Flooded roads and Systemic Failure
π€ Why do our cities and roads end up with flooded roads every time there is a heavy downpour, for a few hours and sometimes for a few days?
It is become a common sight across all monsoons in India. Some city or the other gets flooded. This week it was the turn of Bangalore, getting inundated in its most prestigious IT corridor.
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π€·π½ββοΈ What follows is known to all. We blame the system and its failure to give us good roads despite the heavy taxes (a few of us) pay. There is a lot of uproar and noise across social media for a few days. The blame games start. The committees are set up.
After a few days, it all fizzles out, for there are other issues to be addressed. We are the fastest growing economy in the world after all! Metros to be built, new cables to be laid and what not!
This has been a story across cities, across states, across the country.
The more I practice Systems Thinking and see the world from a Systemic view point, the more appalled I am on why do things that seem fairly basic have not been thought about.
For example:
-You built the roads, but forgot about the drains.
-You built the drains, but forgot about its timely cleaning and preparedness for heavy rains.
-You cleaned the drains, but forgot about the waste disposal and left it on the road.
-You thought about waste disposal to a landfill, but forgot about the residents who live nearby or commute crossing it.
-You thought about new roads, flyovers, metros; but did not plan for the congestion
β¦so on and so forth.
ππΌ We need a lot more stakeholders who are trained in Systems Thinking. We need a lot more people who are well trained in Urban Planning and we need the stakeholders to work closely with them.
And we need it not just when we things go bad! Systemic Change is hard. Like really really hard! Most give up in the quest because it takes time.
By the time a bureaucrat decides to do something or the tenders get finalised and executed, the person at the helm of affairs has been transferred or the government has changed. And with that the priorities change!
We need bureaucrats and politicians who believe strongly in Systemic Change and have a strong will to make it happen. It is the easiest to think what difference it will make if only person thought about it and ignore it.
We citizens need to play our part as well in this quest.
Systemic change requires both short term and long term planning. It requires one to have a vision to be able to see through the plan by understanding all the challenges of the systemic failure if it occurs.
As our smaller towns grow, there is a fear that it will face the same fate as our cities. With work from home becoming the norm and many startup making inroads into the Bharat hinterlands, the user behaviour is changing.
We need to create better systems.
