:19:50.720
So, how might we see that relationship between cities and states changing over time?
00:19:50.720 --> 00:20:07.039
So, what's on your radar?
00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:11.359
Well, I'm going to start with running.
00:20:11.359 --> 00:20:17.759
Um, some people may have seen Andy Burnham on the news, at least on Instagram, doing the Great North Run uh last weekend.
00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:21.759
The Great North Run is an annual half marathon event, and Andy Burnham did very well.
00:20:21.759 --> 00:20:24.079
He did under two hours, which is credible for us.
00:20:24.079 --> 00:20:25.599
Sounds good to the lifers.
00:20:25.599 --> 00:20:28.640
Um The Great North Run's in Newcastle in the north of England.
00:20:28.640 --> 00:20:39.359
It's an annual occurrence, and actually it's still in the Guinness Book of Records as having held the largest half marathon, which was in 2014, when over 40,000 people took part.
00:20:39.359 --> 00:20:42.799
Um so I started thinking about running a bit.
00:20:42.799 --> 00:20:46.160
It's just an excuse, which we'll come to at the end to talk about running, to be honest.
00:20:46.160 --> 00:20:52.400
So it's in uh 1976 it was like the New York Marathon, which was kind of dubbed the first urban tour marathon.
00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:56.960
In I found this in a h in an article about the history of the marathon in Sports Medicine Journal.
00:20:56.960 --> 00:21:04.079
And this this New York marathon is credited with seeding hundreds of urban marathons and half marathons that take place in cities around the world every year.
00:21:04.079 --> 00:21:09.200
And so I was thinking, well, well, what is what are these running events in the context of an urban of a city?
00:21:09.200 --> 00:21:12.480
And of course, obviously they're they're spectacles, they're mega events.
00:21:12.480 --> 00:21:15.440
You know, they have big impacts on tourism, on the visitor economy.
00:21:15.440 --> 00:21:19.920
They're increasingly corporatized from the gear to kind of like the entrance fee and the advertising.
00:21:19.920 --> 00:21:21.599
They're also part of urban renewal.
00:21:21.599 --> 00:21:30.400
So there was one article I came across that was associating the growth of Chicago's marathon with its transformation from a rust belt city to a revitalised metropolis.
00:21:30.400 --> 00:21:38.480
So these kinds of events, sporting events, are really significant in cities putting themselves on the global stage as part of their like image branding.
00:21:38.480 --> 00:21:40.480
But they're also obviously very hard to manage.
00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:46.160
There's lots of governance challenges, whether security or health and safety, they're quite bad for the environment.
00:21:46.160 --> 00:21:58.160
Um, so I read something about disposable plastic bottles, you know, you just drink them, throw them, and there's something like 2.3 pounds of waste generated per participant during an organised race, which is quite a lot, I thought.
00:21:58.480 --> 00:21:58.640
Wow.
00:21:58.799 --> 00:22:04.640
Um but I was also kind Thinking about you used the word glitch last episode when you were talking about the solar eclipse.
00:22:04.640 --> 00:22:11.759
And these events are kind of like pauses, interruptions to the everyday because the roads get closed and the traffic is diverted.
00:22:11.759 --> 00:22:16.400
So I did my first organised half marathon in Manchester and I got to run on the Mancunian Way.
00:22:16.400 --> 00:22:23.680
And it was really, it was quite weird, it was quite eerie because you go into these spaces that are usually forbidden in the city or illicit or dangerous.
00:22:23.680 --> 00:22:27.440
And there's this different kind of carving carnival-esque atmosphere.
00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:41.119
And so I was thinking this myself, and then obviously someone's written about it using LeFebrian rhythm analysis to actually look at this is Tim Edensor and Jonas Larsen, to look at the kind of rhythms and flows of the urban marathon and what it means.
00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:50.880
So then there's a whole other literature, I won't go into it too much about the rise of the charitable body, which is kind of looking at marathons these running events, not as collective, but as individual acts.
00:22:50.880 --> 00:23:03.279
And that's in a context of like fundraising, because like so the London Marathon, for instance, is one of the biggest annual fundraising events in the UK, raises like £35 million annually, and lots of urban services and charities are strapped for cash.
00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:05.680
So if they didn't have this money, it would be really significant.
00:23:05.680 --> 00:23:16.480
So there's this idea about the charitable body being an ostentatious way to help people in need, which is kind of constructed out of the relationship between these voluntary organisations, sport and performance.
00:23:16.480 --> 00:23:21.920
There's a whole set of interesting things about who gets to run, because the demographic's quite white.
00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:42.799
In a chapter in a book we've got coming out later this year on how to be an anti-capitalist city, Rex McKenzie and Zachiah McKenzie talk about how England's footballer John Barnes said that running in the streets of London at night was dangerous for black men because for a white person running is just seen as exercise at night.
00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:47.200
But for a black person running at night, it triggers suspicion and potential encounters with the police.
00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:50.079
So there's all these kinds of racialised politics as well.
00:23:50.079 --> 00:23:58.000
So yeah, lots about running, but I have a vested interest, which you know, which is that I am actually I have been doing quite a few half marathons.
00:23:58.000 --> 00:23:58.720
Have you finished?
00:23:58.720 --> 00:23:59.759
I haven't finished.
00:23:59.759 --> 00:24:03.839
I've I've been doing one half marathon every month for the last 11 months.
00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:05.440
So Andy's done one, right?
00:24:05.440 --> 00:24:07.519
And he is faster than me, but I've done more.
00:24:07.519 --> 00:24:08.559
I swear I've done more.
00:24:08.559 --> 00:24:11.599
So I've got one more to go to raise money for War Child.
00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:16.400
And if anyone loves free loves urban radar, which of course is free, you're very welcome to sponsor me.
00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:19.200
Also, children and in context of war.
00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:19.440
Yeah.
00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:22.240
In fact, you've been doing these runs for so long, I can't even remember if I sponsored you.
00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:23.519
I'm sure I did, but it might have been a long time ago.
00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:24.079
Don't worry.
00:24:24.240 --> 00:24:24.799
Do I have to do it again?
00:24:25.039 --> 00:24:26.960
You're incredibly no, you don't have to do it every run.
00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:27.839
But anyway, there we go.
00:24:27.839 --> 00:24:31.200
That's why I'm talking about running, finally, and I will put my sponsorship details.
00:24:31.200 --> 00:24:32.559
Yes, sponsor based.
00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:34.240
Incredibly good cause.
00:24:34.240 --> 00:24:34.640
Okay.
00:24:34.640 --> 00:24:35.200
Wow.
00:24:35.200 --> 00:24:36.720
So urban running, what else?
00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:38.400
Um urban super intelligence.
00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:49.039
So no one will have missed the recent news coverage that there is a 10% chance that we are all going to be killed by artificial intelligence in the next decade and that we're going to be outsmarted by super intelligence.
00:24:49.039 --> 00:24:55.359
So these concerns have been raised by industry insiders in anthropic and lobbying groups such as control AI.
00:24:55.359 --> 00:25:02.400
And there's loads of scare stories, you know, like there was an open AI tested model which went rogue and hacked the AI company hugging face.
00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:06.319
So an important thing to remember there, though, is that AI did not escape its programming.
00:25:06.319 --> 00:25:09.039
It hadn't been programmed to stay within the boundaries.
00:25:09.039 --> 00:25:11.519
And in that nuance, we kind of found some hope.
00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:22.000
And so there's a big debate happening in the UK and elsewhere about regulation and state intervention and whether we can trust these oligarchic tech bros to do the right thing and regulate themselves.
00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:28.079
So the other thing to think about here is that at the same time, the quality and standards in education are diminishing.
00:25:28.079 --> 00:25:34.000
And some people are saying that we have reached peak human intelligence, which is obviously quite complicated to measure.
00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:42.400
I was looking at this book by David Robson called The Intelligence Trap, and he was sort of charting how greater education has not necessarily led to less error in the world.
00:25:42.400 --> 00:25:43.599
So that's quite discouraging.
00:25:43.599 --> 00:25:49.440
So, you know, you've got this scenario that potentially people are flatlining and AI is storming ahead.
00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:55.200
And so it just made me think, you know, what's the AI urbanism literature saying about this at the moment?
00:25:55.200 --> 00:26:15.599
So I don't know how familiar our listeners are with the literature on AI urbanism, but one of the sort of canonical articles is by colleagues Frederico Kugarulu, Frederico Caproti, Simon Marvin, Matthew Cook, Andy Cavone, and Paulin McGurk, and they've been talking about urban AI, which is basically artificial intelligence operating in and taking form in urban spaces.
00:26:15.599 --> 00:26:19.519
So that's everything from like autonomous vehicles to city brains and robots.
00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:27.279
And what makes it urban is three things that they're arguing that artificial intelligence needs the city because it learns on the city.
00:26:27.279 --> 00:26:32.640
And so super intelligence, this idea of autonomous decision making, can happen through learning in the city.
00:26:32.640 --> 00:26:37.680
AI needs a physical space to exist, and therefore it's also shaping the governance of cities.
00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:39.920
So, you know, there's lots of kind of worries here.
00:26:39.920 --> 00:26:40.880
Like there's this kind of hope.
00:26:40.880 --> 00:26:49.519
I mean, maybe, you know, we've got all of these complicated issues around waste that we've been talking about, all of these challenges around capital cities that's forcing us to move them.
00:26:49.519 --> 00:26:57.200
You know, some people say AI is going to help improve efficiency and decision making to look across all of these different intersections and deal with problems that humans can't.
00:26:57.200 --> 00:27:02.880
Um but of course, on the other hand of things, people are worrying about the erasure of social learning.
00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:03.680
So I don't know.
00:27:03.680 --> 00:27:05.519
I think there's three things that we can hope for, though.
00:27:05.519 --> 00:27:11.119
One, that human intelligence evades capture, because we're very tricky and imaginative and crafty.
00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:18.000
Two, Gen Z are actually, we only hear about those people who are using and embracing it, but many are voicing discontent.
00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:30.400
So there was an article in the conversation in July about how lots of Gen Z young people are turning away from AI to analog hobbies, wanting to take control over their creative content, fear of AI losing their jobs, demanding more regulation.
00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:35.440
So actually there was another study showing that baby boomers are more susceptible to AI slop than Gen Z.
00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:38.720
So there's a shout out there for next generation to save us.
00:27:38.720 --> 00:27:42.799
And then the last thing was about, you know, what's really actually existing to use that term.
00:27:42.799 --> 00:27:47.119
We had Corona Das from Singapore Management University at the Urban Institute last week.
00:27:47.119 --> 00:27:54.559
When we were talking about all the hype and like actually existing smart cities, actually existing smart citizens, and actually existing AI.
00:27:54.559 --> 00:28:01.759
And although there are these kinds of like experimental niches within cities, when you look at what's actually existing, maybe it's not moving as fast as we might fear.
00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:07.839
And it's really interesting, I think, we this generational relationship with AI, and it may not be what people expect.
00:28:07.839 --> 00:28:09.920
I don't know if you've got have you got an AI agent yet?
00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:11.279
AI agent?
00:28:11.599 --> 00:28:11.839
What?
00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:13.279
To make money out of this podcast.
00:28:14.079 --> 00:28:15.119
Well, you see, you say that.
00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:23.200
And maybe it will No, I mean I think they're all about to pop up in all of our lives via Meta and WhatsApp or whatever, where the AI can like do all the stuff where we book your cinema tickets, arrange your paddle course.
00:28:24.079 --> 00:28:25.119
And I'm like, no, I don't want to.
00:28:25.359 --> 00:28:26.799
It's all over, but well, you say that.
00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:34.640
But I do think I think it's people of our generation who are managing, you know, if you've got kids and you've got a job and you've got to do the shopping and you've got to do all this, like, who are going to be drawn to this stuff.
00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:37.359
While the younger generation might be a bit like back off.
00:28:37.359 --> 00:28:40.640
I mean, it's very hard to see what the different generations will make of this.
00:28:40.640 --> 00:28:41.680
It will be useful for different people.
00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:43.359
It's definitely playing out in my family.
00:28:43.359 --> 00:28:44.960
My my girls don't use it.
00:28:44.960 --> 00:28:47.039
I have higher screen time than them.
00:28:47.200 --> 00:28:47.279
Yeah.
00:28:47.599 --> 00:28:51.599
All because of work-life patterns and balances and you know, not having made different choices.
00:28:52.319 --> 00:28:54.079
Okay, so last radar item for you.
00:28:54.400 --> 00:28:54.559
Okay.
00:28:54.559 --> 00:28:55.039
Yes, for me.
00:28:55.039 --> 00:28:56.319
So Trump is at it again.
00:28:56.319 --> 00:28:57.440
He is renaming everything.
00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:05.039
At the beginning of the month, uh Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario in Canada to Lake America in the context of the trade war there.
00:29:05.039 --> 00:29:09.039
Um, ordering for Lake Ontario, the name to be replaced on all federal maps.
00:29:09.039 --> 00:29:16.160
And of course, you know, one of the first things we heard about his second term in office was that he wanted to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
00:29:16.160 --> 00:29:19.119
So there's loads of these like urban trumpifications.
00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:23.119
Um, you'll remember the controversy over him trying to attach his name to the John F.
00:29:23.119 --> 00:29:25.519
Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts.
00:29:25.519 --> 00:29:31.279
But there's also Trump towers all around the world, like not only in New York, but like Kolkata, Manila, Pune, Mumbai, etc.
00:29:31.279 --> 00:29:43.359
So it got me thinking about urban name changes and whether cities or streets, you know, these are like symbols and representations for those who are seeking control or to capture reparations.
00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:48.000
The name of a place is deeply embedded in empire building, colonization and warfare.
00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:52.400
Um, it's like this renaming is an act of political legitimation.
00:29:52.400 --> 00:29:55.200
So um I thought I'd do you a quiz on this topic.
00:29:55.359 --> 00:29:55.920
Oh, a quiz.
00:29:56.079 --> 00:29:56.400
Yeah.
00:29:56.400 --> 00:29:58.640
So you're right, you've got four rounds.
00:29:58.640 --> 00:29:59.519
Are you ready?
00:29:59.839 --> 00:30:00.079
Yes.
00:30:00.079 --> 00:30:01.200
Get out of my area.
00:30:04.079 --> 00:30:06.480
I'm gonna give you the name and you've got to tell me what.
00:30:06.880 --> 00:30:09.519
I feel that I'm going to do the previous badly in this quiz.
00:30:09.519 --> 00:30:11.440
Okay, the previous name.
00:30:11.519 --> 00:30:11.680
Yeah.
00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:12.400
Mumbai.
00:30:12.960 --> 00:30:13.519
Bombay.
00:30:13.759 --> 00:30:15.200
See, I'm starting easy, right?
00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:16.319
Jakarta.
00:30:16.880 --> 00:30:18.160
I always just knew it was Jakarta.
00:30:18.400 --> 00:30:19.200
Batavia, apparently.
00:30:19.359 --> 00:30:19.839
Before my time.
00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:20.160
Yeah.
00:30:20.160 --> 00:30:21.599
Ho Chi Minh City.
00:30:21.599 --> 00:30:23.920
Oh, you know this one.
00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:24.400
I do.
00:30:24.400 --> 00:30:25.599
That's not Saigon.
00:30:25.759 --> 00:30:26.319
Yeah, yeah, good.
00:30:26.319 --> 00:30:27.279
Kinshasa.
00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:28.720
Oh, Leopoldville?
00:30:28.960 --> 00:30:30.000
Yeah, see, I knew you'd get that.
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:30.319
Well done.
00:30:30.319 --> 00:30:32.079
That's three out of four on the rapid fire one.
00:30:32.079 --> 00:30:32.400
Okay.
00:30:32.400 --> 00:30:33.599
Proper questions.
00:30:33.599 --> 00:30:36.480
By which name was New York City formerly known?
00:30:36.480 --> 00:30:41.440
New Amsterdam.
00:30:41.759 --> 00:30:42.400
Oh, I forgot that.
00:30:42.720 --> 00:30:44.079
Yeah, I thought you might know that one actually.
00:30:44.079 --> 00:30:49.200
That was named by Dutch settlers in the 17th century, uh, but renamed by the English when they seized control.
00:30:49.200 --> 00:30:52.480
And of course, it it wasn't the English that named it in the first place.
00:30:52.480 --> 00:30:55.519
There were indigenous groups originally there in the New York area as well.
00:30:55.519 --> 00:30:57.039
The Lenape people.
00:30:57.039 --> 00:30:58.559
Okay, question two.
00:30:58.559 --> 00:31:03.839
Which capital city has had the most name changes according to the Guinness Book of Records?
00:31:04.240 --> 00:31:05.119
Oh my gosh.
00:31:05.119 --> 00:31:05.920
I dad.
00:31:06.720 --> 00:31:06.880
St.
00:31:07.039 --> 00:31:07.440
Petersburg.
00:31:07.440 --> 00:31:08.319
Those names are good.
00:31:08.319 --> 00:31:09.680
That's not even a capital city.
00:31:11.920 --> 00:31:14.400
Those consonants that you just uttered will help a bit.
00:31:16.240 --> 00:31:16.799
Kazakhstan.
00:31:16.799 --> 00:31:18.079
The capital of witches.
00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:19.680
Oh, that's not Astana?
00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:21.039
Yes, good.
00:31:21.039 --> 00:31:22.720
I'm honestly not looking at a map or no.
00:31:23.119 --> 00:31:23.519
No, no, no.
00:31:23.519 --> 00:31:24.880
This is this is all good Tom knowledge.
00:31:24.880 --> 00:31:27.279
Six name changes in less than two centuries.
00:31:27.279 --> 00:31:34.640
Um, from the original Kazakh name of Akmola, which means white grave, through several Soviet-era rebrandings to the current day.
00:31:34.960 --> 00:31:35.119
Okay.
00:31:35.359 --> 00:31:41.279
Um, which is probably why it's called Astana now, because that apparently literally means capital city in Kazakh.
00:31:41.279 --> 00:31:42.799
Just to make it easier for anyone.
00:31:42.799 --> 00:31:44.640
All right, last question.
00:31:44.640 --> 00:31:46.480
You're doing well.
00:31:46.720 --> 00:31:46.880
Yeah.
00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:48.000
I thought you would.
00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:54.160
Can you give an example of a town or a city that goes by multiple names at once?
00:31:54.160 --> 00:31:58.240
So for instance, where it's known locally by one thing but officially named another.
00:31:58.559 --> 00:31:59.119
Well, as a couple of years.
00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:04.720
Well you can have you can use different so Ho Chi Minh City still has the airport code of SGN for SICON, for instance.
00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:10.000
I was gonna say Addis Ababa is known by the Oromo um sort of nationalist movement as Finfine.
00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:13.599
Um I don't know whether that counts.
00:32:13.599 --> 00:32:14.640
Like what else have we got?
00:32:14.640 --> 00:32:16.880
Other I don't know, the big apple?
00:32:16.880 --> 00:32:17.599
Does that count?
00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:18.799
It could do.
00:32:18.799 --> 00:32:20.559
I mean there's lots of contestations over this.
00:32:20.559 --> 00:32:22.720
So ones that I found, London Dairy and Dairy.
00:32:22.720 --> 00:32:24.559
This is these are going through the course, right?
00:32:24.559 --> 00:32:26.160
Pretoria Shiwani.
00:32:26.160 --> 00:32:31.839
Lots in New Zealand because dual names are enshrined in a treaty settlement legislation to formalise Maori names.
00:32:32.240 --> 00:32:34.400
Durban Equathenia in South Africa maybe a similar kind.
00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:39.680
Auckland, uh for instance, also goes by Tarmaky Makoru.
00:32:39.680 --> 00:32:44.400
And I've actually listened to loads of YouTube pronunciations of that this morning, but I may still have got it wrong.
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:45.279
Apologies, everyone.
00:32:45.279 --> 00:32:47.039
Which means area desired by many.
00:32:47.359 --> 00:32:47.839
Oh, very good.
00:32:48.079 --> 00:32:49.519
So well you did very well on your own.
00:32:49.519 --> 00:32:49.920
Did I?
00:32:49.920 --> 00:32:51.039
Oh, thank you very much.
00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:04.640
Okay, so let's talk about waste management.
00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:15.680
Um, it's increasingly realized that waste management is not only important for having a livable city that's not full of waste, but it's also central to managing public health, disease outbreaks, and to climate resilience.
00:33:15.680 --> 00:33:22.640
It's also really important to the livelihoods of millions of people around the world in cities, and to food chains and questions of nutrition.
00:33:22.640 --> 00:33:27.680
So, this whole business of cleaning up the city is of course easier said than done.
00:33:27.680 --> 00:33:32.480
And working with waste can also be very dangerous and hazardous depending on what kind of waste we're talking about.
00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:35.519
So there's a whole range of issues to consider around waste.
00:33:35.519 --> 00:33:39.680
It transects some of the most important urban issues of our time.
00:33:39.680 --> 00:33:41.920
So let's introduce our guests.
00:33:41.920 --> 00:33:47.920
Today we're really pleased to be joined by two people phoning in, uh calling in from very different parts of the world.
00:33:47.920 --> 00:33:54.160
So we've got with us Deji Akinpelu, who is a Lagos-based documentary filmmaker, urban research, and advocate.
00:33:54.160 --> 00:33:57.759
And he's the founder of an initiative called Rethinking Cities.
00:33:57.759 --> 00:34:06.000
Within ACRC, the African Cities Research Consortium, he's leading a community waste management project in an area called Ajugunlay Ekoridu.
00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:10.880
And this is a flood-prone settlement right on the northeastern edge of Lagos by the lagoon.
00:34:10.880 --> 00:34:27.679
So this project, which will tell us more about, combines food waste composting with household collection and is now moving into a second phase with local governments and the Lagos State Ministry of Environment already replicating the prototype waste hub model introduced through this project in this area.
00:34:28.079 --> 00:34:29.199
Yeah, very exciting.
00:34:29.199 --> 00:34:36.800
Um and we're also joined by Poova De Vulke, who is the Bicentenary Research Fellow in Geography at the University of Manchester.
00:34:36.800 --> 00:34:46.400
And Poe's research explores the lives lived around pipes, taps, and drains in cities of the global south, with a particular focus on water and sanitation.
00:34:46.400 --> 00:34:57.519
And she's done a lot of work looking at the everyday practices of contractors, community organizers, all of these different like groups, like engineers and residents who really put this sanitation infrastructure in Mumbai together.
00:34:57.519 --> 00:35:13.519
And amongst other things, one of the things I'm interested to talk about is how those managing sanitation need to take situated and local knowledges into account rather than assuming that waste can just be magicked away or cleaned up as is the term for this world cleanup day.
00:35:14.079 --> 00:35:20.719
So, as mentioned, it's it's very exciting to have people uh in Mumbai and Lagos as we sit here in the north of England.
00:35:20.719 --> 00:35:25.679
Uh so let's hear a bit more about waste management in these two cities before we go into detail.
00:35:25.679 --> 00:35:28.159
So it'd be interesting to hear from both of you.
00:35:28.159 --> 00:35:30.400
Perhaps we'll go to you first, uh Deji.
00:35:30.400 --> 00:35:36.800
Um how would you characterize the challenge of waste management overall in the cities where you where you work and where you live?
00:35:36.800 --> 00:35:38.000
How severe is it?
00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:41.679
What kinds of waste are the most challenging and difficult to manage?
00:35:41.679 --> 00:35:43.519
And are the governments getting involved?
00:35:43.519 --> 00:35:46.239
Who's acting to try and meet this challenge?
00:35:46.239 --> 00:35:49.519
Are things getting better or are they getting worse over time?
00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:50.400
Yeah.
00:35:50.400 --> 00:35:51.760
Okay, thank you very much.
00:35:51.760 --> 00:35:53.119
Thank you for having me.
00:35:53.119 --> 00:36:02.960
Uh I think this discussion is coming at a very um important time, particularly in the history of uh Lagos as a city.
00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:13.199
Recently um the media got involved with a whole lot of images of um heaps of waste around the city of Lagos.
00:36:13.199 --> 00:36:17.599
Um it's waste right now is something that everybody's talking about.
00:36:17.599 --> 00:36:41.440
Um I think before now it's been a challenge basically with uh formal and in semi-formal communities having access to effective waste collection, but it has gone city wide to the the formal system, informal areas of living, they all witnessed this challenge.
00:36:41.440 --> 00:36:50.000
It's almost like a broken down system because there was a partial closure of the landfill uh in Lagos.
00:36:50.000 --> 00:37:01.199
And Lagos has been trying to do this transition into uh waste to energy, but it's not been so effective getting people to separate their waste.
00:37:01.199 --> 00:37:13.599
Lagos generates over 13,000 tons of waste and a daily basis, even that feature is said to be outdated and um complementary to it.
00:37:13.599 --> 00:37:25.679
Um the amount of trucks needed in the city is over a thousand five hundred that is needed to pick up this waste, over a thousand five hundred, and the system really has four hundred trucks.
00:37:25.679 --> 00:37:36.079
Um so it's really very challenging situation.
00:37:36.079 --> 00:37:40.800
Um maybe to move to the second phase of the question, which part of this is the most challenging.
00:37:40.800 --> 00:37:58.880
Fifty percent of the waste generated in the city of Linkers Food was um when you quantify when we do the exercise of the champion of communities, we have a whole lot of food plastics and all that belief all in the region of 15 uh 1520.
00:37:58.880 --> 00:38:02.239
Um so what has been done?
00:38:02.239 --> 00:38:12.800
Um government yeah, has been trying to come up with several initiatives and several interventions, but the problem still comes down to community.
00:38:12.800 --> 00:38:13.840
Community.
00:38:13.840 --> 00:38:19.679
Um how do you get waste sorted at the community level?
00:38:19.679 --> 00:38:21.599
Who is doing their intervention?
00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:35.599
How can we begin to get the people to follow the basic principles of zero waste in their communities, and how can we start making use, how can we address also the issue around um food waste in a city like Libos.
00:38:35.599 --> 00:38:36.800
Let me just stop there.
00:38:36.800 --> 00:38:37.199
Thank you.
00:38:37.519 --> 00:38:38.639
Thank you, thank you, Deji.
00:38:38.639 --> 00:38:41.599
That gives us really a sense of the scale of what's needed there.
00:38:41.599 --> 00:38:47.360
I imagine pretty similar in in Mumbai, but uh Porva, perhaps you can give us a snapshot from your side.
00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:51.440
Yeah, thank you for having me on this podcast.
00:38:51.440 --> 00:38:56.639
Uh so I would largely start by unpacking the word itself, waste.
00:38:56.639 --> 00:39:04.800
Uh, where in Mumbai, if you look at the policy categories, it's like solid waste, sewage, stormwater, groundwater.
00:39:04.800 --> 00:39:08.480
But on ground, they don't say step separate at all.
00:39:08.480 --> 00:39:12.960
So they leak into each other, but they don't leak equally in geographies.
00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:16.639
So some neighborhoods get sewers, clean water, and garbage collections.
00:39:16.639 --> 00:39:20.880
Others end up holding everything that the rest of the city throws away.
00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:30.079
So first is the sewer system, where it's almost a century-old sewer system that Mumbai has, but it's never designed for everyone.
00:39:30.079 --> 00:39:41.519
And from the colonial times, the network was built mainly in the south of the island, where the working class neighborhoods were left out, and the pattern has carried through till today as well.
00:39:41.519 --> 00:39:48.320
So as of 2022, around only 68% coverage of sewer network is there within the city.
00:39:48.320 --> 00:39:57.280
But the informal settlements, slums, or as people call themselves bus thieves, uh the the reach is only 2%.
00:39:57.280 --> 00:40:02.800
And they are left out of the imaginary of the sewer system.
00:40:02.800 --> 00:40:12.159
So because they are something which are temporary, which the state sees them as temporary, and they would be resettled or rehabilitated.
00:40:12.159 --> 00:40:16.960
So these areas would not have any sort of sewer system.
00:40:16.960 --> 00:40:20.000
Um so where does the waste go?
00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:22.480
It often goes into the Nala.
00:40:22.480 --> 00:40:45.360
Nala is sort of this open drain where uh which was once a natural stream, and today it's meant to carry rainwater, but it carries the human waste, it carries the carpet, it carries everything, and then it's left into the sea, which Mumbai has like all over, like the whole area.
00:40:45.360 --> 00:40:47.679
Almost three sides it has sea.
00:40:47.679 --> 00:40:59.199
Um even the state-provided toilets, which are public toilets within the low-income neighborhoods, they are the ones that are also let into the nala.
00:40:59.199 --> 00:41:05.360
So the septic tanks is also they're also let into the nala, and everything flows into the creek creek and the sea.
00:41:05.360 --> 00:41:13.679
Uh, but if you might think that the story which uh story would be different in the city which has the infrastructure.
00:41:13.679 --> 00:41:17.199
But if you follow the waste, it often ends up in the same place.
00:41:17.199 --> 00:41:26.159
So sewage from the connected home goes into the treatment plants, but only a few of them have met the required standards.
00:41:26.159 --> 00:41:32.559
And the city has admitted that the huge amounts of untreated sewage flows into rivers every day.
00:41:32.559 --> 00:41:34.800
Then comes the garbage.
00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:54.320
So from well-served neighborhoods, it's collected and taken away, but the away to where it's taken, much of it goes to the dumping ground, which is in which is the Asia's largest dumping ground that is also 100 years old, which is in one of the areas called Emmy Sword, which is the administrative area of the city.
00:41:54.320 --> 00:42:01.519
Uh, it has the lowest human development index, and it is on the eastern edge of the city.
00:42:01.519 --> 00:42:10.239
So there are slaughterhouses, industries, dumping grounds, everything in that area.
00:42:10.239 --> 00:42:16.000
And people also were relocated from the inner city to that area.
00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:24.239
So the infrastructure doesn't make waste disappear, it moves out of sight of some people and into the lives of others.
00:42:24.239 --> 00:42:26.559
And that's what the challenge is.
00:42:26.559 --> 00:42:35.760
Like, it's not one kind of waste, it's all of them mixed together, but the governance that the city runs on doesn't reflect this.
00:42:35.760 --> 00:42:37.519
It works in separate boxes.
00:42:37.519 --> 00:42:41.599
So one department for cartridge, one for sea world, one for water.
00:42:41.599 --> 00:42:47.360
And uh there is no interconnected way that this sort of functions on ground.
00:42:47.360 --> 00:42:49.119
So things are getting better.
00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:54.480
I think between the two of you, you've already picked up three of the key things that are the takeaways for this conversation.
00:42:54.480 --> 00:43:08.639
You know, the the lack of coordination at a governance level, the importance of how we then think about the spatial planning of the city and where things come from and where they go, but also this question about community knowledge and what communities can do.
00:43:08.639 --> 00:43:12.400
Um, so Deji, I'm just gonna come back to you to ask you about this question.
00:43:12.400 --> 00:43:19.920
Your ACRC project has worked with a specific local community to design some quite innovative ways of dealing with this.
00:43:20.320 --> 00:43:31.280
So the community where we work is one of those communities where the with collectors, uh which we call the private sector partners, uh PSPs, don't function well.
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:41.679
Um during the project, um, we we observe the community and we speak of uh seven days and it was just high enough somewhere.
00:43:41.679 --> 00:44:10.800
So this integration becomes very necessary because investing community um because of this not coming up to pick up the audience, it doesn't link to the plugging up of the need to the canal there's a big Canal in the community so people alternatively just go and dump their waste and the canal, and this has also led to uh reported cases of sicknesses.
00:44:10.800 --> 00:44:12.880
So that's the why of the intervention.
00:44:12.880 --> 00:44:30.880
The why of the intervention now is to introduce systematically a collection process, and while that was there, we could leverage on that to start saying, okay, we can do something also about food waste, which constitutes the majority, although we're looking at kitchen scraps, um, which we use for compositing.
00:44:30.880 --> 00:44:35.440
So we embarked on stuff, we started collecting um kitchen scraps.
00:44:35.440 --> 00:44:44.320
Um, also there are food vendors, um, people who make roads like snacks by the road that can arise quite a number of food waste.
00:44:44.320 --> 00:44:52.880
We also collected, we started collecting their waste, and then we took it to a center where we begin to convert it and turn it into compost.
00:44:52.880 --> 00:44:59.199
Um, so compositing has had this challenge at the city of Lagos in terms of uptake, or a farmer's gonna use it.
00:44:59.199 --> 00:45:05.599
But the community now we are now teaching them to use their own compost to begin to farm within their own community.
00:45:05.599 --> 00:45:12.880
The good news for us is oh, the government gave us a call and said, Okay, we heard about what you're doing now, we're invited to the room.
00:45:12.880 --> 00:45:17.199
I said, Okay, we've been trying to figure out this, okay, let's try and replicate.
00:45:17.199 --> 00:45:25.440
And um, two local governments, as I speak right now, are already building their own compositing chambers with the support of the state government.
00:45:25.440 --> 00:45:35.440
Um, we are now just then right now on the sideline and um trying to begin to work together to formulate a model that works.
00:45:36.079 --> 00:45:36.400
Excellent.
00:45:36.400 --> 00:45:40.079
And we obviously look forward to seeing how that all plays out as you scale up.
00:45:40.079 --> 00:45:47.440
And you've you've mentioned there the uh food composting uh particularly as as a really important aspect that people weren't doing before.
00:45:47.440 --> 00:45:53.760
But there is also, as you say, all these plastics, and and I think the project's also collecting those and giving people money to bring them in.
00:45:53.840 --> 00:45:55.199
So yeah.
00:45:55.360 --> 00:45:59.760
And and I think I'm gonna turn now back to Purva to talk a bit more about.
00:45:59.760 --> 00:46:15.760
I mean, I don't know if this is plastics, but you you've written in a very interesting article about the relationship between sanitation and solid waste management, exploring how sanitation workers are are on these um long-standing dumps, like you say, hundred years old waste dumps to go back to colonial times.
00:46:15.760 --> 00:46:25.280
Uh, presumably much of that is is plastic waste and waste that doesn't decompose, but also maybe mixed with food waste uh and and very risky in terms of the disease environment.
00:46:25.280 --> 00:46:28.960
So uh you talk about these layers of historical contamination.
00:46:28.960 --> 00:46:31.199
Um it'd be great if you could tell us a bit more.
00:46:32.639 --> 00:46:44.079
Yeah, so I largely uh worked with uh the contractors who build these, so the local builders who make these household toilets within these neighborhoods.
00:46:44.079 --> 00:46:56.559
And that neighborhood itself was settled on uh the land was created by dumping in cities garbage for over 70 years, and that's how the ground was formed.
00:46:56.559 --> 00:47:03.519
And uh it was earlier it was marshes, and then it became like the ground where people could be resettled.
00:47:03.519 --> 00:47:23.119
And when I was talking to the contractors there, so my interest started within to talk to those contractors because while I was working earlier in an action research project in the same area, uh the public toilet septic tank collapsed, and there was a woman who died in the collapse.
00:47:23.119 --> 00:47:26.559
So she fell into the septic tank into the fit and then she died.
00:47:26.559 --> 00:47:42.800
And the toilet was supposed to be uh good or it was supposed to be running for like more than 50 years because it was a concrete toilet, and that's how the safety was, but then it had collapsed in like seven years, and the person had died in it.
00:47:42.800 --> 00:47:45.360
So then that's how this sort of question came in.
00:47:45.360 --> 00:47:49.920
So how people are living in it, they are making toilets, but then what happens?
00:47:49.920 --> 00:47:52.719
How is their house then being okay on it?
00:47:52.719 --> 00:48:01.840
Uh so one contractor simply put it that every time we take the only garbage comes out, so if people can live on it, why can't we build anything on it?
00:48:01.840 --> 00:48:10.320
But they sort of ingrain this idea of 12 years within their life cycle of the house.
00:48:10.320 --> 00:48:24.719
And if the house sort of stays in, which they call it mazputhi, masputhi in two terms, it's a Hindi term, and it's it's sort of sturdiness and strength, and for them it carries two meanings.
00:48:24.719 --> 00:48:32.719
One is physical, a toilet that is solidly built, that won't collapse or leak, even as the ground sinks when the and the monsoon arrives.
00:48:32.719 --> 00:48:41.760
The other is about the knowledge, really understanding the place you're building in, the soil, the water, the neighbor's wall, even the election cycles.
00:48:41.760 --> 00:48:51.679
So for these builders, a safe toilet is one that is both strongly built and built with a deeper understanding of the area that they are building in.
00:48:51.679 --> 00:49:02.400
And like in no way I'm saying that people should be living on these areas and no one should want to be, no one should have to be living on a landfill, but many people already do.
00:49:02.800 --> 00:49:19.280
Yeah, I mean, I think you both highlighted the kinds of tensions and paradoxes about how communities and residents are involved in these processes, um, both in terms of who might be positioned to perhaps find solutions, but also these tragic examples of who bears the brunt when it goes wrong.
00:49:19.280 --> 00:49:25.039
And I think, you know, we can look at to the power of community solutions, but we also need to talk about responsibilities, don't we?
00:49:25.039 --> 00:49:31.679
And so I just want to turn to that because, you know, you haven't had a conversation before, but we're already finding connections between Mumbai and Lagos.
00:49:31.679 --> 00:49:45.280
And you know, one of those is about how these mega cities, these coastal mega cities formed on land that's often made by waste, constructed out of waste, um, are actually being then used by communities.
00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:53.599
So my question to both of you really is how does the use of waste by communities to create land relate to these wider processes?
00:49:53.599 --> 00:49:55.119
And who else is responsible?
00:49:55.440 --> 00:49:59.119
Um it's a factor that has come with a whole lot of challenges in itself.
00:49:59.119 --> 00:50:10.800
Now, when the communities use the waste to claim land, um, communities like Makuku in the city of Lagos has been widely known to do that, and several communities like that.
00:50:10.800 --> 00:50:14.960
Um of course the sewage system is usually so poor.
00:50:14.960 --> 00:50:24.480
Um yeah, so it's a practice that um we have seen, and um it's something that um it's not a very great picture.
00:50:24.480 --> 00:50:38.639
Um however, it's the it's in the same thing that it's the same quest for land that you find landfilling activities being done elsewhere in the city uh by the elite.
00:50:38.639 --> 00:50:43.440
Um it's the same land feeling, it's just the technology is different.
00:50:43.440 --> 00:50:53.920
One claims one is can be argued to be better and safer than the other, but in the long run, both of them probably just poses the same challenge.
00:50:53.920 --> 00:51:02.000
So it's a case of double standards, and the elite can come up and say, Oh, you're using waste to clean land, and uh that doesn't work.
00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:06.480
But you are starting feeling it's causing a whole lot of uh um issues.
00:51:06.480 --> 00:51:11.199
There's a big argument in Lagos now that the coastal road has just been constructed.
00:51:11.199 --> 00:51:14.880
Is it responsible for the flooding going on in the city of Lagos?
00:51:14.880 --> 00:51:16.000
That's a big question.
00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:49.840
Whereas now, with our project, what we are learning is to teach the community members how to reclaim their um loose soil in a more proper way, using their food waste to want to compost and begin to do vegetation, bring back the trees because what all these land claim, whether by uh reclaiming by their lead or by low-income communities, that is environmental degradation, the forests are disappearing, the animals are growing, and the soil is losing its quality.
00:51:49.840 --> 00:51:59.599
So it is even now through what we are doing that we are the ACLC project, also has another uh action research that is being done on the country.
00:51:59.599 --> 00:52:24.880
It's called the flood flood resilience campaign action research, um, which by so drawing the connectivity between that and um the waste management project is to teach the community members now use your waste to get back your land, solidify your land, bring back the trees, leading uh in a more eco-friendly environment.
00:52:24.880 --> 00:52:28.480
So the communities are baby now the new laboratory.
00:52:28.480 --> 00:52:32.719
And through what we're doing, we're now teaching them how to do it properly.
00:52:32.960 --> 00:52:35.360
And Poeva, do you see the same things in Mumbai?
00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:40.320
Yeah, maybe you could see my eyes like going like this.
00:52:40.320 --> 00:52:45.679
When they're we mentioned about the coastal road and a similar pattern.
00:52:45.679 --> 00:52:54.159
So Mumbai was also once a seven islands, like, and it was joined together over centuries by filling the sea and the marshes.
00:52:54.159 --> 00:53:04.320
So, in a sense, the sense that it stands mainly on the ground that is reclaimed, and but then it's who gets to live on it's very varied.
00:53:04.320 --> 00:53:14.719
So, if you look at the western part of the city, which is facing the sea, uh, it's largely high-value land and high rises and high-income properties.
00:53:14.719 --> 00:53:21.519
And on the eastern side, it was mostly industrial belt and it was lower income housing and all of that.
00:53:21.519 --> 00:53:24.239
Largely, this has been like the split.
00:53:24.239 --> 00:53:35.280
So uh, and now also the reclamation is going on on the western side, which is for the coastal road and the new coastal road that is happening within the city.
00:53:35.280 --> 00:53:40.320
So the city has a climate action plan, which is the new plan that has come up.
00:53:40.320 --> 00:53:48.880
And uh it has it sort of tries to cover waste, flooding, water, green cover, air quality.
00:53:48.880 --> 00:53:51.440
So it sort of ticks off all the boxes.
00:53:51.440 --> 00:54:07.599
But then the critic point out that the plan itself said that it lacks a lot of course, like the data of what is the sea level rise, what are the hazard lines which are already there and other other the data is already there, but the plan hasn't integrated that.
00:54:07.599 --> 00:54:18.800
And um, so there are these these plans that come up, but then the actual implementation of the plan, there is no agency, there is no working that has been really thought through.
00:54:18.800 --> 00:54:29.599
But then the people who are living in these areas, which are the difficult or high-risk areas, are not really waiting, or that they're not somebody who's like who need to be saved.
00:54:29.599 --> 00:54:33.519
They are already people who are working and their campaigns are on.
00:54:33.519 --> 00:54:39.440
So across the city, the residents have organized to claim their own rights, often through correlations.
00:54:39.440 --> 00:54:46.480
Uh, for example, there is Paniyak Summit Right to Water campaign, which I have been part of since 2014.
00:54:46.480 --> 00:54:57.280
It brings together community groups, academics, elected representatives, and it was formed along the simple idea that water is for all, uh, whatever your housing status is.
00:54:57.280 --> 00:55:07.599
So the residents are involved in multiple campaigns, which is like there is right to pee, there is another push for free and safe toilets.
00:55:07.599 --> 00:55:12.559
Then there was a huge campaign in the city, which was for the development plan of the city.
00:55:12.559 --> 00:55:23.920
So the citywide correlations that argue that the people living in these settlements are city makers and they are not encroachers, and they are they are working for it to sort of change it together.
00:55:24.079 --> 00:55:27.840
So and they're also doing um in their own way, right?
00:55:27.840 --> 00:55:32.320
They're doing climate resilience and flood prevention, I assume, as as well, as as we've heard from Deji.
00:55:32.320 --> 00:55:41.519
So that was that was something else I wanted to pick up, which I think you you've spoken to, Deji, that relationship between climate resilience and and the waste and what people do with it.
00:55:41.519 --> 00:55:50.159
But um maybe we can turn, just before we come to a close, to this question of infrastructure and what the state is or isn't doing in this space.
00:55:50.159 --> 00:55:56.559
Um I'll begin with you, Purvo, but it would be good to hear um Deji's thoughts on this too.
00:55:56.559 --> 00:56:07.679
I I'm drawing here on your work, Purvo, where you talk about infrastructural delays and this idea of infrastructural incompleteness, which um Prince Goomer has also written about and others.
00:56:07.679 --> 00:56:13.039
And you explore these kind of neighborhood improvisations that emerge around unfinished infrastructure systems.
00:56:13.039 --> 00:56:16.880
And some of those improvisations obviously involve waste, they involve flood prevention.
00:56:16.880 --> 00:56:23.199
But have you got other kinds of examples of these improvisations around unfinished and delayed infrastructure?
00:56:23.199 --> 00:56:24.719
And what do we think going forward?
00:56:24.719 --> 00:56:32.239
I mean, if we think about this World Cleanup Day, are we at a point in these cities where you simply don't expect the government to provide the infrastructure?
00:56:32.239 --> 00:56:33.840
It's never going to happen.
00:56:33.840 --> 00:56:39.920
And and it's all about community initiatives filling the gaps, or are people pushing governments to do more?
00:56:39.920 --> 00:56:47.199
I mean, how do we understand that relationship between government and community, not just now, but in the future that people hope and anticipate for?
00:56:47.679 --> 00:56:48.079
Yeah.
00:56:48.079 --> 00:56:56.159
Okay, for a very long time, my position has always been that waste administration should be more localized.
00:56:56.159 --> 00:57:11.119
Um, before you even talk about globally the infrastructure that is needed, I think one of the big mistakes uh that was made in the city of Lagos was the overcentralized planning of waste collection.
00:57:11.119 --> 00:57:25.039
Um so, in terms of infrastructure now, there's also concentration and demand on local governments to begin to provide the necessary uh needed infrastructural support.
00:57:25.039 --> 00:57:36.000
So having local governments to rule out um mini collection trucks uh is is now something that's been uh argued for.
00:57:36.000 --> 00:57:43.599
There's also the issue of financials, uh, how much are the people willing to pay for their waste to be collected?
00:57:43.599 --> 00:57:57.679
Um when you have a statewide figure uh in a city like Lagos, where you have different parks with different income brackets and different income levels, and having a blanket fee across the state doesn't work.
00:57:57.679 --> 00:58:01.440
You have to localize the fee uh according to the realities of the people.
00:58:01.440 --> 00:58:04.000
You have to do some cross-funding.
00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:08.159
Uh you know, you're taking from higher neighborhoods to fund waste collection.
00:58:08.159 --> 00:58:09.360
Yeah.
00:58:09.360 --> 00:58:22.400
So, but again, it's not also just about the local government getting into and start providing infrastructure, but providing infrastructure in such a way that is sustainable and it's sustainable, it is impactful.
00:58:22.400 --> 00:58:39.360
That is why our own project also comes in and we kind of try to target the local government, but working more with the community members and working more with the informal waste speakers who do the large chunk of the work.
00:58:39.360 --> 00:58:51.199
So part of our advocacy and part of the work is that yeah, when you build this infrastructure, the this infrastructure is best managed by this group of people who are already into this business.
00:58:51.199 --> 00:58:59.599
So instead of you banning them like what happens in the city of Lagos, we are now talking to the local government that you have to do what integrates them.
00:58:59.840 --> 00:59:04.400
But of course, this is such a big part of the whole issue, is it's a massive source of income, it's an important livelihood.
00:59:04.400 --> 00:59:07.119
It's likely to become even more important in many parts of the world.
00:59:07.119 --> 00:59:15.039
So it's not just about the government improving its provision, it's like how can this be made a livelihood that is sustainable and safe, right?
00:59:15.039 --> 00:59:17.440
Because some people work in such terrible conditions.
00:59:17.440 --> 00:59:32.960
I mean, turning now just to Mumbai with the same issue, you you know, you've written about this Purva, this do you see these delays, this incompleteness as a kind of temporary state, or is it part of the future and the present of um waste management going forward?
00:59:33.840 --> 00:59:39.760
Yeah, yeah, I I I mean, I refuse to see it as a temporary theme.
00:59:39.760 --> 00:59:53.599
It is because it's been forever, and it is, I felt that the idea of uh unfinished helped me unpack that what is happening right now when the delay has been forever.
00:59:53.599 --> 01:00:00.800
Like it's been like it's two generations till the infrastructure hasn't come in per se, like the state infrastructure.
01:00:00.800 --> 01:00:20.239
But there have been improvisations by the market as well, uh, which you mentioned, Tom, I think before, where there were uh areas where it is like you come in with a quick fix and a quick technology of a fix, like we'll we'll provide some water ATMs, we'll provide some small toilets.
01:00:20.239 --> 01:00:25.679
But the problem with that is that um it's not really a fix.
01:00:25.679 --> 01:00:33.199
And it it sort of multiplies the problems and the labor that the person has to go through to access that infrastructure.
01:00:33.199 --> 01:00:42.719
So I feel that we need to stop imagining a single moment when uh network sort of arrives or this quick fix sort of is done and everything is solved.
01:00:42.719 --> 01:00:47.760
So life sort of re reorganizes itself around these systems now.
01:00:47.760 --> 01:01:15.199
And if we have to read the city today of what it is and not wait for something like some modern ideal to sort of unfold, then it's better to look at what it is and how people are organizing around what already exists and from the knowledge that people have already, they already have gained through living with those partial systems rather than wiping it clean and with a standard blueprint.
01:01:15.199 --> 01:01:25.840
So the question for future would be whether are we willing to recognize the people who have been living with these unfinished systems all along and to land with them rather than around them?
01:01:27.039 --> 01:01:27.519
Excellent.
01:01:27.519 --> 01:01:29.440
Thank you both so much for this discussion.
01:01:29.440 --> 01:01:33.840
I mean, it's felt like um something we should really have gone into for some time.
01:01:33.840 --> 01:01:39.440
Um it's been really wonderful to have your experiences and hear about your research in these two cities.
01:01:39.519 --> 01:01:41.280
Um Thank you very much, definitely too.
01:01:41.280 --> 01:01:42.960
Lovely to hear more about your research.
01:01:42.960 --> 01:01:44.000
Nice to meet you too.
01:01:44.400 --> 01:01:45.199
Thank you.
01:01:45.199 --> 01:02:10.320
Well, I'm glad we had those two people in that conversation because it's really Yeah, and just and and having not both these two kind of iconic megacities and hearing about a very different side of them, you know, I'm really struck by Purava's work on sanitation workers on waste dumps.
01:02:10.320 --> 01:02:20.400
Because I can't, I mean, I remember very clearly, you never forget that sensation of being on land that's built on rubbish, so the waterfront settlements in Lagos, where you literally the land bounces a bit because it's built on plastic.
01:02:20.400 --> 01:02:36.159
But the idea that you would actually have to construct toilets on that, and you're on top of a lagoon, which is obviously a major water source and source of food, it's just mind-boggling when you start to look at those connections between plastic, food waste, flooding, toilets, water.
01:02:36.159 --> 01:02:42.800
Uh, it's so it's all so um entangled and uh difficult to manage.
01:02:42.800 --> 01:02:45.280
So I think we we started to get a sense of that there.
01:02:45.280 --> 01:02:52.079
Um just bring it back a little bit to this question of food waste, particularly because that is the theme this year of the World Cleanup Day.
01:02:52.079 --> 01:03:06.159
And perhaps we don't talk about it enough uh globally, and it's definitely something that comes through in a number of our ACRC projects, not only in Lagos, but we have a project in Kampala, for example, that's specifically looking at food loss and wastage in in markets.
01:03:06.159 --> 01:03:13.599
And actually there, the you know, Deji said about 50% of food waste in Lagos, sorry, 50% of waste in Lagos is food waste.
01:03:13.599 --> 01:03:16.079
In Kampala it's thought to be even higher.
01:03:16.079 --> 01:03:19.519
In Ugandan cities, it's like between 75 and 80% or something.
01:03:19.519 --> 01:03:22.480
And in the markets, uh it's about 90% of waste.
01:03:22.480 --> 01:03:30.000
But you know, in this one study they found that each vendor in the market basically has about 10 kilograms worth of wasted food every day.
01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:46.880
And this is not for want of trying to resolve this, but there are so many issues around the food chain, around waste collection, around lack of cold storage that mean that just vast amounts, tons of food goes to waste every day, um, even in countries where there are nutrition problems in some areas.
01:03:47.280 --> 01:03:52.639
I mean I think it's fascinating when you get the opportunity in these conversations to think across two places.
01:03:52.639 --> 01:03:55.679
Um, and it's not just the size of these cities that's so important.
01:03:55.679 --> 01:03:59.440
I mean, the same kind of issues apply to medium-sized or peri-urban settlements.
01:03:59.440 --> 01:04:19.280
I was just thinking of some work that was done through the local interaction platforms in Costumu in Kenya as part of the Misdurban Futures Centre that we were involved in, and like actually what they were trying to do there, similar to the ACRC project, really, is look across like what the waste dump, the sort of livelihoods of the waste pickers, but also integrating that into the food markets.
01:04:19.280 --> 01:04:28.800
So I think there's all these things that we can see in common across multiple very different contexts: governance, planning, regulation, like the importance of community expertise and how we integrate these things on the ground.
01:04:28.800 --> 01:04:31.840
But I was also just thinking back to the UK about some of those differences.
01:04:31.840 --> 01:04:37.679
You know, you've got a very rich but contradictory linguistic terrain of what we even mean by waste.
01:04:37.679 --> 01:04:49.119
So take the example of food waste, and I'm thinking of the project that I'm involved in in Arbathorn, where there's a community fridge, there food waste is about surplus food from the supermarkets that would otherwise make its way to landfill.
01:04:49.119 --> 01:05:00.159
And by calling it food waste and working with the idea of food waste within a community setting, it can address questions of food hunger and inequality that can otherwise be quite stigmatizing.
01:05:00.159 --> 01:05:04.000
Whereas food waste is seen as part of a kind of pro-environmental agenda.
01:05:04.000 --> 01:05:07.599
Um, but I'm also struck by how we didn't really talk about big industry.
01:05:07.599 --> 01:05:15.920
And of course, you know, I don't know if you remember the very first episode of Urban Radar and you talked about fly tipping in Lichfield.
01:05:15.920 --> 01:05:25.280
And there's a lot going on about fly tipping and waste in general in the UK at the moment, but it's all interlinking to big industry and like who needs to be regulated and who needs to pay for this.
01:05:25.280 --> 01:05:27.519
And of course, the one thing we haven't talked about is e-waste.
01:05:27.519 --> 01:05:32.159
And what's, you know, going back to the AI story at the beginning, it's going to be a massive issue.
01:05:32.639 --> 01:05:33.599
Yeah, e-waste.
01:05:33.599 --> 01:05:43.920
I think I don't know of anyone doing research on that, but I feel like it is uh something that's waiting to be a hot topic, even if it's not yet after data centers, which are, you know, it's kind of exploding everywhere.
01:05:44.400 --> 01:05:55.119
So we've probably got to wrap up soon, but before we do, I just want to give a shout out to a few events that people can register for online um as well as in person if you happen to be in Sheffield.
01:05:55.119 --> 01:06:00.559
So we are concluding our CoPro Futures inquiry um with a webinar on the 29th of September.
01:06:00.559 --> 01:06:04.000
That's about how we need to double down, not duck out, of doing co-production well.
01:06:04.000 --> 01:06:11.679
We've got the Sheffield Urbanism Lecture Series coming up um through October and November, organised by John Silver on finance urbanism.
01:06:11.679 --> 01:06:15.760
So we'll get a chance to hear from Savannah Cox, Roland Atkinson, and Adam Lever on that.
01:06:16.000 --> 01:06:16.400
Excellent.
01:06:16.639 --> 01:06:23.440
You and I are doing a little spot at the Off-the-Shelf Literature Festival in Sheffield as part of a series called Writing the City.
01:06:23.440 --> 01:06:29.840
And we're going to get to interview Gabriella Bennett, who's a journalist and architect and has written a book called How to Build a City.
01:06:29.840 --> 01:06:31.760
So we'll be able to share that with all you've got to do.
01:06:31.760 --> 01:06:32.880
Looking forward to it as well.
01:06:32.880 --> 01:06:35.280
So there's loads of things going on.
01:06:35.280 --> 01:06:38.559
So yeah, follow us on all our socials to find out more.
01:06:38.559 --> 01:06:42.079
So that's all for now, and tune in next time.
01:06:42.320 --> 01:06:43.519
See you next time.