key: cord-0061007-7id2lekw
authors: Bhattarai, Keshav; Conway, Dennis
title: Urban Growth
date: 2020-11-24
journal: Contemporary Environmental Problems in Nepal
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-50168-6_4
sha: f841cf09c2ac177819e28ac7ff3ce751d9a77b56
doc_id: 61007
cord_uid: 7id2lekw

Nepal is rapidly urbanizing. Until 2014, only 20% of the total population lived in urban areas, but in 2015, over 65% of people were classified as urban dwellers with the promulgation of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nepal (FRN). Many rural areas are annexed together to meet the population thresholds of some territories in order to classify them as municipals. As of 2017, many of the existing local level political units (which were over 3700) have been combined together reducing the local political units to 753 in total. Until 2014, there were only 105 urban units, but when local political units were decreased to 753 as per the FRN, the number of urban units jumped from 105 to 293 with 276 municipalities, 11 sub-metropolises, and 6 metropolises. However, many of these so classified urban areas are characterized by ruralopolises where people living in rural settings within the legally defined urban areas are competing for the limited facilities of the urban cores. Despite such competition for limited resources/facilities, many of the ruralopolises are aspiring to becoming “smart cities.” However, political leaders and urban planners responsible for the planning of these ruralopolises have been struggling to have real-time geospatial data, one of the essential components of “smart cities.” A “smart city” is an integrated system in which human and social capitals interact, using technology-based solutions. It efficiently achieves sustainable and resilient development and helps maintain a high urban life quality based on a multi-stakeholders’ partnership. The “smart city” initiatives need real-time data that uses auto-sensor state-of-the-art technology. The economic outcomes of a “smart city” initiative results in the simplification of daily working schedules such as bus routing, waste disposal, creation of businesses, jobs, and infrastructure. The brain of a “smart city” includes the virtual real-time data center-fed by an automated sensor network that regulates kiosks, parking meters, cameras, smart phones, medical devices, social networks, and bus routings. Gathering of real-time big data with high accuracy becomes a huge challenge. However, it will be sustainable and cost-effective to engage various stakeholders to gather quality data and develop models to examine the utilities of such data. In this chapter, we discuss how Nepal can achieve the goal of sustainable urban planning while embarking many of the ruralopolises towards “smart cities.”

In this chapter, we start at both critical overviews of urban theories and various technical ingredients needed towards the creation of smart cities with case examples from Nepal. First, we start urbanization from the global context then to the regional context, and finally, our focus is on Nepal's urbanization.

Cities are hubs of talent, innovation, and progress. Though almost 70% of the global GDP is generated by cities (World Bank 2017), these cities also pump out 75% of global carbon emissions (UN 2015) and consume 2/3 of the world's energy [in 2006 ] (UN 2015) . It is projected that cities will contribute a 3/4 share to economies in developing countries by 2030 (Florida 2015) . Also, over 60% of the total population will be confined in the urban areas by 2030 (Anhorn et al. 2015) .

A large number of people are swarming to big urban areas, and many urban areas are being reclassified to metropolises if their population reaches over 10 million; however, this definition may vary by geographic locations, regions, and country. The world's metropolises account for only 5% of earth's landmass, but they consume nearly 70% of global energy and also emit the same amount of greenhouse gases (UNEP 2015) . The world is undergoing staggering urban population growth with the addition of 10,000 people per hour resulting in more traffic congestion, stress to infrastructure, an increase in crime, fewer resources to go around, and pressure on educational institutions and other facilities, thereby challenging the sustainable functioning of cities (Lamere 2013) . Smart cities aim to improve the life quality of their denizens by combining technology with physical infrastructure using modern technologies, such as Computer Apps. For example, in the city of Paris, France, the average resident spends an estimated 4 years of their lifetime looking for a parking place (mcKinsey.com. 2018), but new applications "Apps" have helped citizens find a parking place and even reserve and pay for that spot in advance, thereby reducing their parking time. It is essential to develop such applications in order to improve living conditions of people, because today, over 50% of the global population lives in urban areas, and it is estimated that this population will increase to 63% by 2050 (Anhorn et al. 2015; mcKinsey.com. 2018 ; UN Habitat 2015) . Many South Asian (SA) countries are racing to urbanize in order to reduce poverty (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) . Some urban areas are undergoing major transformations under the influence of globalization, regionalization, and the formation of special economic zones (SEZ) and are evolving as world-class cities.

The Federal Republic of Nepal (FRN) is urbanizing rapidly. Until 2014, the urban population was barely 20%, but it jumped abruptly to over 65% in 2015 with the implementation of the new constitution. Many rural areas are annexed to meet the needed population threshold to classify an area into municipal or sub-metropolis or metropolis status. This has created a wave of ruralopolises without needed infrastructures where people living in rural settings compete with urban denizens for limited infrastructures. Yet, Nepal aims to develop a few smart cities in all geographic regions and at least one metropolis with the fabrics of smart city in each of the seven provinces. Likewise, Nepal also aims to develop four smart cities in the four corners of the Kathmandu Valley to accommodate at least 100,000 people per smart city (Onlinekhabar 2018) . Despite these ambitious plans, Nepal's urban areas are unplanned and exposed to possible seismic vulnerabilities and health hazards. Nonetheless, a reduction in Nepal's poverty level from 33% in 2000 to 15% in 2011 is frequently attributed to increased urbanization, though the gap between the rich and poor has widened (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) with the implementation of neoliberal agendas.

With the implementation of the new constitution of FRN, the majority of the population now lives in urban areas merely by categorizing many rural territories into municipalities. The definitional changes from rural (Village Palika)-to-municipal status motivated by political, social, and development aspirations have led to the formation of several ruralopolises where rural-based communities compete for collective urban facilities. Increasing urban sprawl through unsustainable ruralurban implosion has blended rural economic and social systems with metropolitan spatial organizations where spatially well-organized infrastructures are missing. Thus, it is essential to explore the spatial growth and evolution of urban patterns in Nepal: how these patterns (and processes) were evolved and are affecting the immediate urban environment and in greater urban conurbations that spread beyond the built environments of the central cores. In addition, it discusses how such urban fabrics can be promoted to smart cities.

Following this short introduction, the chapter continues with "briefs" on the origin of global, Asian, South Asian, and Nepalese urban systems, which relates spatial urban arrangements with their environments from a historical perspective. Tracing urbanization's historical trajectory helps to understand what types of urban growth create environmental problems and vulnerabilities and what could be the possible remedial measures to develop an area into a smart city. Then this paper explains the spatial distribution of urban areas in Nepal, followed by an analysis of the resultant urban vulnerabilities. Since rapid urban development and urban sprawl bring several unintended consequences, we discuss some of the major consequences such as uncontrolled, spontaneous settlements, the need for the introduction of building codes, preservation of open spaces, problems of waste management and sanitation, potable water supply issues, and an increase in gaseous emission. Issues of transportation accessibility are discussed with a modeling approach. Finally, this paper offers concluding recommendations on the necessity for all of Nepal's cities to be spatially planned and managed with comprehensive improvement plans with modern infrastructure, garbage disposal, the complete refurbishing of fire protection systems, and potable water provision. It discusses how important it becomes to regulate the strict enforcement of building codes to ensure urban dwellers' safety. The ultimate goal of this paper is to assess the impacts of urban growth and the related sprawl on city environments and "living spaces" and provide a framework for the development of sustainable and livable smart cities of the twenty-first century. The arguments are that proper urban management will help to fulfill Nepal's dreams of graduating from the least developed countries (LDCs) by 2030 to a developing country. In order to expedite the development of Nepal, with the promulgation of the 2015 constitution, almost 65% of the total population is considered as urban dwellers. Many rural areas are also classified as urban by annexing villages 1 (CBS 2018) to meet the population thresholds to be classified as urban area. It is no less than a ruralopolis where many people compete for limited urban infrastructure. Many people who have been classified as urban dwellers are forced to pay high urban taxes, but lack urban facilities.

After this short introduction, this chapter continues with "briefs" on the origin of global, Asian, South Asian, and Nepal's urban systems, which relates spatial urban arrangements with their environments from a historic perspective. Tracing urbanization's historical trajectory helps to understand what types of urban growth create environmental problems and vulnerabilities and what could be the possible remedial measures to develop an area into a "smart city." Then this chapter explains the spatial distribution of urban areas in Nepal, followed by an analysis of the resultant urban vulnerabilities. Since rapid urban development and urban sprawl bring several unintended consequences, we discuss some of the major consequences such as uncontrolled, spontaneous settlements, the need for the introduction of building codes, preservation of open spaces, problems of waste management and sanitation, potable water supply issues, and increase in gaseous emissions. Issues of transportation accessibility are discussed with a modeling approach. Finally, this chapter offers concluding recommendations on the necessity for all of Nepal's cities to be spatially planned and managed with comprehensive improvement plans with modern infrastructure, garbage disposal, the complete refurbishing of the fire protection system, and potable water provision. It discusses how important it becomes to regulate the strict enforcement of building codes to ensure an urban dweller's safety. The ultimate goal of this chapter is to assess the impacts of urban growth and the related sprawl on city environments and "living spaces" and provide the framework for the development of sustainable and livable "smart cities" of the twenty-first century. The arguments are that proper urban management will help to fulfill Nepal's 1 According to the 2015 constitution, Nepal is divided into 77 administrative districts, 7 provinces, and 753 local units. The 753 local units (third tier of the government) are divided into wards (6743-the smallest political units), village councils (460), municipalities (276), sub-metropolitans (11), and metropolitan (6). Of the 77 districts, 4 districts (Manang, Mustang, Rasuwa, and Humla) are without municipalities, whereas Bhaktapur and Kathmandu have no village councils. Sarlahi district has the maximum number (20) of local political units, whereas the East Rukum District has the minimum number (3) of local administrative units. By size, the smallest village council is Parwanipur of the Bara District whereas Namkha of Humla District is the largest one. By size, Bhaktapur is the smallest whereas Sitganga of Arghakhanchi District is the largest municipality. Likewise, the smallest sub-metropolitan area by size is Nepalganj of the Banke District whereas the biggest sub-metropolitan is Ghorahi of the Dang District. Similarly, among the metropolitans, Lalitpur of the Lalitpur District is the smallest one and Pokhara Lekhnath of the Kaski District is the largest one. By the size of population, Narphu of the Manang District is the smallest village council whereas Rapti Sorne of the Banke District is the largest village council. Among the municipalities, the smallest one is Thuli Bheri of the Dolpa District and the largest municipality is Mechinagar of the Jhapa District. Among the sub-metropolitans, Jitpur Simara is the smallest one whereas Janakpur of the Dhanusha District is the largest one. Similarly, among the metropolitans, Birgunj of the Parsa District is the smallest one and Kathmandu is the largest one. population lived in cities that accounted for 1.25 billion people. In 1997, when Asia faced financial crises, many cities around the world were about to collapse, but Singapore, New York, and London rescued many of these cities by sending their financial experts. Such a cooperative process indicates that for the survival of cities, cooperation is more important than the competitive processes. Realizing the fact that cooperation is important for the survival of cities, London firms regularly sent staffs to Paris, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt to provide seamless services to European cities. As the number of cities grew and their managements were improved, by 2000, about 47% of the total global population lived in cities. By 2007, this population grew to 50%. With the improvement in transportation and communication under globalization, the urban population continues increasing, while the rural population has been dwindling ( Fig. 4.1) . Graybill et al. (2018) projected that the rural population will decrease from 3.4 billion by 2020 to 3.2 billion by 2050. On the opposite side, by the 2050s, almost 62% of the global population will live in cities, which will account for 6.3 billion with an annual increment of 1.3% (Graybill et al. 2018) . This 1.3% growth rate is not enough to sustain the present urban population, but the mass migration from rural to urban area will increase the urban population drastically. Based on the sites and situations of cities, many cities develop for various reasons; some examples include trades, administrative centers, commerce, manufacturing, mining, energy, taxation, external trade, and social classes, to name a few. Thus, the development of cities varies by geographic regions and countries. For example, after the Industrial Revolution from the 1750s to mid-nineteenth century, 50% of the total population of Great Britain became urban. This continued until the twentieth century, and cities like Manchester and Birmingham grew vigorously. During the nineteenth century, the majority of Americans lived in cities, as cities became the engine for economic development due to Fig. 4 .1 Growth of world and urban population Adapted from: UN, World Urbanization Prospects: 2005 and Graybill et al. (2016:7) their centrality for innovation, transportation, trade, and commerce and specialized services such as government offices, religion, and recreational services. Cities also became the centers for basic (industries) and non-basic (tourism, recreation, restaurants, education) economic activities. In doing so, cities follow different growth models ( Fig. 4.2) .

As population grew in urban areas either due to natural growth or due to rural-tourban migration, the number of primary activities decreased with the increase in secondary, tertiary, quaternary, and quinary activities (Fig. 4.3) . (Graybill et al. 2016) 1. Central business district 2. Wholesale light manufacturing 3. Low-class residential 4. Medium-class residential 5. High-class residential 6. Heavy manufacturing 7. Outlying business district 8. Residential suburb 9. Industrial suburb 10. Commuter zone Many environmental problems are emerging from rapid urbanization at different scales all over the world, but more problems are created in Asian urban places. Asia has become more densely populated than other regions. For example, the population density of Hong Kong increased up to 32,000 as opposed to 1000 per sq. km. in the United States. Many of the Asian cities have population densities between 5400 and 5800 people per square kilometer (sq. km) as of 2010 (Worldatlas 2018) . Overall, East Asia's urban population density grew more than 1.5 times the average for the world's urban areas and more than 50 times the average density in the United States (Singleton et al. 2016) in recent years (Table 4 .1).

Growth of cities is considered good for economic development and poverty alleviation; however, as cities expand rapidly, several short-term, medium-term, and long-term environmental concerns are raised at the global and local scales ( Fig. 4.4) . (2015). Adapted from Singleton et al. (2016) Table 4.1 presents the world's urbanized regions. While comparing this urbanized trend with the environments, the Asian region suffers from rapid urbanization despite the fact that at the global scale, North America tops the list of urbanization followed by Latin American and Caribbean countries, Europe, Oceania, and Asia (Table 4 .1).

East Asia's urban land area increased from 106,400 to 134,800 sq. km., yet, less than 1% of the region's total land area remains urbanized. China accounted for 2/3 of its growth in urban land and more than 80% of urban expansion in the region, with its 477 million urban inhabitants in 2010, larger than the rest of the region combined. Japan had the second-highest total amount of urban land and the third-largest urban population. Overall, many Asian countries have been urbanized rapidly with the growth of primate cities. For example, the annual urban population growth in Laos is growing at the rate of 7.3%; in Cambodia, it is growing by 4.3%; in China, the growth rate is 3.1%; and in Vietnam, it is 2.8% (Graybill et al. 2018) . Because of these high growth rates, the urban population is staggering. For example, Beijing has 17 million people, Shanghai has 24 million, Osaka-Kobe has 12 million, Tokyo has 37 million, Jakarta has 23 million, Manila has 16.5 million, and Seoul has 16 million (UN 2015) . Two-thirds of Asia's urban areas are comprised of 100,000 to 500,000 people, with the biggest growth in urban population occurring in medium-sized cities. Rank order of various cities also changes overtime as people migrate to urban areas its citizens are challenged by work-life balance and cost of living. Each city aims at improving own competitiveness and position in comparison to other cities. Simultaneously, cities also neglect complex interrelations and casualties while racing with economic progresses. Since city rankings usually attract a lot of public Graybill et al. (2016:6) . https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v¼xOOWk5yCMMs) attention, high-ranked cities use the positive aspects of their ranking in branding their reputations. For examples, Tokyo ranks at the 16th position from the security prospective at the global scale, Taipei comes 21st, Shanghai 30th, Delhi 42nd, and Mumbai and Jakarta come in 44th positions (Graybill et al. 2018) . People of various motives come face-to-face in business, education, health, and food to name a few.

Due to rapid urban growth, many metropolitan areas have been fragmented into additional metropolitan areas resulting in 350 urban metropolises. Yet, population in some of the metropolises has been increasing exponentially making them disproportionately larger than nearby cities. The primacies of various cities as coined by Geographer Mark Jefferson (1930s) have changed over time (Fig. 4.5) . Not only are these primate cities exceptionally large and dominate the economy and culture of a region and country, but also they are twice as large as the second largest city. For example, population of the fifth largest city is 1/5 of the primate city. According to Jefferson (1930s) , population of a particular city is equal to the population of the country's largest city divided by its rank.

Asian cities are characterized by poor qualities of air, water supply, and management of waste and sanitation. The World Health Organization ranks urban outdoor air pollution as the 13th greatest contributor to disease and death worldwide that causes approximately 519,000 premature deaths every year. Asian and Pacific cities are among the most vulnerable to natural disasters. Dhaka, one of the most densely Fig. 4 .5 Urban primacy in some Asian countries (UN 2015) populated megacities in the world within limited space (13 million inhabitants), has an elevation ranging from 2 to 13 m, with most of the urbanized areas between 6 and 8 m above sea level. A rise in sea level by 1.5 m would mean (a) a total number of 17 million people will be affected (17% of the total population) and (b) a total of 22,000 sq. km. (16% of the total area) will be submerged. Like these natural uncertainties, many Asian countries also suffer from man-made structures or modified natural structures. Many Asia-Pacific cities have seen sudden increases in their populations because of political conflicts or civil wars in the countryside. For example, Kabul has experienced an increase in its urban population from 1.6 million in 1995 to 3.7 million from 1995 to 2010. Throughout Asia, almost 200 million people moved to cities in the first decade of the twenty-first century (World Bank 2017) . East Asia's total urban population increased from 579 million in 2000 to 778 million in 2010, more than two times greater than the second-largest city in Europe. It took more than 50 years for the same number of people to become urbanized in Europe, indicating Asia's rapid growth. The percentage of urban population living in slums has skyrocketed since 1990 and reached 30.6% in 2010 (about 500 million people) (Graybill et al. 2016) .

Human settlement in Asia started clustering around 10,000-12,000 years ago. The formation of cities started about 6000 years ago, but city growth became a selfsustaining "norm" at the global scale only 300 years ago (Kaplan et al. 2009; Moraw 1989 ). These early cities had their origins in agricultural areas, where they represented complex sociocultural organizations that were controlled by hierarchies of religious and military dominance. In their ecological settings, settlements needed to be selfsustained on food, so they were located on relatively fertile areas. Most of these cities developed in subtropical regions, where frost was not a problem. Moreover, these early cities were often established near perennial sources of water where the soil was productive and water transportation was feasible. Advances in agricultural production then assured sustained grain surpluses, thereby helping support the establishment and enrichment of cities. Likewise, advances in building technology prompted agglomeration economies. In addition, cities required social coordination in order to (1) get food from the surrounding countryside, either through coercion or through a [barter] trading relationship; (2) construct and maintain physical aspects of the city and of its hinterland; and (3) regulate the activities of people who lived within the city. Elite groups residing in these cities were able to gain control over material and social resources with their influences reaching outside these cities into their hinterlands.

Historically, four primary factors were considered important for the emergence of Asian towns and cities-religious authority, security, commercial power, and communication systems. In the South Asian context, one of the common features of all early cities was the existence of a temple as a prominent feature (Allchin 1995; Heitzman 2008a) . During these ancient times, the economy, as well as the government, was primarily in the hands of the religious elites. Such feudal economies relied on the extraction of surplus from their peasant community, by demanding farm products as part of the rulers' hereditary rights. Most of the surplus went to support the urban elites and arm their "enforcers" primarily soldiers, their weapons, and horses. Often, the ordinary people starved to death because there was not enough food. Creating scarcity of food among the poor section of the community would enforce them to engage in agricultural production, and the agriculture products were forcefully collected from the surrounding rural people. The collected food was traded for weapons and religious artifacts despite the fact that the rural poor often starved. Another feature of early cities was the presence of some type of fortification. Most ancient cities had walls, and all of them displayed evidence of defensive works, a soldier class, and armaments production. Early cities clearly needed some form of defense because of their storehouses of grain and collections of precious materials. Trade was certainly a significant component of many early cities, and it was considered the principal factor in the establishment of urban life and livelihoods. As these early civilizations advanced, declined, and fell, cities were created, abandoned, and occupied by stronger military regimes, while a few served as the basis for urban renewal and rebuilding. Eventually, capitalist praxis imported from Western Europe became a major factor in the selective revival and growth of many Asian urban centers.

"Mercantile Capitalism," as it was initially practiced by merchant traders and sailors, entailed the acquiring, trading, and selling of scarce (often unique) goods for profit (commercial capitalism) in urban markets, or among the elite classes-nobles, gentry, and powerful. The commercial reach of European imperial power and authority was clearly a major force in the Eastern world and continued to be important around the globe fueling the formation and growth of preindustrial cities not only in Asia but also in Latin America and Africa (Heitzman 2008a, b; Kaplan et al. 2009 ). The social order in such cities was headed by elites and their client merchant classes (Coningham et al. 2007 ). Many wealthy merchants established their own workshops and artisanal businesses. These workshops later became centers for innovation and product differentiation. One result was that mercantilebased urban areas with successful, innovative entrepreneurs grew faster than those without them, but did not always survive beyond the transformative "Industrial Revolution," which brought about new urban processes and patterns in Europe and North America-the global North. Industrial urbanization in the global South, therefore, was an imperialist-dominated process and largely remained dependent upon the dictates of commercial and industrial capital (and capitalists) until the onset of the most recent "age of globalization" from the post-1980s to present day. their hinterlands. Based on their command areas, some headquarters became mega cities, while others remained as municipalities. The fortified capital and the office for the head of the state stood at the center of the kingdom, which became the microcosm of the country, and such built-up areas had several environmental restrictions. Hygiene laws prohibited the throwing of dirt or dead bodies onto the streets and urinating or defecating in public spaces (Coningham et al. 2007; Kautilya 1915 Kautilya , 1995 .

After Vasco da Gama discovered the oceanic route via Africa's Cape of Good Hope and landed on southwestern India in 1498, cluster settlements began in South Asia that developed into cities. Structurally, four types of cities developed in South Asia. These include (a) traditional cities, such as Varanasi and Surat, Gujarat (West Coast); (b) colonial cities, such as Kolkata (Calcutta), Chennai (Madras), and Mumbai (Bombay); (c) planned cities, such as Durgapur, Islamabad, and Chandigarh, Jaipur, and Jamshedpur; and (d) urban corridors, such as Gottman's version of a Megalopolis between Old Delhi and New Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai corridors. Likewise, cities were developed from civilization and cultural perspectives. These cities were developed in various places in present-day India and Pakistan. The Indus Valley Civilization (3000-1500 BCE) contributed to the development of cities such as Mohenjo Daro and Harappa along the Indus Valley of present-day Pakistan. The Aryan Hindus Civilization (1500 BCE) contributed to the growth of cities along the Ganges River such as Varanasi. The Hindus' tradition also brought new arts that even spread along the Southeast Asian countries such as Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The Aryan Hindu Arrival also contributed to the development of cities such as in Pataliputra (Patan (321-181 BCE) of present-day India with a four-caste system. Ptolemy also has mentioned Madurai, Pandyas, as Hindu Kingdom in present-day India. The Dravidians Civilization (200 BCE) contributed to the development of temple-based cities, such as Madurai and Kancheepuram. The Muslim Empire (eighth century) contributed to the development of cities such as Delhi, Aligarh, and Lucknow. With the construction of Taj Mahal, in Agra, the city expanded as capital, but later, the capital was moved to Delhi. The Europeans colonialization (fifteenth century) contributed to the development of cities in Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, and Karachi. The Portuguese, Hollanders, French, and the British all contributed to the development of cities in South Asia. They became headquarters for three Presidencies-Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. Inside the cities, there were European and native standards of living. The rich lords contributed to the development of railway lines from the city centers to the coastal areas in 1852 in order to export cotton, minerals, timber, spices, and other raw materials from India to European countries. These raw materials were processed in European countries, and finished products were brought back to India. With these trades, many Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Centers were developed that later grew into mega cities, such as Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay in India and Karachi in Pakistan.

Archaeologists and historians describe urbanization in South Asia as a phenomenon appearing about 2500 BCE (Heitzman 2008b) . Functional relationships developed between hinterlands and core areas for information exchange, economic production and consumption, social ties and exchanges, entertainment and leisure practices, and political and cultural activities. Most of these activities were found in traditional, colonial, and postcolonial cities. These preindustrial cities served as centers for bazaar marketing, trade and commerce, administration, religious pilgrimage destinations, and transportation hubs or commercial conduits. The inner part of the city developed as a multifunctional, commercial-cum-residential core for trade and commerce, where only wealthy families could afford to live. Beyond this inner core was a second zone where rich people lived in conjunction with poorer servants serving as cleaners, shop assistants, and porters. The poor resided in a third concentric zone more distant from the city center, where the demand for land was less and land prices were commensurately low . Beyond the third zone, Civil Lines were established during British colonial rule in this outer (suburban) concentric zone. Particularly, after independence was gained from their imperial masters, citizenry of the upper and middle classes settled in these peripheral neighborhoods. Squatter settlements also developed in outer, peripheral areas that were not conducive to more-lucrative sub-division-development, because of poor accessibility, roughness of terrain, or lack of infrastructural services. In the bazaar-based city, one sees patterns of occupancy that mirror a kind of inverse concentric zone model . For example, "untouchables" almost always occupied the most remote peripheral areas of these cities. Another example pertains to religious segregation or separation, where in Hindu-dominated areas, Muslims always formed separate neighborhoods; likewise, in Muslim-dominated areas, Hindus formed separate neighborhoods.

Throughout the nineteenth century, urban growth across the region progressed slowly and unevenly. Settlements remained scattered and relatively distant from each other (Heitzman 2008a; Kaplan et al. 2009 ). The urban population in South Asia declined between 1750 and 1800 with only 11% living in urban areas among an estimated total population of 160 million. By 1872, the national percentage of urbandwellers had declined to 8.7%. Again in 1911, the urban population reached 11% out of an estimated 298 million people. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the country's urban population almost doubled (Visaria and Visaria 1983: 466, 490) . Significant urban expansion began in the 1920s and picked up just before the Independence of India in 1947. Since that time, there has been continuous, massive rural-to-urban migration as regional economic disparities widened (Ramachandran 1989) . The major cities once again became South Asia's chief nodes of transportation and commerce in the twentieth century and into the first decade of the twentyfirst century.

In the 1950s, the total number of urban centers in South Asia with populations of at least 100,000 persons was 91. India alone had 79 urban centers, Pakistan had 10, and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) had two cities, namely, Dhaka and Chittagong with estimates of approximately 290,000 persons. In Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Colombo was the only large city with just over 400,000 inhabitants. About 55% of South Asia's urban population lived in cities that had populations below 100,000. In the 1950s, public-sector authorities took over the planning of newly developing major cities, and some effort was made to implement long-term urban planning. In India, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) was set up in 1958 to produce a 20-year master plan. With the plan becoming operational in September 1962, the DDA became the most powerful agency in India's capital to regulate urban growth throughout the country, with wide-ranging powers over transportation, land use, and construction. Almost without exception, the national urban systems of South Asian nations exhibited a skewed distribution of resources mainly favoring the most populous central places (Heitzman 2008a; Kaplan et al. 2009 ).

In the late 1960s, South Asian urban planning and development had influences from the socialist concepts of Willy Brandt of Germany. Many resources were diverted to the most heavily populated areas-the cities-for providing food, jobs, shelter, education, and health services, both for meeting the colossal financial and administrative needs of rapidly urbanizing areas and for poverty alleviation (The Brandt Equation 2002 ). Accordingly, urban planning in South Asian countries during the 1970s increased the strength of national and state-provincial sectors when government directly funded projects were targeted to develop planned cities that were endowed with considerable architectural richness, often representing religious, symbolic significance. A large percentage of the small-and mediumsized cities in South Asia existed primarily as marketing nodes and, to a lesser extent, as administrative hubs for rural hinterlands. These cities stood atop hierarchies of lower-level central places and provided a more limited array of services for villages, in patterns amenable to analysis through central place theory-an intellectual approach that stresses the economic basis of urbanization.

By the 1970s, urban planning approaches in South Asia considered immediate hinterlands as functional parts of their metropolitan jurisdictions. Governments intervened directly within the economy to create state-run corporations to provide services and produce commodities and marketable goods. The rapid growth in bureaucracies at all levels of government necessitated several public-owned facilities, whose functions were more focused on serving government employees rather than the general public, though many cities did provide services to a wider range of consumers and clients.

By the late 1980s, state intervention in urban planning declined when the neoliberal mantra privileging the private sector had given more emphasis in directing and influencing urban growth. By the 1990s, amid the neoliberal drive towards economic market reform, there was a theoretical about-turn towards administrative decentralization and public-private development-collusion. Since then, the micro-management of government in urban planning was replaced through the 'agency' and active involvement of the private sector to bring about sustainable urban management (Buch 1987: 2) .

Today, cities in South Asia are going through major transformations, under the influences of globalization and neoliberalism. Aspirations of federal and/or regional governments to create global or excellent (world-class) cities and special economic zones (SEZ) have put more pressure on the existing infrastructure of many cities in South Asia. However, with increasing populations, South Asian cities have become more vulnerable to issues related to livability, environmental changes, and overall sustainability in general, but especially due to the legacies of the past and the disorganized spatial arrangements of their urban built environments.

By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the urban population in South Asia accounted for 1/3 of the region's total population. The number of cities with at least 100,000 inhabitants increased from 91 to 550 of which 435 urban centers are in India, 65 in Pakistan, 35 in Bangladesh, 9 in Nepal, and 6 in Sri Lanka. Bangladesh's Dhaka has become the largest mega city in the world with the highest population density in a smaller area (Graybill et al. 2016; Singleton et al. 2016 ). The number of people living in these cities was approximately 308 million, which constituted 65% of the urban population and 21.8% of the total population. Most cities in South Asia with a history pre-dating the 1950s retained a section of the old city, which preserved a dense concentration of residential cul-de-sacs within spatially self-contained neighborhoods surrounding, and intermingling with, market areas. They represent the colonial model ( Fig. 4 .2d). Many of these cities were growing organically with spontaneous squatter settlements contributing disproportionately ( UN Habitat 2007) . These organically growing cities are therefore facing many environmental problems. There are pronounced disparities in infrastructural access for many, with widening economic inequality differences in family incomes becoming extreme. The upper middle class became the beneficiaries of limited urban facilities while the lower middle and poor classes having been the most disadvantaged. The latter still predominantly live in urban spontaneous housing-bustees and squatter settlements-that often have an absolute dearth of facilities and services. They also still lack any political power and authority to influence change in their circumstances, as "untouchables," or scheduled castes, or "outcaste" ethnic minorities.

Today, about 59% of South Asian urban populations live in low-income unplanned urban settlements, which is higher than the world percentage, which stands at 31.6%. Unlike in the developed countries such as Europe and the United States where only 6 and 5.8% of the total population, respectively, live in low-income and poorly managed urban areas, in South Asian countries such as Bangladesh, over 84.7% of the urban population live in poorly planned spontaneously developed urban areas. The corresponding figures for Bhutan are 44.1%; for India, 55.5%; for Nepal, 92.4%; 73.6% for Pakistan; and only 13.6% for Sri Lanka. In Afghan cities perhaps as many as 94% of the urban dwellers live in such sub-standard housing ( UN Habitat 2003 . Among the South Asian countries, Sri Lanka has set examples of sound urban management, and its urban poverty is lowest among the SA countries (UN-Habitat 2003 . In Nepal, intra-urban low-income settlement areas are classified as housing for socially disadvantaged people with only a few occupants having title deeds (lalpurja). These Nepalese urban communities are characterized by poverty, low incomes, inadequate living conditions, and sub-standard housing facilities (UN-Habitat 2007) .

Kathmandu Valley, with its fertile soil, Indo-Tibetan trade route, and rich culture, always played a central role in urban growth in Nepal, where urbanization started ( Fig. 4 .6) with a distinctive style around 2000 years ago. The fertile Valley, about 22 km east-west and 17 km north-south, is situated at an average altitude of 1340 m and surrounded by mountain peaks between 1800 and 2700 m in elevation. As the settlement grew in size in the Kathmandu Valley, government authorities and mercantile groups supported the construction and re-construction of various shrines in brick or stone. Surrounding walls were erected with cardinally oriented entranceways. Many artistic add-ons were made to the central shrine while honoring several deities. To look after the religious shrines, several pillared halls and administrative offices were developed within surrounding walls with entrance towers. These shrines' historical structures and buildings have silently testified resistances to historical earthquakes, fires, and politics. The high walls of the individual temple compounds provided security for the images and ornaments of precious metals and for other treasures accumulated through endowments (Champakalakshmi 1996; Shanmugam 2000) .

Until the twentieth century, the Kathmandu Valley was cut off from India and the rest of the world between March and September due to malarial conditions in the marshy piedmont forests of the Tarai and was isolated from Tibet by snows between October and February. An annual rhythm of extensive trade along mountain footpaths made the Valley one of the great commercial centers of the Himalayan region. The earliest major settlement was likely located south of the Bagmati River at a place previously called Lalitapura or Lalitapattana (today called Patan), where four peripheral "Ashokan" stupas demarcated the outer limits of its trading center (Heitzman 2008b) . These centers today have developed as downtown Patan or the "Mangal Bazaar." All the surrounding areas, which were rural hinterlands in earlier times, have now coalesced as urban neighborhoods. North of the Bagmati River, on the east of the Bishnumati River, a separate commercial center grew along the northeast-trending route linking Pataliputra to Tibet. To the north of Pataliputra, an initial city called Kasthamandap emerged, which is now the core of present-day Kathmandu. About 25 km to the east, a third commercial settlement known as Bhaktapur or Bhadgaon grew up just south of the Arniko Highway connecting the Valley to Tibet that expanded from an original "upper" town to a "lower" town towards the east (Fig. 4.6a, b) . In intermittent spurts, the political union of the entire Valley occurred under Lichchhavi kings after the third century and then under Malla kings after the eleventh century, eventually forging a unitary linguistic and cultural milieu (Heitzman 2008a) .

By the seventeenth century, divisions within the Malla dynasty resulted in the establishment of separate royal lines based in the three main cities of the valley. Each were the capital of a miniature empire and each the beneficiary of royal largesse, which made them artistic and architectural jewels. From the eighteenth century onwards, Kathmandu, as the national capital, has undergone extensive expansion to create a Valley-wide, metropolitan region encompassing Patan and Bhaktapur as neighboring cities. These satellite cities have retained their ancient practices and symbolic identities, with several festivals conforming to lunar and solar calendars still being held to this day. Indeed, a percentage of the individual buildings within each city were set aside for sacred spaces right from their earliest beginnings. In addition, many areas were set aside for the palaces and associated workplaces of the more well to do citizens. Elsewhere, some cities at suitable transportation locations grew rapidly-especially around Chowks (crossroads)-thereby benefitting from their commercial importance.

In his exhaustive study of the Kathmandu Valley, Niels Gutschow (2005) provides evidence of the mandala concept as an interpretive tool regularly applied by intellectuals and tacitly accepted by non-intellectuals, in order to map the diverse aspects of the Nepalese-built environment as a formal, geometric diagram (Heitzman 2008a) . Urban centers grew slowly over the centuries with state intervention occurring for the construction of the palace or walls for temples in the mid-hills. In the Tarai Region, many cities were developed at road intersections known as a Chowk. Land and/or property surrounding these Chowks became very expensive and only well-to-do families were able to construct houses within these early urban centers. Archeological evidence clearly indicates that a society of considerable urban complexity and sophistication existed in what eventually became urban centers in contemporary times (Heitzman 2008a) . Clustered settlements developed along the Chowks in the south, for example, Biratnagar, Rajbiraj, Janakpur, Birgunj, Butwal, Krishnanagar, Nepalgunj, and Mahendranagar ( Fig. 4.7) , all grew into contemporary commercial cities. In the Chowks, the merchant class lived either on the upper floor or in the back of their shops. Almost all the buildings were used for multipurposes, despite the fact that mixed-use or mixed-occupancy might create hazardous conditions and endanger occupants. Today, almost all the existing structures including historical buildings are being used differently than originally intended. Existing residences are converted into restaurants, medical clinics, apartments, educational institutions, nurseries, and recreational centers. Most commonly, while shops or restaurants occupy the ground floor, upper floors are leased for residential and office or business uses.

The bazaar or the city center consisted of an amalgam of land use that is catered to the central place functions of each city. Commercial land use dominated the city center, consisting of both retail and wholesale activities. Not many poor people were able to afford land around these areas because the greatest portion of peoples' family income was needed to meet their family's basic needs, such as food, clothing, and immediate shelter. Most streets had retail establishments selling foodstuffs and clothes. The local bazaars used to sell perishable goods such as milk, vegetables, meat, and fish because most homes did not have refrigeration facilities. This was similar to Johann Heinrich von Thünen's city model that was located centrally within an "Isolated State." Specific locations were designated for different businesses, for example, farm products, businesses, pawnshops, and jewelry shops locating side-by-side, but sidewalk vendors were present almost everywhere in the bazaar. Such a trend of urban development continues even today.

After the unification of Nepal in 1768, Kathmandu became the capital with 80% of the country's urban population residing in the valley until the 1950s. Like the Kathmandu Valley that developed along the banks of holy rivers of Bishnumati and Bagmati, other cities also developed along various rivers' banks, for example, Butwal-Khatauli on the east-west bank of Tinau River, Pokhara on the east-west banks of the Seti River, Triveni at the northern bank of Narayani/Gandak River, and Mahendranagar (Bhimdatta) at the northern bank of Mahakali River. All cities have become more heterogeneous linguistically and ethnically due to rural-to-urban migration, but Kathmandu remained more homogeneous with Newar settlements dominating others. In all of Nepal's cities, there have been common patterns of segregation of larger neighborhoods according to the social rank and caste positions of their residents.

Before the twentieth century (the 1900s), most of the settlements in Nepal were scattered in the hills and the valleys, while the higher mountain regions remained largely uninhabited because of the harsh climate and extreme topography-precipitous slopes, deep gorges, inaccessible upper reaches, and mountainous terrain. The Tarai forested plain was virtually uninhabited because of malaria prevalence. After malaria eradication by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the 1960s, the settlements in the Tarai Region grew rapidly. By the late 1980s, the Tarai had 65% of Nepal's cultivated area, 34% of its road mileage, and 62 of the industries ( UN Habitat 2007) . Urban growth and commercial expansion continued to be facilitated by trade and business with Indian towns located along the Nepal-India border. Some locations became gateway towns to India such as Biratnagar, Janakpur, Gaur, Birgunj, Siddharthanagar, Nepalgunj, Dhangadhi, and Kanchanpur. Other towns developed at highway crossings-like Itahari, Rajbiraj, Lahan, Sakhuwa-Mahendranagar, Chandranigahapur, Hetauda, Narayangadh, Sunwal, Dumre-Bhansar, Beshishahar, Gorkha (Prithivinarayan), Pokhara, Syangja, Tansen, Butwal, Ghorahi, Tulsipur, Surkhet, Kohalpur, and Dipayal (Fig. 4.8) . Other towns also developed along the highways and feeder roads connecting to highways. All Fig. 4.8 Origins and development of urban centers in Nepal these locations grew with commercial trade functions originating from agricultural exchange, temple location, their existence as a transport node, or the presence of various administrative activities. In roadside towns, public or non-profit inns provided modest overnight accommodation at nominal fees. Eventually, Nepalbeyond the Kathmandu Valley and the southern border region-was opened to the external world from the 1950s onwards, with many hotels being opened along the trekking areas, or mountain climbing routes, valley or mountain passes, and the plethora of pilgrim routes and religious sites. Slowly small urban centers would emerge in these more remote interior areas.

Although some of Nepal's cities were administrative or business, religious, and historic centers (or permutations of all these), they were all poorly planned. Unplanned urban expansion left the middle classes and lower classes without affordable housing options, and many were pushed into inferior, unsuitable land settlements. These poorly planned cities have bequeathed many problems to contemporary urban Nepal, namely, a huge diversity in incomes, with many areas facing extreme poverty, shortages of houses, inadequate public services, limited transportation networks, not enough potable drinking waters, a lack of open spaces, and few adequate sewer systems. This "haves and have nots" situation became more pronounced as many incomers and outcaste classes were poor and cities were lacking employment opportunities. These low-income and unemployed people were easily attracted by various political slogans and aspirations. These unemployed youths often engaged in various political agitations repeatedly. Political unrest became a common occurrence in newly created cities (settlements).

Despite these problems, cities became more densely populated as time went by, with "safety" and "employment" being major attractions or incentives to rural migrants. People hereditarily categorized as low status, such as backward castes and tribes without technical and administrative skills, low income, or no incomes, had no other place to go to find shelter except in spontaneous settlements. These informal sectors were supported by poorly organized economic activities such as some garment or polluting spare-parts manufacture industries only offering irregular, low-paid jobs. In these cities, children were often engaged in street vending and garbage collection (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) . Mainly poorly low-paid porters, rickshaw pullers, domestic servants, and construction workers settled in those areas.

As more and more of the population concentrated in urban areas, a large number of educated youths unable to find employment opportunities and affordable livable places elsewhere in urban areas often landed up in inferior low quality land areas. Eventually, these spontaneous settlements started becoming the sites for political organizations to organize periodic agitations. Some spontaneous and unplanned settlements were expanded on public lands alongside roads or canals, on swamplands, on public parks, and on any other vacant lands that were available. Many of the farmlands close to settlements were also developed into new building estates or had single properties located on them, while some old buildings were retained in their rural settings. Meanwhile, illegal dense backfillings were done close to highway intersections. Shacks or temporary stalls of bakers, tea sellers, and daily wageworkers were erected first as temporary structures on empty lots, then many consolidated, and became relatively permanent shops and commercial buildings at intersections, along alleys, Chowks, and in open spaces. Finally, the infiltration of offices along main roads occurred through unofficial commercialization. Over time, some of these illegal buildings were regularized by becoming rented offices either for government purposes, nongovernmental organizations, or personal uses. These steps became instrumental in petitioning government departments and officials to provide public services such as drinking water pipes, electricity lines, sewer lines, and even road extensions. Eventually, illegal settlements became quasi-legal complex settlement structures. Urban centers like Dhulabari, Damak, Urlabari, Itahari, Lahan, Gaighat, Dhalkebar, Pathlaiya, Hetauda, Manahari, Narayangarh, Gaindakot, Kawaswoti, Arun-Khola, Daunne, Bardaghat, Sunwal, Butwal, Gorusinghe, Pattharkot, Bankasabasa, Lamahi, Kohalpur, and Attaria were built in the Tarai Region in such a fashion. Similar developments occurred along Siddhartha, Prithvi, and Arniko highways, and rural-to-urban migration became a tradition in Nepal, as lured by new urban developments.

In those quasi-legal settlements, the government has established utilities, and lands were surveyed and plotted both formally and informally. Formal activities were, but not limited to, plotting land for the construction of offices for cooperative, the village (Gaun) development committee (VDC), hospitals, and educational institutions. To serve these offices, informal development occurs in the form of tea stalls, small shops, restaurants, and vegetable shops just outside the compounds of formal housing-and building-developments. Informal developments also include the private kitchen gardens, playgrounds, and cowsheds in the backyards of individual huts that extend onto government land. Furthermore, public property encroachment was formalized and regularized by the construction of residential buildings and sheds. Eventually, such settlements developed into urban conglomerations like Gaindakot, Kawaswoti, Bardaghat, Sunwal in Nawalparasi District, and Butwal in Rupandehi District along the East-West Highway. Elsewhere, Aryabhanjyang in the Palpa District and Walling as well as Putalibazaar in the Syangja District along the Siddhartha Highway, Dumre-Bhansar in the Tanahun District, Mugling in the Chitwan District, and Naubeshi in the Dhading District along the Prithvi Highway are some examples observed by the authors that were "developed" in this gradual manner.

Although Nepal is still predominantly rural with less than 20% of the total population living in urban areas, the situation is changing fast due to spatial income inequalities that have prompted mass out-migration of the poorest classes from their rural homes. If the current trends of rural-to-urban migration in Nepal continue unabated, it is expected that large sectors of Nepal's rural population will live in urban areas by 2030. However, there are times when rural-to-urban migration has been much more prevalent. For example, between 2006 and early 2007, Nepal witnessed a strong ethno-political "Madhesh Movement" in the Tarai Region, when many people from Tarai rural areas migrated to nearby urban areas on the Nepal-India border, or left the country, either for safety reasons or to find alternative means for making a living. There was also a flood of rural-to-urban migration during the "Maoist Insurgency" period (1996) (1997) (1998) (1999) (2000) (2001) (2002) (2003) (2004) (2005) that was countrywide in scale. This internal migration contributed 30-40% to urban growth in 12 urban centers, 20-30% in 10 urban centers, 10-20% in 19 urban centers, and less than 10% in the remaining 11 urban centers (Fig. 4.9) .

People, especially those desperate for a better life for themselves and their children, migrate to urban areas for safety, shelter, education, and job opportunities. In Nepal, it appears that migration from rural-to-urban areas differ among castes and social groups based largely upon their incomes. For example, the proportion of ruralto-urban migrants is highest (77%) among the hill communities. Among the hill communities, the hill-Brahmins top the list with 45% followed by the Tarai, minorities, and others with 35% who migrate to urban centers. Other city-ward migrants include 33% of Newars, 31% of Chhetris, 25% of Brahmin-Tarai, and 11% of "Dalit." Since the hill communities have high remittance incomes (63%) followed by ethnic-Tarai, minorities, and others (47%), "Dalit" (43%), and lowest among Newar (20%) and Brahmin-Tarai (12%), rural-to-urban migration is also influenced by higher remittances. The proportion of migrant households that received remittances is highest among ethnic-Hills (49%) that are comprised of Chhetri (19%) and Brahmin-Hills (18%). Among caste and ethnic groups, some upper castes such as Brahmin-Hills, Chhetri, and "Dalit" have higher levels of income than ethnic groups living in Tarai. Data reveals that Dalit families with high remittance incomes more often funnel their resources into education than other caste/ethnic groups, because they believe that only education can elevate them to a higher social status. Since Fig. 4 .9 Formation of urban centers due to rural-to-urban migration 4.3 Rural to Urban Migration educational opportunities are found in urban centers, households with high remittance incomes migrate to urban areas because they can now afford to buy the expensive urban land or at least gain favorable terms from rental agreements (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) .

Rural-to-urban migration has therefore led to the overpopulation of many urban areas at times when housing cannot keep up with the resultant demand. For example, the Kathmandu Valley experienced an average annual intake of approximately 54,000 migrants during the Maoist insurgency (1996) (1997) (1998) (1999) (2000) (2001) (2002) (2003) (2004) (2005) . In the period 1991-2001, Kathmandu experienced an annual growth of 4.7%, Kirtipur 2.6%, 3.4% in Lalitpur, and 4% in Madhyapur Thimi. Currently, average population density of the urban areas of Kathmandu Valley is 4416 per square kilometer (MyRepublica 2013a), and the in-migrant population constitutes 30-40% (ADB 2013; MyRepublica 2013a). Since the Kathmandu Valley is the nation's power center, it appears to have received a huge "floating population"-of temporary in-migrants. The 2011 census shows that the population of five cities of Kathmandu is 1.5 million (CBS 2011), but several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) claim that the actual number for the Valley as a whole is over 4 million. The discrepancy between government data and the NGOs' claim could be due to this temporary, "circulating" or "sojourning" floating population (Nepal Facts 2012; Population of Kathmandu 2010). In other urban areas, recent migrant population proportion has comprised 34% of the total population, while lifetime migrants only constitute 23% of the total population (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) . According to the 2011 census records, the total urban population of Nepal is almost 20% (5.3 million) which is close to the prediction of UN-Habitat (2007) of 5.6 million. It is predictable given current trends of rural-to-urban migration that countrywide urbanization trends will inevitably increase.

Devoid of a more comprehensive and forward-looking planning regime, or physical planning guidelines, urban areas are expanding throughout the country with little organization and plenty of spontaneity. Except for a few mountainous and hilly districts, most of the districts of the country have at least one municipality ( Fig. 4.10) .

The central (core) areas of 15 municipalities are district administrative centers ( Fig. 4 .11) that have urban characteristics, which are surrounding by rural hinterlands. Muzzini and Aparicio (2013) puts the total population of these municipalities at 1.16 million people and 0.24 million households, which is 21% of the urban population of the country; however, our calculation shows only 20% of the total population. The Central Region has the largest number of smaller and larger cities, while the Western Region consists of only a few cities representing the entire development region (Fig. 4.11 ). The city's growth rate is highest in the Central Region, and this is followed by Eastern, Western, Midwestern and Far-Western Fig. 4.11 ). Natural population growth and the annexing of rural areas into municipalities have been the major drivers of urban growth in Nepal. The urban population growth rate has increased from 3.5% in 1991 to 6.5% in 2001 when reclassification (the conversion of rural areas into urban areas) is included (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) . Such reclassification has increased the number of urban centers from 33 municipalities in 1981 33 municipalities in , 58 in 1991 33 municipalities in , 99 in 2001 33 municipalities in , and 105 in 2012 . The current classification system criteria of urban areas will bring many more Village Development Committees (VDCs) into the category of "municipalities." As of writing this manuscript, Nepal has a new constitution of 2015 that annexed many villages to meet population threshold to classify several rural areas as municipalities ( Fig. 4.11 ). Based on the population size, some areas were promoted to metropolis and sub-metropolis. Except for the Rasuwa, Manang, and Humla districts, all other districts have some types of municipal (urban) areas though many of such areas are characterized by ruralopolis. In a ruralopolis, several rural areas are annexed together where population density is precipitating thresholds for collective facilities and services to underline the fusion of rural economic and social systems with urban spatial organizations.

The Government of Nepal has developed geographic location-based criteria to identify a certain area as urban. These criteria include, but are not limited to, the availability of electricity, drinking water, hospitals, schools, markets, and access to transportation (via land or air). According to the Local Self Governance Act of 1999 (2055 B.S.), an area must have at least 20,000 people in the Tarai Region and 10,000 people in the Hill and Mountain regions in order for it to be a municipality. A municipality in the Tarai Region should have a minimum annual income of $60,000 (Nrs. 6 million), whereas for the hills and mountains, the annual income should be over $6000 (Nrs. 0.6 million). A sub-metropolitan city should have a minimum of 100,000 people, generate at least $12,000 (Nr 120 million) in annual revenue, and must have access to basic infrastructure. A metropolitan city should have a minimum 300,000 people, should generate at least $4.7 (Nr. 470) million in annual revenue, and have access to basic infrastructure.

Though the aforementioned criteria have been used to classify metropolitan, sub-metropolitan and municipalities, the politico-administrative definitions of urban areas are not developed clearly. Many of the municipalities still possess rural characteristics because of the annexation of several rural areas. As a result, many urban areas have been depending upon their hinterlands and other markets for their daily functioning. Such a process has led to inconsistencies in urban infrastructure and increased urban vulnerabilities (Bhattarai and Conway 2010) . Factors such as population density, income generation, access to roads, and other infrastructure are essential to take into account for spatial transition from rural to urban classification. There are several inconsistencies in municipal classification. Several village development committees (VDCs) had urban characteristics and were considered VDCs, while many municipalities had rural characteristics, but were classified as municipalities; for example, VDCs such as Baliya and Krishnapur in Kailali District and Jorpati in Kanchanpur District have manufacturing employment densities that are higher than those in many other municipalities (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013; DUDBC 2013; DWSS 2013) (Fig. 4.11) .

The Government of Nepal (GoN) is classifying rural areas primarily based on their population counts. If population alone is taken into account, based on the 2011 census, 302 VDCs will be candidates for municipalities by 2015 ( Fig. 4.11 ). Of these VDCs, Central hills will have the highest number. In terms of total VDCs becoming municipalities, with lower ranks following in descending order-Eastern, Western, Midwestern, and Far-Western ( Fig. 4 .11) will have their VDCs graduated to municipalities. Except for a few municipalities in the Eastern and Central regions, nowhere in the Mountain Region of Nepal will there be candidates for municipalities. The Kathmandu Valley alone will see about half a dozen new municipalities forming by 2015, all constituting a densely urbanized Greater Kathmandu corridor ( Fig. 4 .8).

Many Tarai districts will have several more municipalities by 2015, if the present trends of classifying VDCs into municipalities continue. Though many VDCs will be candidates for municipalities, these newly declared municipalities would lack necessary urban infrastructures. The World Development Report 2009 prepared urban agglomeration index based on population density and distance to centers of human settlement of 50,000 or more. Nepal's urbanization level (the percentage of the population living in urban areas) was as high as 26% in 2000 (World Bank 2009). This rate is higher than the 13% recognized by the government and the Central Bureau of Statistics for that year and even higher than the current estimated urbanization rate by Muzzini and Aparicio (2013) . Nepal's Local Self-Governance Act of 1999 overemphasizes the value of the number of people in a settlement rather than taking into account the built environment's infrastructure and economic production and consumption when declaring municipalities. Thus, this turns the classification of urbanization into a political process rather than the result of urban development and physical, built environmental changes. When many VDCs are re-classified into urban areas (Fig. 4.12) , the estimates of urban geographic area may go up, yet rural characteristics persist as the over-riding reality. For example, in the 2000 census, the population density for Amargadhi municipality was 132 per square kilometer; it was 158 for Kamalamai, 173 for Trijuga, 141 for Chainpur Bajhang, and 138 for Katari (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) . The annexation and reclassification of rural areas into urban creates a phenomena, which we would call "ruralopolis" in Nepal.

Urbanization in Nepal has been inevitable in response to stagnating economic conditions in rural areas. The economic growth has constrained Nepal from graduating to the status of a developing country from a less developed status. In 2018, Nepal's Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) reviewed three criteria related to the graduation from less developed to developing country. These include (a) human asset index (HAI), (b) per capita income (PCI), and (c) economic vulnerability index (EVI). The ECOSOC's review concluded that the pre-scheduled data for graduation on 2022 is not possible because Nepal could not make enough progress in EVI. Thus, Nepal has extended this date until 2025 (Sapkota 2018) . In 1990, HAI was 0.34, and it jumped to 0.458 in 2011 and to 0.66 in 2018. Nepal has made progress in PCI; it was $1100 in 1999 and $1300 in 2013. The indicators of EVI that include population; services; 2 merchandise export of commodities; GDP share of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries; and stability in agricultural production need to be improved. Progresses in these issues have not gone as expected. Thus, Nepal needed to backtrack from graduation to developing status from 2022 to 2025.

In order to hasten the economic development, many rural areas have been annexed together to form many municipalities with concentrated developments. This has created ruralopolis. Ruralopolishing is a definitional change from rural to Fig. 4 .12 Urban corridors 2 In 2013, the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR 2012-2013) examined 113 indicators to rank a country in terms of economic development. Relevant indicators for Nepal include road lengths, air transport infrastructure, airlines seat kilometers /week, electricity supply, mobile telephone subscription, and fixed telephone lines/100 people. According to this report, Nepal ranked at 125 with a score of 3.5 among 144 economies (THT 2012) . Earlier, Nepal also scored 1.8, ranking at 143 in infrastructure, second from the bottom. Nepal's performance was poor in quality of electricity supply, and it was ranked 143/144. Nepal has the lowest road density in South Asia. municipal status, where rural-based communities will be classified as urbanities with the hope that it would help in economic development. However, during the urbanization processes, many fertile farmlands have been targeted for residential conversion by dividing them into smaller plots in response to definitive high price market signals. Land plotting has increased for residential development; more houses are built, parcel resale values have increased, but productive farmlands have decreased. The level of subsistence livelihood has reduced and cash dependency has increased. In the newly declared urban areas, many farmlands have been converted into urban settlements leaving very few or no open spaces while constructing new infrastructure. Because of the conversion of farmlands into buildings or other concrete surfaces, imported and processed food products started replacing many organic agricultural products that used to come from subsistence farming (Bhattarai 2015a, b) .

Near the roadside, the price of agricultural land has soared, justifying sale and subdivision of parcels while ignoring ecological consequences with the conversion of farmland into impervious surfaces. Land dealers are responding to market signals by selling land per square foot. Rational landholders are retaining property ownership based on their expectations of anticipated future net benefits. These landholders are waiting for market signals showing the emergence of fast-growing economic centers and residential clustering (Bhattarai 2015a, b) .

There are also institutional flaws such as the lack of an open public planning process involving the city. The lack of a planning process has given priority to elitedriven processes that have created social and spatial segregation and economic inequities. University faculty and students, the next generation of policy makers, civil servants, community activists, urban professionals, and business leaders, are not properly involved in the planning processes. Such situations have led to the weaning of social cohesion. Nepali villages have traditionally been coalescing social units; they used to provide a social safety net through family and kinship bonds. Even after many villages are annexed to municipalities, new migrants are making all attempts to live close to their neighbors, initially reinforcing the dependency relationship in urban areas. However, cost of lands, income, and social inequalities are becoming major constraints to strengthen such social harmony. As new urban areas are being populated by neo-urbanities, many remain unfamiliar with each other. The traditional safety nets developed over hundreds of years have waned out. Many communities are grappling with transition from subsistence to cash-based livelihoods in growth-oriented economies. The higher standards of living, high taxes, and high utility costs in urban areas are constraining traditional leadership structures to maintain social cohesion despite living in congested residential buildings.

Competition for housing-owning, renting, or building-is very high. Those who can afford build their house in an incremental manner over several years, while they live on the plot in small shacks, while the prime residence is being built. Though some families might be lucky to have temporary shelters, with extended families and kinship groups, overcrowding has become a common problem, often accommodating 5-11 people in small spaces. Despite such crowded living, the rent for a single room shared with one or more other families often costs 60-70% of family incomes, leaving insufficient incomes for food, clothing, education, and health care (Bhattarai 2015a, b) .

Despite experiencing severe urban vulnerability problems, "ruralopolishing" continues throughout Nepal. The theoretical debate that urbanization enhances secondary and tertiary sector activities ( Fig. 4 .3) and contributes substantially to foreign exchange earnings has already become a saga in Nepal. The Nepali economy is surviving on remittances contributed mostly by those who were displaced from Nepal due to faulty institutional policies. Despite several positive aspects, remittances have added multiple problems. As couples separate for a long time, a growing number of children living with divorced parents are becoming landless and are forced to live in urban outskirts. Political parties looking for vote banks are clandestinely supporting illegal settlements in poorly planned areas. Recent incidences show that such settlements have suffered even from low-level natural calamities, but politicians refuse to take responsibility for their wrong doings. Some political parties are giving false assurances to neo-urbanities for jobs, labor rights, housing, and representations in various organizations. False assurance has led to frustration that has increased criminal activities in urban areas, as many unemployed youths need some means for living. The proliferation of overcrowded informal settlements and increasing unemployment in many towns have resulted in a number of social problems, including poverty and the breakdown of the extended family, increased crime, and vandalism. For example, suicide cases have increased from 75 in 1990 to 6512 in 2013, and these incidences are mostly reported in urban areas. Many new urban migrants are forced to live on daily wages including illegal activities like drug dealings and prostitution, as other jobs with future security or pension are very rare; if there, they are poorly developed.

Nepal urgently needs an urban development strategy that will steer urbanization away from good-quality agricultural land and help conserve natural resources. In order to address these challenges, it is essential to establish participatory and responsive local governments to maintain order, guide development, provide public services, and conserve the environment; institutionalize urban land reforms with well-defined private and public rights in the use, valuation, servicing, and control of land for urban purposes; implement strict rules to distribute, maintain, and manage utilities and services; and maintain a professional, accountable, transparent, and ethical public administration (Bhattarai 2015a, b) . Public policy making has to be transparent and participatory, but the execution of decisions has to be done professionally, free from political interference and corruption. Without these participatory and transparently designed land use planning, urban settlements in Nepal would follow the principle of "survival of the fittest."

In downtown high-density areas, temperatures have become higher as compared to the temperatures in surrounding rural areas, and these are called heat islands. Urban heat results due to cumulative effects of the production of methane gases from a large volume of throughputs from the generations of anthropogenic activities. The use of air conditioners, refrigerators, vents, and vehicular emissions change the chemistry of the surrounding atmosphere. During the constructional process, many green segments are converted into cement concrete and asphalt for roofing and for paving sidewalks and roads. These materials have thermal bulk properties that absorb more solar radiation than the surfaces found in rural areas. Additionally, these materials have different surface radiative properties, which means they absorb and emit thermal energy (The Green City 2015). Due to the lack of greenery, evapotranspiration is almost non-existent in the urban environment. In addition, tall buildings ( Fig. 4 .13) block wind movements that otherwise would have contributed to convective cooling. In summary, the increase in sunlight absorption and reflection, the increasing throughputs due to human activities, and the lack of convection cooling all work together to increase surrounding temperatures. As urban temperatures rise ( Fig. 4 .14) due to this combination of events, ozone levels within the city and surrounding areas also increase. Urban heat islands also influence local weather conditions, such as the presence of fog, humidity levels, and wind patterns. During the daytime, urban heat islands experience low pressure, which allows moist air from nearby rural areas to converge into the urban center. This moist air counteracts with the hot, urban air and creates the ideal condition for cloud coverage and increased humidity. These activities influence the vegetation phonology in the urban environment. For example, Manandhar (2012) reported the change in phonological behaviors of plants growing within the vicinity of urban areas. There is a change in flowering and fruiting seasons because of the change in climate. As a result, the food supply for many animal species is also affected. Animals that rely on certain plants as an integral part of their diet begin to adapt their natural breeding seasons to match the plant-growing season. This, in turn, has a chain reaction on other plant and animal species in the area. All these compounding effects influence human health. Increased city temperatures can be fatal during summer heat waves, particularly for senior citizens. Extreme temperatures lead to heat cramps, heat stroke, and heat exhaustion. Heat stroke may cause respiratory distress syndrome, impaired mobility, or decreased awareness (The Green City 2015). Urban heat islands can have worse air and water quality than their rural neighbors (NG 2010) . In order to reduce these side effects, recently, a biophilic approach has been integrated in the engineering work. Urban denizens have started using green roofs. Green roofs along with roof gardening have helped in bringing the temperature down to some extent.

Within the Kathmandu Valley, on hot days, the temperature on roofs and pavements of urban areas can be (2.7-3.5 C) hotter (Figs. 4.13 and 4.14) than air around the surrounding environment (Bhatta 2015) . The Kathmandu Valley is overly crowded, and census records are very unreliable. Nonetheless, using the available census records, it reveals that the total population of Kathmandu in 1981 was 422,237, and it increased to 1,744,240 in 2011, with 436,344 households. This has led to an unplanned rapid urbanized city with no green and open space (Bhatta 2015) . During the hotter days (May to August), the average temperature of the Kathmandu Valley has risen from 30 C in 2005 to 31 C in 2012 to 35 C in 2015 (Bhatta 2015) . Politicians are ignoring the climate change issue and putting emphasis on popular economic and public health issues without a clear mandate on how to ameliorate the urban environment. Many of the political slogans ignore the climate change issues, but move further and faster towards unsustainable development. Kathmandu Valley needs more resilient, sustainable neighborhoods and economies than what exist today. Reducing carbon pollution requires a strong commitment including the involvement of stakeholders with local innovation and replacing the polluting old vehicles. Politicians need to scale and implement proven climate solutions and innovations that will help grow the economy, protect public health, and improve the quality of urban life in the polluted cities of Nepal.

Historical records tell us that there has been no comprehensive urban planning ever enforced rigorously in Nepal. Nepali cities including those in the Kathmandu Valley are unplanned, with no change occurring even after the deadly earthquake of 1934.

In almost all of the country's cities, a new neighborhood comes into existence in the following typical fashion (Plate 4.1). A house gets built in the middle of a paddy or corn field, and it becomes surrounded by many unplanned houses without there being plans for a road, connections to a sewer, and water and electricity supply (and we need to forget about telephone, cable TV, or the Internet). A foot-wide trail which separates surprisingly oddly shaped plots of lands is widened to a two-way pedestrian path, which gets further widened to cater to a motorbike, and then a car, and then a water tanker needed to supply potable water every fortnight (Pradhan 2013) . Many areas experience fluid boundaries between built environments considered formal, informal, or invasive settlements where urban housing intersects with natural ecological logics. In general, urban ecology supports the abundance of organisms in and around cities, and the biogeochemical budgets of urban areas help regulate the environment (Pickett et al. 2001 ). However, when infrastructures are built without open spaces and proper spatial arrangements, ecological logics are often intersected by compactly built concrete jungles that are rendered unhealthy and dangerous to human health and welfare.

Urban areas are full of irregularly spaced built-up infrastructure; there would be an increase in casualty rise per capita making urban living dangerous, especially during the time of seismic disturbance or a strong earthquake. For example, the capital city, Kathmandu, and its surrounding suburbs are located in one of the most seismically active areas of the world. The last major earthquake of 1934 flattened 20% of the city's buildings and killed 8519 people, while the valley had only 50,000 people. It is suspected that if similar earthquakes of high intensity occur again, Plate 4.1 Single house built in the middle of field 4.6 Increased Urban Vulnerabilities school children in Kathmandu would become 400 times more vulnerable to earthquake damages than those in Kobe, Japan, of 2011 (IRIN 2013). When an 8.3 Richter scale earthquake hit Haiti in 2010 for 30 sec and had repeated jolts then after, over 250,000 Haitians lost their lives with billions of dollars of property damages. Though that island territory is accessible by water for many international rescue teams, still the losses were inevitable. If similar incidences occur in the Kathmandu Valley, many international urban search and rescue teams might be deployed to rescue victims in landlocked Nepal, but they will be unable to reach Kathmandu due to its inaccessibility. Even if they get into Kathmandu, effective access to the inner parts of the city will be problematic due to the wholesale deposition and dumping of rubble from collapsed buildings into the narrow alleys between the irregular buildings, rendering them impassible (Figs. 4.15a and 4.15b).

Like Kathmandu, Nepal, that is located at the juncture of the Eurasian and the Indian Plates, Port-au-Prince of Haiti is also located in between the North American and the Caribbean Plates and is in a seismically sensitive area. On January 12, 2010, earthquakes and many aftershocks hit Haiti. The main earthquake was of 7.00 on the magnitude scale. The earthquakes generated 10 million cubic meters of rubble within 30 sec from an area of 39 km 2 . After 2 years of earthquake aftershocks, only 75% of the rubble was cleared (CNN 2013). Kathmandu Valley covering roughly 570 km 2 or the size of Singapore will be deluged with over 160 million cubic meters of rubble, if earthquakes of the magnitude of a 7.5 Richter scale or higher hit the city. Though some arterial roads might be cleared, much rubble will block all accessibility to inner housing areas. The air is likely to remain choked with dust for a considerable amount of time, hindering visibility and acting as an ongoing health hazard. Spontaneous fires from collapsed gas canisters and fallen electric wires might also cause havoc. Only a limited portion of the airport is likely to remain accessible for military cargo planes that can land on a short, or shortened, runway. All water supplies in the city might be severely curtailed. There will be competition for drinking water. It is expected that 380,000 people will be affected and about 2 million might very well be displaced from the Kathmandu Valley alone (IRIN 2013). Currently, over 550 humanitarian relief organizations are operating in Nepal, but they will be rendered virtually helpless due to the huge amounts of rubble. Widespread road blockages will limit the operating hours of various businesses. In the aftermath, the country's major resources will be concentrated in Kathmandu, and development elsewhere in the country might be neglected despite federating the country into seven provinces.

Despite the potential for such a scary scenario to actually occur, the Kathmandu Valley's changing landscape with its tall, shiny, and seemingly expensive buildings is likely to add further woes. Numerous shopping malls have sprung up in the past couple of years, and many more modern edifices are gradually claiming their "spaces" on the skyline of the city. New shops and restaurants are opening around every corner. New high-rise apartment complexes are also increasing in number. The crammed buildings and uncontrolled, organic growth of Nepal's cities have led to major losses of open spaces and have blocked accessibility for emergency vehicles. Narrow streets limit vehicular movement to individual houses. In the inner areas of the valley's city centers, the narrow streets (less than or equal to 2.5 m in width) and sturdy fences erected for residential security reasons are not only posing problems of accessibility but also overburdening sanitation systems. Mixed occupancy in such buildings planned infrastructure development, proactive fire life, and structural safety regulations, without controlled regulation of spaces, and the general lack of control involved in hazardous flammable materials storage could cost many lives.

By way of a contemporary example, the substandard housing codes plaguing Bangladesh led to the deaths of over 1300 people on May 2013 due to the collapse of a multi-storied garment-manufacturing building. In Nepal too, the historic (1833 BS) "Paltan Ghar" of Asan of Kathmandu caught fire in 2012 due to an explosion of a gas cylinder on the ground floor. Narrow alleys, no water sprinkler system around, and a delayed water supply prolonged fire-fighting operations in that disaster. Other fire incidences in Kathmandu include the Santungal-based LG Factory (Oct 14, 2012), Guheshwari, the RB Home Concern (Oct 12, 2012), the Annapurna Plywood Industry (Sep 22, 2012) , and a massive fire in the Thamel-based Pilgrim Books House (May 17, 2013). These incidences testify that mixed occupancy without proper regulatory management could be fatal. Already existing crammed residential buildings, and adding floors to existing buildings, or replacing existing buildings by tall structures without adequate accesses, have all contributed to city vulnerabilities across South Asia, as well as in Nepal. For example, earthquakes of 6.8 on the Richter scale that hit the Valley in 2011 killed three people in the capital when the boundary wall of the British Embassy collapsed (NSET 2011). Recently, there have been a few 16-17 story apartment buildings registered for new construction. The government should ensure that all these buildings meet seismic oscillation codes of construction up to 9 on the Richter scale in order to ensure public safety. The 8.3 Richter scale earthquakes of April 25, 2015, killed almost 9000 people in Nepal. Many old structures including historic temples, the 150-ft.-tall Kathmandu Tower (Dharahara), and many private houses in the Kathmandu Valley and neighboring towns within a 250-km radius collapsed. Many lost their lives due to the lack of rescue operation.

In developed countries, public safety laws are formulated and enforced to prevent such incidences. For example, in November 1942, a major fire broke out in Coconut Grove Nightclub in Boston and killed 492 people. Subsequently, laws were developed and strictly implemented to prevent the losses of lives and ensure safety (Williams and Williams 2010) . However, in Nepal such incidences may be repeated several times because the existing structures are inaccessible by heavy-duty vehicles ( Fig. 4 .15b) and many of them are without proper exits. Emergency access to inner cities is difficult as land has been subdivided into smaller portions to accommodate many houses and maximize profits from limited spaces. Such divisions not only have further narrowed the width of roads, but also the population density has increased as high as 20,288 persons per sq. km. in the urban core of Kathmandu Metropolitan area. For example, it is 4551 person per sq. km. in Kirtipur municipality and in Bhaktapur municipality; it is 12,752 people per sq. km as compared to 154 per sq. km. in the rural areas (CBS 2011).

Although the population density of the city of Hong Kong as of 2010 stood at 6540 persons per square kilometer, and Kwun Tong has 54,530 persons per sq. km., buildings in Hong Kong are accessible by heavy-duty vehicles because of their rigorously planned spatial arrangements strictly following building codes. However, in Nepali cities, buildings are unevenly placed on small plots without road access, making effective mitigation efforts almost impossible to undertake. Although the recommended official plot sizes for the Kathmandu Valley for the construction of roads are similar to those for Latin American cities (plot size % 100 m 2 ), many houses in the Valley are built on plots as small as 15-45 sq. m, using poor quality materials that are often inadequate for the task as local substandard materials are used in construction. In Nepal's urban planning governmental domain, two main agencies the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction and the Ministry of Local Development are involved. Conflicts over urban planning regulations, practices, and building code oversights exist between these two agencies. The Ministry of Physical Planning and Works has plans and planners, while the Ministry of Local Development has the political authority, but has no direct ownership of the plans or the planning process. Such a lack of coordinated development has led to overlaps of institutional responsibilities between central and local authorities in the planning and delivery of infrastructure and services. As a result, there is continuous land filling with buildings, and no open spaces are left in many urban areas.

Building new houses on any available space and infilling in small open spaces has resulted in a significant decrease in urban areas' open space. The loss of open space and narrow roads has hindered vehicular accessibility to houses for emergency rescue operations. Given the valley's seismic vulnerability, planners in the valley recommend adopting a 40:60 ratio for built-up and non-built-up land by 2021 (Bhattarai and Conway 2010) . There are virtually no public parks in many cities of Nepal. Today, Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has less than 2 sq. km of public green space, including Ratna Park, Balaju Park, Tribhuvan Park, and Sankha Park. These parks are smaller in size and their locations make them less useful. Neighboring countries India and China are maintaining urban greenery despite high urban population and rapid rates of urbanization. Bangalore and Shanghai are emerging green cities (Plate 4.2).

In India, in the last decade, public awareness led to the establishment of the "Park & Garden Society," which is assimilated in urban planning. The "Park & Garden Society" makes it mandatory to maintain greenery in all new urban planning. Currently about 297 sq. km of Delhi is green, and it is estimated that in Delhi, 22 sq. m of green space is available to each individual on average. Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat, has 57% of its area for greenery. Similarly, Bangalore, the city of gardens, has more than 700 parks. Singapore has no water resource of its own, but buys water from Malaysia. It conserves almost all rainwaters and uses such water to develop "Bay Gardens." Singapore has been the greenest city (roads, terraces, roofs, and bay areas) of the world, which follows a maximum energy efficiency approach, reduced carbon emission, and preserved biodiversity. With ever-increasing population, the urban areas of Nepal are becoming one of the unhealthiest places to spend recreational time (Satyal 2013) . Open green space would contribute to improving the living in urban areas and to keep cities economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable. Unfortunately, many open spaces and city greenery have been lost. Recently, three government agencies-the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), Kathmandu Metropolitan Office (KMO), and the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conversation (MoFSC)-have come up jointly with plans to make the Kathmandu Valley a "green urban conurbation" (MyRepublica 2013a). These agencies have come up with specific plans for a building code that recommends standards for the front part of roadside buildings, for bringing about 24-hour cleaning services in the Valley, and for the planting of trees by the roadside and in open spaces. Valley denizens whose houses are located on the sides of major and minor roads should comply with the building codes developed by these three agencies. Nepal's environmental record promises more than it accomplishes and offers "empty promises" instead of concrete action, and many open areas are filled with wastes.

Tempted by the low pricing of rural lands and in their peripheries, and the resultant profitable investment in converting into residential use, urban areas are expanded onto agricultural land. Many houses are built in the backyard; new road grids are added next to original neighboring lanes, tracks, and minor roads. With the promulgation of a new constitution in 2015, however, many of the rural areas, which can meet the population thresholds to become municipalities, are brought under municipal classification. Such superficial practice of bringing any densely populated areas under municipal classification not only has increased the percentage of urban dwellers to over 65%, but many productive agricultural lands are converted into residential plots in an organic manner. Houses are built even on steep slopes and riverbanks. Also, each year the government has had to evacuate new or relatively In December 2009, Nepal's Central Bank tightened housing lending to the real estate sector to reign in speculative and unproductive investments. This action forced many financial institutions to reduce their real estate lending by 75%. All land developers were required to disclose their incomes for land or housing purchases, and capital gains taxes on realty transactions were strictly implemented (NRB 2009). These measures resulted in a slowdown of housing markets in 2010 (DLRM 2010), as banks became extremely reluctant to provide mortgage credit for home buyers and initiate the financing of new building projects (UN-Habitat 2008) . Since Nepal's urban expansion is also tied to remittances, the continuing global recession had negative impacts on land transactions. This is because it has forced many Nepalese migrants to return back home due to their unemployed status in foreign countries.

Back home, because of the annexation of many rural areas as per the constitution of 2015, many rural areas have been elevated into municipal status. However, these municipalities are without needed infrastructure. There has been a decrease in the public capital expenditure for the construction of municipal infrastructure. For example, per capita public capital expenditure available for infrastructure development was $13 in 2008, then it was reduced to $9 in 2010 (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) and is still going further down in many municipalities. Allocations of public capital expenditure are not uniform across municipalities; for example, in 2010, the public expenditure was $14 per capita in the Central Region (now Province 3), whereas in the same year it was $10 per capita for the Western Region (now Province 5). Public capital expenditure also does not match the populations of different provinces; for example, it is 14% for the Western Region (Province 5) where 17% of the population lives in urban areas, whereas it is 15% for the Eastern Region (Province 1), where 18% of the population lives in urban areas. In the Central Region, the capital expenditure share for urban areas is 58% where over 50% of the population lives in urban areas (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) ( Fig. 4.11 ).

Since the population density of the Mountain Region is low when compared to the Hill and Tarai regions, the per capita expenditure in the Mountain Region (in provinces 1, 3, 6, and 7) appears higher than for the Hill and Tarai zones. The distribution of capital expenditure across ecological zones (all provinces except for two) slightly favors the Hill zone, which accounts for 61% of the capital expenditure and 55% of the total urban population (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) . The bulk of centrally sponsored project-based schemes for physical infrastructure investment goes to the Central Region (Province 3). The share of physical infrastructure spending to the Central Region (Province 3) increased from 40% in fiscal 2008 to 75% in fiscal 2010 and is well above the Central Region's share of urban population (50%). There is an urban bias in favor of the Central Region because of the location of three main clusters of economic activities. These clusters include Birgunj (Parsa District), Jiling Devighat (Nuwakot District), and Panchkhal (Kabhrepalanchok District). Birgunj facilitates trade and commerce with India because of its location near the Indian border (Figs. 4.11 and 4.12) . Likewise, Jiling and Panchkhal are important because they facilitate trade and commerce with China. The government is funneling resources to develop these areas because Nepal has no option other than looking for an alternative to India, which may block trades and transits unilaterally as it wishes as it did in 1988 and 2015.

Before Nepal was federated in 2015, the infrastructure capital expenditure was not uniform across municipalities; for example, in 2010, infrastructure capital expenditure averaged at $14.00 per capita for the entirety of Nepal; however, for Biratnagar, it was $6.30 per capita, $7.90 for Birgunj, $9.20 for Lalitpur, and $6.80 for Pokhara. Higher per capita expenditures in some municipalities are driven partly by a more substantial presence of donor-financed, project-based investments. Indeed, the level of per capita expenditure for physical infrastructure projects was low in sub-metropolitan cities, where spending ranged from $0.50 to $1.00 per capita in fiscal 2010, considering the critical role sub-metropolitan cities might play in driving economic growth. Sectoral distribution of capital expenditures were also not uniform across municipalities, for example, the bulk of municipal infrastructure expenditure funded through central project-based schemes was allocated to municipal roads in Kathmandu and the sub-metropolitan cities. Likewise, solid waste management expenditure was mostly concentrated in Kathmandu, which accounted for 65% of total capital expenditure in 2008, whereas it accounted for 2% in the other municipalities. In some municipalities, the bulk of infrastructure expenditure funded through centrally sponsored project-based schemes was allocated to municipal roads, water, and sanitation. Capital expenditure for municipal water supply in the municipalities were declining over time, despite the growing needs (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) . These biased public capital expenditures on urban areas would escalate problems in other urban areas, while the problems of Kathmandu were unsolved. Neither the historic cities nor the newly developed urban areas were free of recurrent problems that were occurring from the very beginning due to the lack of systematic planning. The construction of irregular buildings in an unplanned manner had not only destroyed the natural beauties of cities but also encouraged many investors to put money on housing markets on an ad hoc basis. Many of these newly growing centers had developed into urban frontiers with sub-standard facilities.

After Nepal federated in 2015, the whole scenario had changed for each development region (now seven provinces). Each province has its own rules and regulations to collect taxes and allocate resources for various developments. Many provinces are aspiring to develop smart cities. Each local unit (municipalities, sub-metropolis, and metropolis) has authorities to gather local taxes and use such taxes for urban development. Resource constraints likely would not remain as a hurdle anymore; however, the spontaneous and unauthorized settlements have become real issues.

Though Nepal is federated and both provincial and local political units have their own rules and regulations, these political units would face daunting tasks to alleviate the ongoing urban spontaneous settlements that have increased over time. These spontaneous settlements have increased from 17% in 1985 to 40% in 2010 in the Kathmandu Valley. Countrywide, the percentages of spontaneous settlers is over 7% ( UN Habitat 2007) . In order to address the problems of squatter and related spontaneous urban settlements, the government has reviewed its National Shelter Policy of 1996 (UN-Habitat 2007) . The government made some plans to provide shelters for the poor or poorest urban residents with affordable housing. Since then, agencies like the Kirtipur Housing Project, the Asian Coalition for Community Action (ACCA) Program, and the Lumanti Support Group for Shelter have attempted to organize and regularize squatter settlements and upgraded them into acceptable, affordable housing settlements with the help of international donor organizations. The ACCA launched in February 2009 in Bharatpur, Chitwan, is one such project that has a success story. ACCA comprises of representatives from the squatter federation, the communities, the women's savings cooperative, and personnel from the municipality. It makes all decisions collectively and through democratic voting. Each squatter family is granted a loan at 5% interest rate up to a maximum of US $1250 to build a house with the commitment to pay back the loan in a 5-year period. Each house receives building materials and other facilities at a concessional rate from the government.

Depending upon the political affiliations of squatters and political parties in power, squatters have often received widely different treatments from city authorities. For example, in 2012, the Maoist government evicted hundreds of squatters from several spontaneous settlements of Kathmandu Valley and provided $200 as immediate relief per family after eviction for food and $70 as incidental expenses for shelters (The Guardian Weekly 2019). In the same year, squatters of a similar nature were evicted followed by legal actions against them. Yet, in some places, each evictee was given two options: (a) accepting a loan at low interest rate and building a house on a given land site or (b) accepting an already built house provided by the government (MyRepublica 2012). Standards set to permanently solve such spontaneous and unauthorized settlements were not consistent across the nation and across groups and regarding the timing of evictions, which invite legal and political problems. 3 Inconsistencies even continue today after the country federated with seven provinces, and each province is divided into local political units each having their own jurisdiction for handling legal cases and collecting taxes.

The Kathmandu Valley Town Development Authority (KVTDA) attempted to find permanent solutions of regularization and housing security for its squatters, but those involving relocation and community dissolution were doomed from the start. This was because of the grass-roots protests from local residents and the opposition political parties about plans to relocate the current occupants. For example, the effort to relocate squatters from Thapathali to Chobhar, Kirtipur, and Sundarighat under the Maoist-led government in March 2012 failed completely due to the trenchant opposition of the residents. Plans of the KVDTA and the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction also failed to construct new buildings on alternative sites due to opposition from non-ruling parties. On May 22, 2013, for the first time in the history of Nepal's urban planning, the Ministry of Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation prepared a first draft of the National Urban Poor Policy. Its goal was to reduce the incidence of urban poverty by providing training skills to the urban poor and enabling them for better employment opportunities with access to finances (Sharma 2013a, b, c) . This draft policy also lays out plans to assist the urban poor in organizing themselves into self-managed community structures by following the recommended building codes.

In 1993, erstwhile His Majesty's Government of Nepal (HMG/N) prepared a set of National Building Codes (NBCs) to ameliorate the effects of an earthquake on buildings, following well-known practices used by other countries elsewhere in other similarly intense seismic zones. Countries that have successfully implementing NBCs have been able to minimize damages from earthquakes; for example, when Chile was hit by an 8.8 Richter scale earthquake on March 2, 2010, seismographers and geodesists suspected that the earth's axis had shifted by 3" and the length of the day was shortened by 1.26 millionth of a second. Fortunately, the damages were minimal when compared to the earthquake's magnitude (Than 2010) . However, earthquakes of a similar magnitude that occurred in Sumatra, Indonesia, on nationals would get a citizenship certificate or would own land in Nepal. To be able to vote and to have property, one needs a formal citizenship certificate; this also guarantees legal access to basic services. In 2006, the existing Citizenship Act was amended to simplify procedures to obtain citizenship certificate. Though a few provisions were simplified to acquire a citizenship certificate, still the condition of landownership remains the main basis. Political parties need votes from squatter communities to capture municipal/local state power. The squatter communities need a good rapport building with the ruling party to get favors in various activities and to gain access to basic services such as drinking water, electricity, and sewage lines, among other contingent assurances. Because of these inherent relationships, cities in Nepal continue to be embroiled in unintended legal and social disputes (Limbu 2012). December 2004 also shortened the length of the day by 6.8 millionth of a second and caused massive losses of life and properties. Chile had enforced strict building codes, while Indonesia had not. On April 25, 2015, Nepal was hit by 8.3 Richter scale earthquakes, and over 9000 people lost their lives because many of them were buried in rubble or mud mortar houses that never followed any building codes.

In Nepal, in recent years, a large number of buildings have been hastily constructed without following the country's NBCs and are therefore likely to experience unprecedented physical and seismic damages from earthquakes. That was evidenced from the earthquakes of April 25, 2015. If the NBC would have been followed, it not only would have strengthened the buildings but also would have provided safety from fire hazards. Since the beginning of urbanization, implementation of building codes has not been very effective in Nepal due to unfair practices during the Panchayat raj . Even after the 1990s, building codes were not enforced due to repeated changes in the governments. The Maoist insurgency (1996) (1997) (1998) (1999) (2000) (2001) (2002) (2003) (2004) (2005) (2006) also affected the implementation of NBC. It was because during the insurgency period, local elections were not held for almost two decades , leaving cities without mayors. Towns were run by bureaucrats accountable only to their immediate bosses. Fire stations and other emergency services were/are poorly managed. In the absence of an elected representative, underpaid, transient civil servants had been unable to enforce building codes. In 2009, the UN, the Red Cross Movement, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank first came together to form an international consortium to bring awareness in Nepal about urban vulnerabilities. The governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia, as well as the European Commission, have also signed up to help the Government of Nepal. Today, the Nepal Risk Reduction Consortium represents an unprecedented international alignment of actors-developmental and humanitarian, government and nongovernmental-all working on a common plan with a shared sense of urgency and ambition.

In 2017, local level elections were conducted in the newly restructured local political units. Since then, the Nepali bureaucracy, for its part, is steadily getting more engaged and better organized, despite being selfish, and having self-serving political activities looming around the administrative process that often mars, delays, or undermines the strict implementation of the necessary rigorous building codes. It goes without saying that extremely firm building codes in housing standards are particularly essential for Nepal's urban built environment, because of the country's seismic vulnerability.

Scientists warned of high magnitude earthquakes of the magnitude of 8-8.5 in the Himalayas, especially in areas where their surface has yet to be broken by a tremor (PTI 2012) . This conclusion comes from the long-term research conducted at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore (Shah 2016) . Their study showed that in 1255 and 1934 great earthquakes ruptured the surface of the earth in the Himalayas. Since then, earthquakes of 6.00 on the Richter scale occurred in 1988, and another 8.3 on the Richter scale occurred in 2015. Additionally, though earthquakes occurred in the Himalayas in 1897, 1905, 1934, and 1950 , with their magnitudes between 7.8 and 8.9 on the Richter scale, none of them are known to have broken the earth's surface (EOS 2000 (EOS -2018 EOS 2016 EOS -2018 Hand 2015; PDNA 2015; Sapkota et al. 2016) . Literature suggests that the 1934 earthquake ruptured the surface, breaking the ground over a length of more than 150 km in the southern range of Mount Everest along the main fault in Nepal that currently marks the boundary between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates-also known as the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT) fault. Using radiocarbon dating of offset river sediments and collapsed hill-slope deposits, the researchers managed to separate several episodes of tectonic movement on this major fault and establish the dates of the two earthquakes to being about seven decades apart. These scientists have warned that given such possible catastrophes, building codes should be enforced without any political lingering to avoid unprecedented damages (EOS 2000 (EOS -2018 Hand 2015; Sapkota et al. 2016) .

Nepal Building Code (NBC) regulations suggest using certain appropriate standards while constructing new buildings in the country's cities. For example, the uniform load for residential buildings should bear at least 2.0-3.0 kilo-newton/m 2 (KN/m 2 ), for hotels it should be 2.0-4.0 KN/m 2 , and for educational buildings, it should be 3.0-5.0 KN/m 2 (Baidya 2013) . If a building constructed for one purpose is used for another use, or uses, that should be evaluated through investigative engineering to establish their capacity to sustain a different load. In addition to loadbearing capacity, buildings also should have unobstructed, unhindered access to exiting/or escape systems from each floor during emergencies. Properly and adequately designed and pre-engineered escape technologies and evacuation plans from taller buildings and large capacity buildings would provide ample time for escape during disasters such as earthquakes or fires. However, it has proven to be very difficult to maintain these standards in urban Nepal, because building plots were commonly developed by individuals' decisions, thereby ensuring that a mixed residential and commercial land use pattern evolved ( UN Habitat 2007 . Several periodic municipal land use plans have become out-of-date and innovative efforts to update them have been lacking. Such ad hoc plans have contributed to the whole-scale deterioration of the urban built environment, as well as making progressive and effective changes extremely difficult to bring about (Chreod 2012; Thapa and Murayama 2012; Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) .

Across Nepal, the pressures on existing urban infrastructure have continued to build, and currently Nepal's cities are unable to cope with the incessant demand for housing and adequate basic services such as water supply, power, garbage collection, and transportation access. Meanwhile land prices in the country's cities have soared to unprecedented heights. In times of political and economic uncertainty, migrant-donor remitters prefer to invest in land and housing rather than on industrial projects or start-ups (UN-Habitat 2008) . According to the Nepal Land and Housing Developers' Association (NLHDA), land prices have risen by 300% since 2003, while data from the Department of Land Reform and Management show that both land prices and land transactions in Nepal's cities almost doubled in 2009 as compared to 2008 (UN- Habitat 2008, 24) .

In some places, like in Kathmandu, Itahari, Butwal, Kohalpur, and many other newly emerging urbanizing areas (Figs. 4.10, 4.11, and 4.12) , land prices have gone up at precipitous rates as if they were in Hong Kong, New York, or London. Urban land prices have more than doubled during the 1995-2010 period, for example. In 1995, the price per square meter of land in Kathmandu was $124, and this had jumped to $228 in 2010 (CIUD 2010 cited in UN-Habitat 2007) . Land has become a preferred commodity to invest money for quick and profitable returns (NLHDA 2010) , and this is especially the case in selected commercial urbanized locations, where land prices have risen so steeply. One of the authors observed that in many central places of Kathmandu, land price per m 2 was as high as $500.

Looking at the cluster settlements of the Kathmandu Valley from Google Earth 2018, Kathmandu has been crammed without proper ventilation. Assuming 3-4 person per dwelling unit (room of 18-25 sq. m), almost 5 million people live in the Valley within an area of 265 sq. km. that includes the valley's five old urban centers and their peripheral areas. All areas have dusty arterial roads though many are blacktopped. Kathmandu Valley is losing its naturalness. Obviously, roads are compacted with heavy soils and gravels to make them motorable. Water does not percolate from these surfaces to recharge underground waters. Of the 265-km 2 urban surfaces, if only 60% is paved (that includes housing area, compound, approach road, and arterial roads), 160 km 2 will be impervious (Bhattarai 2015a, b) .

In general, Kathmandu receives an average total annual precipitation of 1343 mm (52.9 inches) for 53 days/year (May-September), equivalent to 1343 liters per sq. meters. Assuming 10 mm rainfall in a rainy day, one square meter area will receive 10 liters of rain, and this amount flows through the surface. With these rough estimates, Kathmandu urban areas will have to provide smooth outlets to 14,000,000 cubic meters of rainwater. The duration of drainage will vary based on how long the rain pours. This is a lot of water for the Kathmandu Valley to discharge. Flood events in Kathmandu (Dhobi Khola) and Bhaktapur (Hanumante Khola) in 2018 were due to the lack of enough outlets (Reporters Nepal.com. 2018; Setopati 2018; Aawaaj 2018) . Just to compare, Nepal's Koshi River has an average discharge of 2166 m 3 per second, while the Rhine River in Europe has 2200 m 3 per second. Many of the drainage areas in the Valley have been narrowed for road, settlements, and other purposes. If very high-intensity rainfall occurs in the Valley, there is a possibility that many houses built at the lower elevation will be affected and several roads will be clogged with floodwaters mixed with sewage. The filthy waters might invite cholera and other waterborne diseases (Bhattarai 2015a, b) .

It is high time for planners in Kathmandu to think seriously and link human activities with the physical environment. Current trends of territorial working styles where architects, city planners, ecologists, public health specialists, and environmental engineers work in isolation should be discontinued for sustainable urban development. Clearly, Nepal is missing the sustainable technology component and working together with various agencies. A new belt road encircling 265 km 2 of urbanized area and linking it with arterial roads with strict timetable for public transportation (discussed later in this chapter) and heavy taxes on private vehicles based on their ages might ease Kathmandu's pollution problems.

Erstwhile Prime Minister, Dr. Baburam Bhattarai in 2012, brought a bulldozer architecture technology to Kathmandu. He courageously took steps to demolish many houses that were built without following set guidelines in the seismically sensitive Kathmandu Valley. The government poured billions of rupees, as compensation. Security personnel and social workers argue that if this action was not taken courageously and many of the Kathmandu's roads were not widened by demolishing the substandard building, the casualties from the earthquakes of April 25, 2015, would have been much higher. Amid such services there are also complaints that the compensation distributed to people whose houses were demolished was inadequate and unfair. Nonetheless, former PM Bhattarai's actions cannot be undermined as it provided accesses to inner dwelling units which otherwise had no means to evacuate when earthquakes similar to April 25, 2015, occur again. Road expansion claims to have followed the urban transportation standard proposed in 2007 for the valley to connect arterial roads with the highways and ring roads while leaving aside some areas on the right of way. Roads like Jorpati-Sankhu, Tripureshwor-Kalanki-Nagdhunga, Lazimpat-Maharajgunj, Dillibazar-Baluwatar, Tinkune-Baneshwar-Maitighar, Kalimati-Balkhu-Kuleshwor, Kamalpokhari-Ratopul-Gaushala, Maharajgunj-Budhanilkantha, and Naxal-Mitrapark, along with other small residential roads, were expanded along with the upgrading of Kalanki-Satdobato-Koteshwor-Bhaktapur into 6-8 lanes. During this expansion, many traditional artifacts were destroyed.

Sidewalks are merged into main roads to widen road, but this has increased road accidents. The 2015/2016 records show 40% of the fatal traffic accidental deaths were among the pedestrians. With the widening of roads, additional vehicles were added to the road. The transportation syndicate system (TSS) influenced the government's actions. TSS added additional vehicles, and old vehicles were allowed to ply (under political duress) on crammed roads with less care to public health. Adding new vehicles and permitting old vehicles to operate have been causing environmental destructions on a scale that had never happened in earlier stages of human history. Almost 350 km of roads were widened in the Valley; however, not all the roads have been blacktopped. Dusts coming from these un-blacktopped roads have left beautiful Kathmandu as Dustmandu (dusty environment). The successive governments labeled the bulldozer architectural technology as a trouble creator. 4 The problems were that though road expansions have facilitated commuters to operate additional vehicles, especially to nobilities, the tiny particulates emitted from these activities are very harmful and are not even filterable from ordinary filters (respirators or masks). The use of cotton and ordinary masks has been unsuccessful at protecting from the small particulates that easily penetrate into our bloodstreams. These particles are causing unimaginable complicated lung diseases.

According to the BBC Nepali Service (Dec 25, 2016), over 9000 people die in Nepal each year, mainly in the Kathmandu Valley, because of environmental-related diseases. Kathmandu's inner areas are rarely paved, and these pervasive dusty roads mask various objects with tiny particulates. Main roads have huge potholes that generate dusty clouds as vehicles move during dry seasons and throw filthy waters during rains. Even though the concept of biophilia and a green living environment has been deeply conceived by households, no plant's leaves, even in private compounds, are free from dust particles. Dust particles block leaves' stomata and retard plants' photosynthesis activities, making the urban environment poorly oxygenated.

Walking during the morning hours in the bowel-shaped Valley is very risky because of the over concentration of aerosols. The majority of the regular morning walkers have been suffering from various respiratory ailments. Because of the increasing pollution, today, Kathmanduites walk less, consume industrially synthesized transfats, live a sedentary lifestyle to be safe from haphazard traffic, and thus deprive themselves from needed vitamins and other calorie intakes.

The result has been that Kathmandu is becoming the second most polluted city in South Asia after New Delhi, a microcosm of global epidemic of obesity, cardiovascular disease, and adult-onset diabetes-the devastating lifestyle disease of the modern urban age. Kathmanduites are likely to be learning how to survive in the changing environment, but a time lag could impose unnecessary suffering. Though these sufferings have been helping to flourish the medical businesses, it will, definitely, be a huge burden on the health costs of the government.

Published records show the concentration of PM 2.5 particulates in the ambient air of Kathmandu ranging from 51.2 to 500 μg/m 3 , based on traffic times and vehicle types, which is far higher than the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, 25 μg/m 3 , for normal breathing. Air pollution is a scourge not only for Kathmandu Valley, but also in many South Asian countries. Climate change affected over 7.5 million lives in 2012 in South Asia (Bhattarai 2015a, b) . Particulates originating from solid fuel, diesel, and lead gas-operated old vehicles and generators, are used to alleviate load shedding. However, they generate smaller sized particulates. These particulates mix-up with dust particles and pollute the urban environment. In the recent years, more energy is produced from hydropower and solar batteries. Also, energy is imported from India. These efforts have helped to alleviate loadshedding in Nepal. These actions have alleviated load shading in Nepal. Yet, the pollution from particulates and vehicular emissions is too high in the bowl-shaped Kathmandu Valley. Recent lockdown due to Covid-19 pandemic has contributed to the decrease in vehicular pollution. This is not a permanent solution however.

The Panchayat and succeeding governments were not serious about the Physical Development Plan of Kathmandu 1969 and the Long Term Development Concept of 2002. Rather, they repeatedly misused the term of sustainable development while expanding the Kathmandu metropolitan area and its peripheries to improve the living conditions of urban dwellers. Already hibernated urban plans became non-existent after the Maoists exerted terror politics in the countryside to consolidate people in urban centers to make its 1996-2005 insurgency a success. At that time, Kathmandu's population swelled up without control, and there are no records of how many people were added to the Kathmandu's population, but any observers can conclude that every open space of the valley was filled with floating population. The well-to-do families, especially those whose family members are working in foreign countries, propelled remitted dollars. The remittance-propelled economy changed the living standard of the valley among the well-to-do families. Remittance economy also contributed to the unregulated construction making Nepali urban areas very vulnerable. The management of waste is another challenge in Nepal's urban areas.

The organic growth of urban in Nepal has challenged long-standing traditions of solid waste management. Historical evidence reveals important philosophical aspects of urban waste management from a hygienic prospective. Hygiene laws espoused by Kautilya's Arthasastra (1915) prohibited throwing solid waste such as dirt or dead bodies onto the streets and urinating or defecating in public spaces (Kautilya 1995) . Since its inception, there were rules to keep the city of Kathmandu clean when social codes were more firmly implemented than they are currently. The untouchable caste Pode or Chyame were hired to collect wastes from every household using primitive tools such as buffalo ribs to load waste into shoulder baskets (Kharpan) and carry them away (Tuladhar 1996) , and population was low. The waste that was collected was then dumped on nearby riverbanks to be swept away when the water level would rise during the monsoon season. Prior to 1950, all households in Nepal's cities managed their wastes with minimum problems as most of the organic waste was convertible into manure (Tuladhar 1996 ). An interior manure pile/"pit" known as saaga in Newar households used to produce fertilizer from families' organic waste. Three to four times a year, this rich fertilizer was spread drained onto the families' adjacent agricultural plot. Unfortunately, increases in inorganic content of this type of solid waste made the finished fertilizer from the saagas no longer suitable for agricultural use. Their use also fell out of favor as greater sensitivity developed towards sanitation, and household treatment of their solid waste was deemed inappropriate by municipal authorities.

Over time, traditional methods of waste handling came to be inadequate, inappropriate, and ineffective to cope with the growing and diversified problems of solid waste management that resulted from rapid urban population growth. Rapid and unplanned urbanization and increases in industrial and commercial activities-in the name of "development" (Spreen et al. 1992 ) generated unacceptable amounts of inorganic waste. Moreover, the advent of the Green Revolution in Asia also affected Nepal by introducing a dependency in agriculture on subsidized chemical fertilizers and pesticides that were invariably imported and overlie expensive. The Green Revolution ultimately ended the dominant practice of using local manure in family fields (Kathmandu Municipality 1994) . Although some traditional practices are coming back slowly after several environmental consequences have been noticed from the use of commercial fertilizers, many anthropogenic activities are harming contemporary environments.

The increase in population and economic growth brought changes in consumption patterns and an increase for throughputs per capita. These developments made solid waste management essential at a larger scale because the amount of solid waste has inherent relationships with economic growth and the capacity for undertaking pollution abatement measures. The dilemma is that if urban growth is restricted, poverty alleviation and economic growth becomes hindered, whereas if urban development continues, waste abounds. On the positive side, concentrated settlements in cities reduce land pressure through "agglomeration economies" and provide economies of scale. Thus, urbanization becomes essential for agglomerated economic growth, but an increase in throughputs becomes a nuisance for environmental conservation and sustainability (Shukla and Parikh 1992) . For developing countries like Nepal, urban growth becomes essential for poverty alleviation. However, with the improvement in economic conditions, the amount of throughputs also increase and waste management becomes a serious challenge.

Waste management started becoming a serious concern in the 1970s in the urban areas of Nepal. The erstwhile His Majesty's Government of Nepal (HMG/N) approached German Technical Assistance (GTZ). The GTZ established the Solid Waste Management Project in 1981 under the Ministry of Work and Transport, and this overseas development agency worked in coordination with the municipality at the local level (Tuladhar 2004 (Ackermans 1991) . It started distributing 20 cubic yard communal dumpsters to every household to serve approximately 500,000 families in the valley. These dumpsters were emptied mechanically by German-built dump trucks. Despite the use of dumpsters with a slogan of "Clean, Green and Healthy City," much of the waste was left at the base (outside) of the dumpsters. This participatory program identified five major hurdles in making such a sanitation program a success. These included the lack of (a) adequate centralized waste containers; (b) regular and timely container pickup; (c) adequate knowledge about the negative health effects of mismanaged wastes; (d) clean surroundings of dumpsters; and (e) an understanding of the direct costs associated with improper waste disposal (Upadhyaya 1992) .

As waste management became more and more complicated and difficult to manage, in 1999, the Government of Nepal requested the help of the government of Japan to formulate a master plan for the waste management of the Kathmandu Valley aiming to make it a model for a countrywide implementation of a waste management plan (Shahi 2003) . Since then several international agencies have also provided support to Nepal for waste management (ADB 2013). Each municipality started paying 20-25% of their total annual budgets to dispose garbage (DSWM 1998; Flinthoff 1970; KMC 2005 , Tabasaran 1976 Tabasaran et al. 1981) . Nowadays, some municipalities pay 17-20% of the total municipal incomes in solid waste management. In principle, each municipality has promised to follow the principle of 3R (waste reduction, reuse, and recycle); however, the results have been just opposite of 3R where throughputs have increased disproportionately (a few wealthy communities generating more throughputs while low-income people generating very little wastes) with developments.

Over time, the amount of solid waste generation in the Kathmandu Valley increased dramatically. For example, the average amount of waste generated in 1978 was 0.25 kg per person per day, in the 1980s, this number increased to about 0.40 kg, by 1990 (Spreen et al. 1992) , and it increased again to 0.57 kg in 1994 (Dangi et al. 2011; Islam and Majumder 2011) , and in 2018, it was almost 0.875 kg per person (self-observation). Contributing to the problem further, changes in "modern, Western" food processing and packaging technology (much of it imported mainly from India and other countries) have increased the use of plastic, tin, metal, and paper (Ackermans 1991) . Richardson (1978) observed that generally a household generates 0.29 kg (kitchen waste!0.24, packing waste!0.02, plastic !0.01, paper! 0.01, and other waste!0.01) of wastes at one time. The Bhaktapur Municipality (2008) estimates the per capita waste generation is at 0.25-0.39 kg/person/ day. Of the waste generated, 75% is organic or biodegradable, 2.25% paper, 3% textiles, 3.4% plastic, 0.3% metal, 1.05% glass, 11.0% construction debris and 4.0% other materials. Ojha (2012) estimates that a person in a hospital, business, hotel, restaurant, government and nongovernment offices and schools produces around 2 kg of garbage per day. The Kathmandu Metropolitan city generates about 450 tons of trash each day (Sharma 2013a, b, c) , of which metropolis collects only 300 tons, and the private sector collects around 100 tons. Lalitpur Sub-metropolitan (now metropolis) City generates 75 tons of solid waste daily of which only 42 tons of garbage is collected each day. The remaining 15 tons are being managed at individual levels. Of the 29 tons of solid waste generated daily in Bhaktapur, only 25 tons of the waste is collected through both municipality and private agencies. Muzzini and Aparicio (2013) put the wastes generation in the valley at 1000 tons per day of which about 900 tons per day is collected by public and private sectors.

Among the waste generated in the urban areas of Kathmandu, 0.1-1.0% is considered hazardous, ignitable, corrosive, reactive, or toxic and threats to the public. Though such waste is small in percentage, this hazardous waste significantly affects the environment, and thus, it requires separate treatment from its origin (Ojha 2012) . Approximately, 1.72 kg per of hazardous waste is generated from each hospital bed in the capital city and about a kilogram in other cities every day. Hazardous wastes need to follow stringent regulatory control. These controls can cover all aspects of waste generation, from collection, handling, recycling, and reuse to storage and final disposal. The most environmentally sound disposal of hazardous waste is its destruction and conversion into non-hazardous substances, but in many cases it may be expensive.

The 4526 health institutions, 332 private hospitals and nursing homes, 18 medical colleges, 9 dental hospitals, and 4 academic dental institutions in Nepal together generate a lot of waste. A total of one ton of waste is generated each day from all the hospitals in the Kathmandu Valley. The government issues repeated warnings to hospitals to set up waste treatment plants according to the existing laws, with limited success and little oversight to enforce change after such warnings. There are no guidelines or regulatory bodies to monitor the waste management of health institutions, though the parliament has approved a bill on the Solid Waste Management Act of 2011 that provisions a fine of $5-$10,000 (Rs 500-100,000) and a jail sentence of 15-180 days for violating the waste law, depending on the nature of crime. However, these rules have been defunct due to political interferences. Hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes seldom manage their several hazardous wastes (Ojha 2012) . These hospitals and household wastes are often mixed up with municipal wastes and are disposed at the same landfill site. With an integrated waste management approach, Biratnagar is slowly bringing improvement in the disposal of hospital wastes, but it is also facing problems in managing hazardous household wastes. Biratnagar produces approximately a ton of hazardous waste daily; at this point, most of this waste is dumped along with other wastes (Ojha 2012) .

In some places, hospital wastes are thrown into open areas. Except for a few hospitals that do have their own incineration facilities, health-care waste is commonly mixed with municipal waste, creating a very high risk of health hazards and epidemics. Over 3/4 of the hospitals in the country do not practice the safe disposal of health-care waste such as used syringes, bandages, body parts, and diagnostic samples. According to the Environment Act 1997, an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) clearance is needed to open a hospital, but 90.32% of hospitals in Nepal do not have such clearances and operate without any environmentally sound waste treatment plants. Only 22% of hospitals have conducted an EIA. As a result, many harmful wastes are dumped near water resources, which often pollute groundwaters.

The country's Ministry of Urban Development (2012) revealed that only 25-45% of the households across Nepal have regular garbage collection. Generally speaking, the waste management of any city is rated based on its sewage system, community mobilization in sanitation, environment-friendly infrastructure, amount of tree or forest cover, and private public partnership on environment sanitation (HNS 2013). Based on these criteria, on June 2013, Pokhara sub-metropolis (now metropolis) was declared as the cleanest, and Dharan sub-metropolis (now metropolis) and Tansen municipality (now sub-metropolis) were declared as the second and third cleanest cities in Nepal. More than 2/3 of the municipalities suffer from the lack of equipment, technical manpower, and capacity buildings for waste management, and almost 50% of the municipalities have insufficient budgets allocated for solid waste and drainage management (Ministry of Local Development 2008). Because of the shortage of resources, many wastes are dumped in nearby empty spaces or holes, mostly near streams and depressions. Technically, volumes of wastes could be reduced using incineration; however, many incineration practices are uncontrolled and often lead to severe environmental and health problems. Controlled incineration requires expensive technology that is difficult to maintain. The lack of incineration and waste treatment facilities has long-term impacts on watershed management.

There is a mismanagement of city waste. Both solid and fluid wastes pollute both ground and underground waters. For example, the Bagmati river originating from the Shivapuri Hills of the Kathmandu Valley forms a natural boundary between the Kathmandu and the Lalitpur districts and urban areas. The Upper Bagmati Basin covers a 600-km 2 area that includes the drainage of the Bagmati and Bishnumati Rivers. The two rivers converge in the heart of the city at Teku Dovan, a temple complex that marks the mythological point of origin of Kathmandu. Both Bagmati and Bishnumati are rain-and spring-fed rather than snow-fed. Since the Kathmandu Valley becomes the watershed of these two rivers, unmanaged wastes in the valley not only pollute nearby water resources, but also impact geohydrology/groundwater, limnology/surface water, and the ecological society (Nilsson and Hult 1990; Hogland 1989) . Overtime, the quantity of water in these rivers has decreased significantly limiting their capacities to accommodate wastes. Many construction activities along the riverbanks have made several morphological modifications to rivers' courses. These rivers' courses look very artificial, and they are heavily polluted. As a result, these holy rivers have lost their pristine and highly valued cultural and religious identities. Many tourist attraction locales have been turned into dumping sites for urban waste. The untreated city's sewage drains directly into the rivers and poisons the aquatic life (Plate 4.3) . The lack of a rigorous regulatory environment has made the banks of these rivers into open sewers and garbage dumping sites for both industrial and solid waste from private households (Plate 4.4a-i). The resulting pollution of these rivers has generated many waterborne diseases. And, unfortunately the High Powered Committee for the Integrated Development of the Bagmati Civilization (HPCIDBC) constituted in 1995, to develop a plan for improving the quality of water in the river system through priority investments in sewer lines and treatment plants, has been very ineffective. 

In the Kathmandu Valley, air pollution has been a severe problem due to increasing throughputs and emission from the growing number of old, lead gas-operated, motor vehicles and two-stroke engine motorbikes. Industrial activities also are adding more pollution into the already polluted environment. The vehicular carbon emission in the Kathmandu Valley has increased from 57.64 to 117.12 million metric tons in a day. This emission has further increased with the registration of 64,010 vehicles in 2011 that includes 53,960 motorcycles and 6692 cars, jeeps, and vans (DoT 2011). Almost the same number of vehicles was registered in 2012 and 2013 (THT 2013). Statistics show that in the past 10 years, the number of motorized vehicles in Kathmandu has increased fourfold. Of all the vehicles in Kathmandu, 75% are motorbikes; 20% are cars, vans, and jeeps; and 5% are other public transport and heavy vehicles. The addition of vehicles to the Kathmandu Valley each year would increase pollution further. Added to this plethora of motor-related problems is the overall poor condition of the roads, which contributes to an excess of dust particles in the air of this bowel-shaped valley.

The zero-emission three-wheelers introduced in the Kathmandu Valley in the early 1990s helped to decrease environmental pollution from 6.6% in 1991 to 1.5% in 2010. However, the burning of biomass such as firewood and agricultural wastes due to unavailability of natural gas and electricity for cooking and heating has further polluted the Valley's atmospheric environment (JICA 2012). Additionally, new coal-and-fuelwood using brick kilns without the uses of electrostatic precipitators have added more emissions of particulates into the atmosphere. Undoubtedly, the polluted air has been one of the major causes of increases in public health hazards, specifically the major increases in respiratory illnesses in the Kathmandu Valley in recent years (WHO 2017a, b, c, d) .

Many suspended air particles less than 10 microns in volume become the major cause of respiratory illnesses such as bronchitis, asthma, and other pulmonary diseases. These tiny particles can easily penetrate into the respiratory tract. Poor air quality due to the burning of wood for fuel, high carbon monoxide, and sulfur dioxide levels from automobile exhaust in almost all the cities in general and Kathmandu Valley in particular has caused several health problems. In 2011, the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University in the United States, the Center for International Earth Science Information Network and Columbia University, listed Nepal in the third from the last position among 132 countries, scoring 18 out of 100 points in the rank of clean air. Such emissions carry high concentrations of particulate matter (PM) of less than 10 and 2.5 micrometers (μm) in diameter. These tiny particles travel easily through the respiratory system, causing adverse effects on health. Particulates of PM 10 and smaller often cause allergies, coughing, wheezing, and irritation of mucous membranes, while PM 2.5 can get trapped in the lungs and result in lung disease (Manandhar 2012 ) making the elderly, infants, and people with respiratory diseases more vulnerable to such particulates. World Health Organization (WHO), "Air Quality Guidelines," suggests that particulate matter should be reduced to 70-20 micrograms per cubic meter, while Nepal has not been able to maintain even the national standard of 120 micrograms per cubic meters, forgetting about the international standard.

An international air quality index recently ranked Nepal the third worst performer in maintaining air quality. Similarly, data released by the Ministry of Environment (MoE) in 2013 on air pollution revealed that in some parts of Kathmandu, such as Putalisadak, pollution has increased 300 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m 3 ) of air up from 120 μg/m 3 in 2008. MoE further revealed that PM10 at Thamel is 200 μg/ m 3 , and at Bhaktapur it is 150 μg/m 3 . The PM10 at these places were far beyond the national air quality standard of 120 μg/m 3 ; however, in the rural hinterlands, it is only 70 μg/m 3 (Koirala 2013a, b) . It is reported that vehicular emission contributes to 60% of the total PM 10 level in Kathmandu, followed by re-suspension dust contributing to 30% and brick industries contributing the rest. The increasing level of harmful matters in the atmosphere has raised concerns over the health of Kathmandu urban dwellers. Carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matters are known to cause chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma. Statistics show that in Kathmandu, 900 people per million die each year because of air pollution (MyRepublica 2013a, b, c).

Vehicular and methane gas emission coupled with global climate change has already contributed to the increase in Kathmandu's temperature (Mahata et al. 2017) by 0.05 C per year (Fig. 4.14) . The number of fewer cold days and nights is increasing with frequent hot days and nights increasing. Changes in the phenology of marigold, rhododendron, phlox, aster, pansy, zinnia, and salvia with early flowering have been observed (Baidya 2007) increasing the chances of pollution from pollens. All these environmental factors are increasing the incidences of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), for example, 51 patients in 2005 , 96 in 2006 , and 376 in 2011 (Manandhar 2012 . The deposition of heavy materials on poorly drained areas is causing other health problems in city areas.

Many parts of the urban areas of the Kathmandu Valley suffer regularly from the pungent smell of methane gas these days, so that its constant presence or everpresent threat has added to the woes of cleaning Nepal's city environments (Friedrich and Trois 2011). For example, in 1994, a temple in Basantapur Kathmandu caught fire due to a stray cigarette butt that ignited the methane gas produced from decomposing garbage dumped nearby (The Himalayan 2009). Also, the proliferation of unmanaged municipal solid waste (MSW) often produces pungent smells making the everyday urban environment not only unhealthy but noxious.

Though municipal solid waste management is limited to small areas, its management could have global environmental implications. For example, CH 4 emitted from waste has been one of the major greenhouse gases and has a much higher greenhouse effect than CO 2 . Yu et al. (1997) reported that the estimated amount of CH 4 emission from landfills worldwide accounts for 18% of total CH 4 emissions, and in Nepal, it contributes to about 20%. Luo et al. (2009) from his study of the Beijing food chain observed the flow of carbon in a V-shaped manner over the last 30 years. They observed a sharp decrease in food carbon consumption per capita until the early 1990s, followed by a sharp increase after that. The increase in carbon consumption is due to a decrease in carbohydrate uptake but an increase in meat consumption. In Nepal too, the consumption of meat per capita has increased. This increase in meat consumption must have increased the chance of CO 2 emission due to an increase of municipal solid waste amount. With the increase in carbon content of municipal solid waste, C emission rises gradually through sanitary landfill and incineration. The proportion of C from CH 4 and CO 2 increases with the increase in urban throughputs in sanitary landfill and incineration. Xiao et al. (2006) argue that applying incineration technology will increase CO 2 emission, but decreases CH 4 emission. In Nepal, however, there are not many incineration facilities; therefore, with the increase of urban population and changes in their dietary habits, the amount of CH 4 might have increased.

Rapid economic and population growth has caused a tremendous increase of solid waste generation, for which GDP is the strongest explanatory factor among the three factors, GDP, per capita income, and population (Chap. 2). Since the 1990s, the proportion of organic and recyclable substances and the calorific value contents in the municipal solid waste has increased. This increase also accumulates more carbon content in municipal solid waste. As a result, of the increase in carbon contents, the amount of CH 4 must have increased significantly in the landfills and waste dumping sites.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, developing countries are not obligated to reduce GHG emissions; however many voluntary and carbon-market driven initiatives (CDM approach) in this direction are worth acknowledging (ISWA 2019). The CDM approach has become pertinent because of the increasing temperature in the Kathmandu Valley (Sujata and Thapa 2014) , along with the remarkable growth of the Valley's population in the last five decades (CBS 1995 (CBS , 2010 . Recently, in the South Indian city of Bangalore, the Bangalore Political Action Committee (BPAC) was formed to serve as a pressure group to manage garbage that the government could not collect from the city (Murthy and Mazumdar 2013). In our view, a similar approach is definitely needed in Nepal to minimize the urban wastes, where methane gas along with vehicular emissions is contributing to serious gaseous pollution in Nepal's rapidly growing urban areas.

Many urban dwellers suffer from poor drainage systems. In many urban areas of Nepal, drainage systems are poorly designed. After heavy rain, almost all the roads in urban areas are flooded with muddy and sewer waters. Various urban areas in the mid-hills along the highways suffer from mud landslides. Along the Hulaki Rajmarga in the Tarai Region, urban areas suffer from poor drainage, where waters remain stagnant on the road for many days making life in the surrounding areas very uncomfortable as the sewer water dries up. The importance of drainage had never felt so urgent for Kathmandu before torrential rains at a rate of 125 mm in 3 hours occurred in June 2013. This downpour almost surpassed the capacity of every drainage outlet, and the city came to a standstill for almost 2 days (Bhattarai 2015a, b; MyRepublica 2013a, b, c) . This is a symptom of unplanned urban growth, and the same sort of problems will remain in years ahead. Nepal's municipal governments lack funds to repair their drainage systems, yet many international agencies refuse to support urban programs that address such issues as repairing or updating basic infrastructures of Nepal's cities. There appears to be not much hope for outside help coming to Nepal over their urban built environment and pollution toxic-mix of problems (Satterthwaite et al. 2007a, b) . For decades, sanitation has been the lowest priority of the national government as well as of the country's local government bodies, so there are few resources set aside for it. Most drains are designed for storm water, but eventually turn into sewerage plus drain water that ultimately pollute nearby rivers or streams (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) . Many drains are poorly engineered and frequently clog and malfunction repeatedly. There is a long-standing conflict over who in the country or cities should look after these urban drainage systems and keep them working effectively. For example, the Nepal Water Supply Act of 1989 states that it is the duty of the Nepal Water Supply Corporation to manage waste and storm waters, but the Local Self Governance Act of 1999 puts such responsibility on the respective municipalities. However, the Nepal Urban Water Supply and Sanitation Policy (2009) recommend that environmental sanitation should be an integral component of "Urban Master Plans" and that it should be listed as part of the country's National Urban Policy (2007). The National Urban Policy (2007) suggests addressing the provisions and management of wastewater and solid wastes at the household, commercial facility, and institutional levels, but it does not go as far as recommending efficient toilet-disposal management.

About 37% of the urban dwellers use municipal drains for discharging wastewater whereas 47% have their own separate septic tanks and a few others have ancient, traditional pits (CBS 2013). In Tarai towns waste water management is more challenging because of the region's flat surface, its tropical climate, and shallow water tables. As a result, cities in the Tarai Region have open drains on both sides of roads, and municipal sweepers need to remove the sludge from them every day while collecting solid waste. Not surprisingly, this has become one of the major sources of waterborne diseases in the Tarai Region.

Inadequate sanitation in nearly all, if not most, urban areas has become a serious challenge both for city livability and for sustainable local economic development. Today, over 40% of urban residents still lack access to adequate sanitation systems. This is much lower even by the South Asian Standard (NLSS 2011). For example, in India, 54% of urban dwellers have access to sanitary shared toilets, 55% in Bangladesh, 72% in Pakistan, and 88% in Sri Lanka. Recently, Kathmandu Valley has started sewerage facilities, but these facilities drain human wastes into nearby rivers and streams without processing wastes (Plate 4.3).

Poor sanitation facilities have led to waterborne epidemics that have affected the poor and marginalized people. Uncontrolled sprawls over the years without needed facilities have further deteriorated the environment of urban areas in Nepal. In many urban hamlets, sewage is often discharged directly into rivers. Individual septic tanks are poorly maintained. Many harmful products including leach pits and septic tanks are contributing to pollutants to limnology and hydrology, thus increasing the chances of waterborne diseases. When many households pump underground water to substitute the piped water supplies, waterborne disease become an epidemic. In addition to waterborne disease becoming as epidemic, excessive groundwater extraction in the Kathmandu Valley has produced remarkable land subsidence and has worsen the impacts of flooding. The alignment of sewage and drinking water pipes side-by-side and in many places entangling with each other has increased the possibilities of mixing their contents. Drainage systems in many cities have been so bad that every street is flooded even with low intensity rainfall. Some of the municipalities have taken concrete steps to build toilets in every house. For example, since June 2013, Ilam municipality has decided not to issue a recommendation letter for a citizenship certificate to households that do not have toilet facilities at home (Chapagain 2013). However, when the entire city lacks proper drainage and regular water supply, household toilets alone would not do much to ameliorate the environment.

There is a shortage of water to meet the needs of the increasing population in urban areas in general and Kathmandu Valley's urban areas in particular. Historically, the Kathmandu Valley used to get drinking water from water canals (Rajkulos), wells, and stone spouts (hitis). Hitis are sunken courtyards, usually surrounded by a wall with one or more decorative stone spouts through which water flows continuously. In earlier times, these aquifers were continuously recharged by the construction of ponds nearby, and those ponds were often fed by water from faraway sources either naturally or through canals (Rajkulos). In some places a few hitis are abandoned by many upper castes because these hitis were used by lower caste (Pode) though these springs still sustain good amounts of water. For example, a historic stone waterspout at Sithu Wasah (trans "low caste") hiti in Patan of Lalitpur District, which flows 24 hours a day, stands virtually useless despite water scarcity in the neighborhood.

Due to deep-rooted stigma, people of other communities hesitate to use water from the spout and water is considered impure because lower caste communities who live nearby also use the spout.

In 2005, the NGO Forum for Urban Water and Sanitation carried out a survey and mapping of traditional stone spouts in the five urban areas of the valley. The study found 389 hitis, but only about half were in good working conditions. In total, the stone spouts are supplying about 3 million liters of water per day in the dry seasons and 8 million liters in wet seasons to many communities (UN Habitat 2008) . These communities though use such natural sources for drinking; it would be safer to disinfect such waters because of possible bacterial contamination. The stone spout water sources of the Kathmandu Valley are unique because they not only demonstrate human ingenuity in harnessing subsurface flows but also provide an example of outstanding social accomplishment in the form of community collaboration and represent important historic and cultural significance (NGFUWS 2007; UNESCO 2006 ) before a piped water system was introduced. A piped water system was introduced in Kathmandu in 1895 during the Rana regime (UN-Habitat 2008) . Over time, piped network coverage increased, for example, 65% of households had piped water in 2001, and this increased to over 92% in 2010 (WSHRCNN 2019). Almost 85% of the households have an individual connection to piped water, while 7% have to rely on community taps to access water in the Kathmandu Valley (CIUD 2008). The percentage of households with piped water in the urban areas of Nepal is higher than in Bangladesh (85%) and closer to India (96%) and Pakistan (95%); however, many of the pipes do not have regular water supplies. Even if water is available, water quality is poor; it is treated only with chlorine. Today, only 20% of the valley's households receive water reliably.

For the Kathmandu Valley, estimation for daily water requirements and supplies varies. For example, Bhusal (2011) estimates the daily demand for water to be around 220 million liters, and the supply is less than 100 million liters. Paudel (2012a) citing Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL) states that the daily demand for water is 330 million, but the supply is only 80 million liters. Rawal (2013a) and Sunar (2013) argue that currently the valley needs 370 MLD (million liters per day) of water, but the KUKL can supply only 149.62 MLD during the rainy season and 94 MLD during the dry season. Remaining waters come from dug wells, tube wells, and traditional stone spouts from shallow groundwater, rainwater, and tanker water (water from the vendors obtained typically from deep aquifers). Among the various options, shallow groundwater for accessible areas and tanker water for inaccessible areas are a second priority for households after piped water supply services (Ojha et al. 2018; Yoden and Chettry 2010; Shrestha et al. 2016) . A person barely receives 50 liters of water per day in several municipalities in the Valley. Although KUKL has taken initiative to improve water services, still it is assumed that 30-50% of water is lost in transit due to leakage from old, rusty, and broken pipes. In many places, low-density pipes used for water supply burst due to changes in weather and water pressures. To alleviate this problem, KUKL aims to lay 700 km of pipe network in the Valley. The KUKL however faces technical and political hurdles to achieve this goal, and its plans have been fairy tales most of the time. In many instances, when blacktop is done on a certain section of the road in Kathmandu, excavation starts on the same road because KUKL needs to replace or put pipes for drinking water or sewers (sewer and drinking water pipes run parallel in Kathmandu). Sometimes when KUKL puts water pipes, the road department needs to take off those pipes to blacktop the roads, similarly with utilities. The coordination among the road department, drinking water supplies especially the KUKL, Nepal electricity authorities, and Nepal telecommunication services have been very poor from the very beginning. No matter who is on the government, these trends remain unchanged. Because of these trends, the goals have been rarely achieved on time. And, because of the poor coordination among different service providing offices, drinking water supply papers are often bent, broken, or disconnected. Sometimes sewer and drinking water mix together. There are cases of typhoid epidemics in various urban areas of Nepal.

About 30-40% of water sources for Kathmandu Valley are being lost, and about 30-50% of water gathered from this declining number of sources are lost in transit (Paudel 2012a, b) . As a result, water rationing has become a common practice, and supply hours are decreasing sharply each year. In most cases, groundwater sources are overused, and water tables have been lowered further. Though some households located at the lower reaches of rivers receive regular water supplies due to gravitational forces, households residing in more elevated areas rarely get water more than once a week. In some parts of the Valley, a household spends about $5 every week to buy water, while on average each Nepali lives on a dollar and half a day. In the past, people woke up early every morning to fetch just a bucket/pail of water from an old stone spout.

Almost 16% of the country's hospitals get their water supplies from these poorly managed pipes (Rawal 2013a, b, c) . In order to solve the water crisis inside Kathmandu Valley, the Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP), which is currently under construction, is expected to add 170 MLD to the KUKL's system (Udmale et al. 2016 As the water crises loomed around, the Melamchi water supply completion target was scheduled to complete in 2020, rescheduled to complete in 2016, then to 2017, and again to 2018 and now 2019 (Fig. 4.16) . Experts argue that even when this much-hyped Melamchi water project is completed and water starts coming to the Valley, the future water demands for the Valley would be much higher than this project can provide. Many households, therefore, will dig deep tube wells to access underground water; but this could be stymied by, power outages, if more houses are added to Kathmandu Valley and the supply of electricity does not increase, which would prevent these households from pumping sufficient groundwater.

The energy crisis is a crucial issue, despite having the possibility of commercially generating 43,000 megawatts of hydroelectric energy from many snow-fed rivers of Nepal. As of today, the total electricity demand in Nepal is around 1,700 MW, but the supply is barely 1,000 MW. In order to meet the gap between the demand and supply, currently, the Government of Nepal imports diesel and coal generated electricity from India. Lack of political vision and political bickering to make timely investments in hydropower has been the biggest impediment to generating enough hydro energy in Nepal. Moreover, the shortage of power has been exacerbated in recent years by the greater incidences of droughts. Urban demand for electricity is increasing each day. By the end of 2017, almost 92% of urban households in Nepal had access to electricity, and this coverage is comparable to that of other South Asian countries; yet, electricity services are intermittent and unreliable (Afram and Pero 2012).

Spatial economy varies with the spatial structure of settlements and the type of socioeconomic activities in different urban spaces. Both space and time become important factors in understanding social, economic, and ecological processes to examine how spatially separated activities interact overtime and how these interactions vary with spatial attributes. These attributes include distance, configuration, adjacency, physical character, time, agglomeration, and specialized manpower. Since economic activities vary from place to place, planning interventions are needed because communities and neighborhoods may experience spillover effects on neighbors and beyond. Some of the examples of spatial economic spillover include a fore closer of homes in one neighborhood which might affect the pricings of houses in other neighborhoods. These interrelated economic activities are analyzed to understand the motivation and behavior of individual decision. These economic activities relate to the spatial interactions between people and jobs. Labor is an essential input of all productive activities and variations in the cost and availability of quality manpower. Due to the availability of quality manpower at different locations, economic activities vary in different urban spaces because certain skilled labor tends to be abundant at a cheaper cost in certain areas. Thus, spatial economy also addressed the degree to which a particular economic activity, or a complex of closely related activities, is concentrated in a small number of locations, which is referred to as agglomeration. As a result, the economies of concentration in a single large plant can outweigh extra costs of material assembly involved in drawing materials from a larger range of sources of supply. With the specialization, specialized goods and services are available in certain locations, and these goods and services could be provided cheaply in high quality and make some urban spaces into economic engines.

Currently, Nepal's urban sector generates 65% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), which is an increase from the 29% in the mid-1970s. By contrast, rural Nepal contributes only 20% of the country's GDP. Hypothetically, an increase in urbanization in all geographic regions of Nepal (Figs. 4.11 and 4.12) is credited to the decrease in poverty from 22% in 1995 to 15% in 2010 (World Bank 2011a , b, 2012 . However, the situation is becoming complicated with the widening gaps between rich and poor in urban areas (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) . Overall, economic growth rate in urban areas remained at 3.8% during the 2000-2011 period. Such economic growth has been helpful in improving the life expectancy, reducing child mortality, poverty, expanding banking facilities, and developing other infrastructure. In urban areas, many private organizations have come forwards to offer public services such as education, health services, banking, finance, communication, transportation, tourism, and manufacturing (Acharya 2012) . For example, in the Pokhara metropolitan area, the child mortality rate has plummeted to 2.1 per thousand, which is very low as compared to 50 per thousand births in rural Nepal (NLSS 2011). However, the performance of the manufacturing sector has not contributed as desired since 2001, with a decrease in its GDP from 10% in the 1990s to 7% in 2001 (ADB 2010). Over the period from 2002 to 2007, industries employing 10+ people in manufacturing in Kathmandu, Birgunj, and Biratnagar experienced 2% annual declines, and these declines are seen nationally in urban and rural areas (Table 4 .1) (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) . The main concentration of manufacturing located within the Kathmandu Valley accounts for as much as 40% of overall manufacturing employment, whereas Birgunj accounts for 15% and Biratnagar 17%. In the Central Hills, the urban share of total manufacturing is nearly 60%. Nepal has taken advantages of hiring less educated manpower in agroprocessing, garments, textile, chemical, and wood carving at low wages. The labor-intensive, manufacturing (handicrafts) sector accounts for about 60%, and textiles, particularly jute, account for 18% of overall industrial employment. The manufacture of paper products, minerals, chemical products, and wood products accounts for 30% of urban manufacturing employment (Table 4 .2a, 4.2b, and 4.2c) (CBS 2002 (CBS , 2003 (CBS , 2007 Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) . The ready-made garment (RMG) industry-with 100-percent export-oriented activity-provides 19% of employment in Nepal (Tables 4.2a, 4.2b, and 4.2c).

However, recently the RMG industry has suffered a downturn; for example, exports from the RMG sector were 23.0% in 2003, but have gone down to 6.7% in 2007. This 30% decrease in annual export is due to increasing competition with other countries in the region. Additionally, the agreement with World Trade Urban life in Nepal has been very competitive. The increasing competition has increased living disparities among urban denizens. Nightlife, disco bar, gambling, dhukuti practices (investing money in various activities by private individuals), and drug dealing have become the major threats to Nepali traditional cultures. Many of Nepal's poor are bypassed in the development activities and are without means for living. Those without means for living are lured to flesh trade (prostitutions) and drug dealing. Many are rendered homeless and forced to live in inferior locations that either are waterlogged or are untreated, unsafe, and unhealthy landfills. In many Latin American countries, similar dwellers of low-quality lands have emerged as self-sufficient communities, as they have turned their communities from "slums of despair" to "slums of hope." In Nepal too, if support is provided to communities, who are homeless and living in inferior lands, these communities can performed exemplary work and can become instrumental in developing innovative and cooperative programs for the urban poor. Some indications of this positive "sense of hope" are already being seen in the activities of spontaneous communities living in Kirtipur Municipality of Kathmandu and Bharatpur Municipality of Chitwan districts. In these municipalities, the communities living on inferior lands are involved in planning and other community decision-making activities. Controversial political actions of evacuating settlers from illegally occupied places and reestablishing them in other places that often become politically sensitive are done amicably without bypassing communities in decision-making. There have been human casualties and loss of properties while forcefully replacing peoples in many places. These examples suggest that ignoring urban poor in decision-making would invite political instabilities. Additionally, such actions of forceful removal of illegal, but landless settlers without alternative means for their living, would also widen economic disparities. Due to increasing living disparities, today some sections of cities are turning bright and flashy with glamorous automobile showrooms, where eager upper-middle income buyers are purchasing expensive cars (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) , while the poor are not even able to afford a bicycle. While encouraging economic competition as "neoliberalism" would advocate, the Nepal Government has declared the establishment of four special economic zones (SEZs) to promote self-help and local community "development from below." These are in Bhairahawa (Rupendehi District), Birgunj (Parsa District), Jiling Devighat (Nuwakot District), and Panchkhal (Kavre District) (Fig. 4.17) . The government is also proposing some tax holidays to encourage the physical and infrastructural development of these SEZ. Besides these SEZs, several urban corridors have been developed in Nepal (Fig. 4.17) . Such developments appear to be similar to what Guttmann envisioned as "Megalopolis" in the United States, but (as we have argued elsewhere) in Nepal many ruralopolises are being formed instead. Each urban center has been spurred by the construction of new roads. Each corridor consists of a main arterial linking a number of towns. Many areas such as Biratnagar-Tarahara, Janakpur-Dhalkebar, Birgunj-Pathlayia, Ramgram (Parasi)-Sunwal, Bhairahwa-Lumbini-Butwal, Krishnanagar-Bahadurganj, Gorahi-Tulsipur, Nepalganj-Kohalpur, and Dhangadhi-Attariya are all developing into urban corridors (Fig. 4.12) . Population is increasing fast along the main five north-south corridors. These corridors include Itahari (east), Dhalkebar (center), Butwal (west), Kohalpur (mid-west), and Attariya (far west).

Due to rapid growth of Nepal's urban areas, many historic cities are facing severe management and logistical problems. For example, Biratnagar that was declared a municipality in 1951 and a sub-metropolitan city in 1994 and, a metropolis in 2015, was home to more than 500 industries. It was still developing when it became a municipality, but today, even though it has become a metropolitan city, it appears Fig. 4 .17 Special economic zones 4.13 Urban-Based Spatial Economy stagnant in terms of its public infrastructure services. It was one of the centers to offer employment opportunities to local people as well as to Indian nationals, but today, due to load-shedding, labor disputes, and political uncertainty, this city remains stubbornly stagnant (Dhungana 2013) . Several of the country's leading political leaders were born in this city including five Prime Ministers, but today Biratnagar lacks any innovative, visionary management approach. It was proposed to make this city a special economic zone (SEZ), but nothing has moved ahead. For instance, the Biratnagar ring-road project was inaugurated in the early 2000s, but not a single kilometer of ring road has been constructed. The roads inside the city are narrow, in a pitiful condition, making it difficult to travel during the rainy season. The transportation network inside the municipality is poor. Due to such conditions, many people do not have access to proper and reliable public transportation. The majority of the people living in the city use bicycles as a mode of transportation, but the city is without a single bicycle lane. Infilling inside the city has been very rapid with unplanned and haphazard settlements. Unemployment is increasing at an alarming rate, and poverty is rampant. The city lacks public toilets, garbage management, urban parks, play grounds, and recreational venues, though the population has increased from 130,129 in 1990 to 183,918 in 2010 (Shrestha and Bhattarai 2017) .

With promulgation of the Nepal Constitution of 2015, by definition, Nepal has become an urban world. The country is rapidly urbanizing, and the cost of urban classified lands is skyrocketing where many low-income people are finding themselves urban refuges in their own motherland. By classification, the urban population has increased from 20% in 2014 to over 65% in 2017. Many of the rural areas are combined together to form municipalities; many municipalities are combined to form sub-metropolises and metropolises (Fig. 4.18 ). Political leaderships are making tall promises to people to reform many of the newly formed municipalities into smart cities. As of writing this manuscript, Nepal has a new constitution of 2015. There has been a lot of changes in the administrative and local political structures. Due to the 

For almost a century, urban planners, economists, sociologists, and architects have advanced theories on overall functioning of various urban areas. Some have hypothesized that poor management of neighborhoods would worsen the urban environment. Economic theories of change at the city level often emphasize population density and level of education to predict neighborhood improvements. Sociologists emphasize locations and social networks to predict improvements in a city's appearance. Geographers look at the spatial association to see the well-being of cities.

With the promulgation of the new constitution of Nepal 2015, Nepal has become an urban world overnight. Until 2014, Nepal's 20% of the total population was classified as urban, but while implementing the federal structure in 2017 as mentioned in the Nepal's constitution of 2015, over 65% of the total population of Nepal became urban. Since then Nepal is facing daunting tasks to sustain urban life quality. Under the new constitution of Nepal, there has been a drastic reduction in local political units from 3700+ in 2014 to 753 units in 2017. Until 2014, there were only 105 municipalities in Nepal, while there were 3700+ local political units. However, when local political units are decreased to 753 under federal structure, the municipality units jumped to 276 from 105. In addition, there are 11 sub-metropolis cities and 6-metropolis (Fig. 4.18) . The newly formed urban areas have annexed many rural areas to meet the population thresholds to form municipality, sub-metropolitan, and metropolitan units. However, many of these urban areas so classified are characterized by ruralopolises where people living in rural settings within the legally defined urban areas are competing with the limited facilities of the urban cores. Despite such competition for limited resources/facilities, many of the ruralopolises are aspiring to becoming "smart cities."

Political leaders are promising people that they will create smart cities; they often cite examples from neighboring country India 5 and elsewhere. In line with the 5 The government of Narendra Modi in India is planning to create 100 smart cities developing a megalopolis corridor running through Chennai-Mumbai-Gujrat-New Delhi-Kolkata and Vishakhapatnam. Gujarat International Finance Tech (GIFT) (2010-2020) is under construction. GIFT city covers 890 acres (40% under built-in infrastructure and 60% under greenery and recreational parks). It will build 110 towers to accommodate international business hubs and banks, 20,000 flats, provisions for 60,000 vehicles parking in multi-storied buildings, and employment for millions of people. The financial and technological hubs will be connected to four underground metro-stations. Each hub will be within a 500-meter distance from metro-stations. It will have a seven by seven meters utility tunnel to dispose wastes. In the proposed smart cities, CCTV cameras would monitor activities 24/7. slogans of "Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali (PHP)" by the Communist-led current government (2017-2022), Nepal aims to create many modern cities in each of the seven provinces along the Hulaki Sadak (Postal road) (blue letter-labeled cities in Fig. 4.19 ) in the Tarai, Pahadi Lokmarga (highways passing through mountains and hills), and at least four smart cities in the four corners of the capital city (red dots), Kathmandu Valley 6 ( Fig. 4.19) .

Each proposed city in the four corners of Kathmandu will cover an area of 12,500 acres. Each "smart city" plans to set aside 15% of the land for open spaces, 20% for road, and 65% for built-in infrastructure. People have high expectations for "smart cities," but there are fears of heavy taxation, traffic congestion, and possible seismic damages from the poorly built in structures. All seven provinces are also aspiring to A Finland-based consultant company has identified four areas in the Valley's north, east, south, and west to develop the proposed satellite smart cities. The first and largest smart city will span over 130,000 ropanies from Nagarkot of Bhaktapur, Talkot road, Jorpati, Mulpani cricket ground in Shankhu, Bhaktapur Purano Bato, and Nepal Army Training Academy and will be linked to Araniko Highway. The second smart city will cover Gundu (located to the south of Araniko Highway) and Balkot area and will be located in east side of Kathmandu Valley. The third smart city will be located in the south side of Kathmandu Valley and cover Ranikot, Bhaisepati, Khokana, Bungmati, and Chhimti. The fourth smart city will be located at the northern side of the Valley and cover Samakhusi, Tokha, and the areas of Balaju bypass, Kavresthali, Greenland Chowk. The initial estimate of building the smart cities has been placed at Rs 500 billion, of which Rs 100 billion will be financed utilizing local resources and the remaining through foreign loans. develop at least one "smart city" each at the metropolis level in their provinces. Additionally, the current government claims to have plans to develop smart cities along the highways and along the interconnecting feeder roads in three geographic regions of seven provinces (Fig. 4.19) . According to the Government of Nepal (GoN), these cities will have hi-tech business and industry facilities, and they will make urban hubs. The aims are to encourage people to live in cluster settlements for rapid economic development.

A study of smart cities involves the analyses of multi-sectoral areas. It includes the studies of social, technical, economic, and political factors. These factors keep evolving every day and offer opportunities and challenges for refinement of smart cities. Repeated refinement helps to simplify complex urban systems into simplified operational processes utilizing computational processes. Computational analysis helps to translate quantitative data into simplified textual information understandable by the majority of users. Through the computational process, a lot of digital information is changed into adaptive solutions, for example, finding a bus route using latitude, longitude, and traffic conditions and locating objects and and incidences using real-time data. Sometimes, the nature of such systems becomes unpredictable and chaotic, such as in the case of South Asia where European and Indian Plates frequently push each other, causing many unprecedented earthquake incidences with many infrastructural damages. In addition, frequently changing government rules on land use and traffic systems makes public life difficult in urban areas. The main goal of the smart city is to infer the governing rules on communities by utilizing real-time information and informing the government to have well discussed and fact-based plans to keep the people most current to any new development. Using the real-time information mixed with governing rules, urban planning can be more associative, interactive, and regulative. These regulative steps honor collective actions even involving artificial intelligence as one of the key drivers. In smart cities, even social media would utilize real-time information because such information is coded with textual meaningful information.

It is assumed that in smart cities, the chances of political interferences are minimal because the decisions are made based on the technological outcomes and evidencebased. The smart city initiatives are designed to utilize auto-sensor information technology. Auto-sensors utilize cutting-edge and video authentication technology that uses wireless sensor networks to produce a variety of data. Such data can help in effective visualization of many scenarios, such as early detection of earthquakes, monitoring long-distance highways with optical cable sensors, and advanced biometric recognition to monitor city activities every day. Smart city initiatives are forward-looking on the environmental front to manage available natural resources, management of green space and parks, and a biophylic design of roofs and walls. The economic outcomes of a "smart city" initiatives result in the creation of businesses, jobs, and infrastructure. The brain of a "smart city" includes the virtual real-time data center fed by an automated sensor network that regulates kiosks, parking meters, cameras, smart phones, medical devices, and social networks.

Grasping some of the catchy words from India and elsewhere on smart cities, Nepali politicians are coining many catchy phrases such as e-toilets, monorail, sky-rail, underground metro, free public communication, jam-free rapid transit network, supply of sufficient safe drinking water, and installation of surveillance cameras in these proposed smart cities. Accordingly, politicians have raised hopes that in smart cities, everything would function smartly. People are aspired to activities like opening essential stores, cleanliness through an underground waste disposable system, converting wastes into electricity and compost, and draining of roads being automatized. Furthermore, politicians have assured people that smart cities would help in minimizing emigration through job creation. Each road lane would be eco-friendly; people can safely utilize eco-friendly bicycling, greenery, recreational parks, and sufficient modern infrastructure. Politicians also have assured that all programs would be implemented through shared initiatives that would help to simplify administrative red tapism though the close cooperation between external (governance, people and communities, natural environment, infrastructure, and economy) and internal (technology, management, and policy) factors. In other words, people have been assured to have simplified services in banking, health, issuing of drivers' licenses, citizenship certificates, passports and records of life event certificates (birth, death, and cremation), property title deeds, and paying service bills. In order to do these jobs, smart cities need real-time data and their databank to assist the effective operations. Unfortunately, political leaders and urban planners responsible for the planning of ruralopolises and aspiring to promote them to smart cities have been struggling to have real-time geospatial data to promote them into "smart cities" and their conurbation.

Things are easy to say, but hard to accomplish. Like at the global scale, where about 330 million households 7 currently live in substandard urban housing ( UN Habitat 2015) , in the newly declared municipal areas, many households are living in substandard houses. Many urban residents are living in rented apartments, who are financially stretched out to pay house-renting costs that exceed 70% of their incomes. Many slum residents living on the urban fringes belong to middle-and low-income households. Urban slums have been increasing in Nepal due to poor planning. Even in these substandard urban slums, housing and rent affordability is beyond the abilities of medium and low-income people. Many urban denizens struggle to find apartments in urban areas because there are no reliable commuting means plying to and from urban outskirts to work places, although the successive governments of Nepal often make tall promises to make the country prosperous with improved transportation network. The current government of Nepal has committed to provide shelter to everyone with zero death from homelessness and starvation. However, as of writing this manuscript, no concrete plans are in place to provide necessary housing facilities to everyone in urban areas. Today, except for a few wealthy households, many people live either in rented apartments or in dilapidated houses in slums areas. Those urban dwellers who live in rented apartment, spend around 60-70% of their monthly incomes to pay rent for the apartment.

There are shortages of apartments in urban centers, and if available, they would be beyond the affordability limits of medium-and low-income people. To make matters worse, some developers are hoarding land spaces to drive up prices making land or house ownership just a daydream for millions of low-income people. The concentration of population in urban areas and lack of employment opportunities have exacerbated the gap between the urban rich and poor. The government has faced several daunting tasks to solve in urban development. It is time for the government to prohibit developers from hoarding lands for profit making. Special provisions need to be introduced to prevent plotting of farmlands for infrastructure development. A transparent system of landownership is essential for land use planning.

The government may consider building public housing on vacant places and on land occupied by a wealthier few by paying them reasonable costs. Since many urban cores are fully saturated with buildings, new apartment buildings can be constructed along the urban outskirts to make these apartments available at reasonable costs to the needy people with reliable transit system. The renters can even buy such apartments if they can afford to do so. The government may impose rules that renters can be fined and even evicted if rules are violated. Hong Kong having the highest urban population density in the world (over 57,250 people per sq. km) (Hong Kong: The Fact 2018) has resolved housing problems with taller buildings to make affordable apartments available.

Though such tall buildings might not be solutions for seismically volatile Nepal, to some extent, Nepal can learn from Hong Kong to manage urban spaces and resolve the looming housing problem. Since housing problems are deeply rooted and complicated in Nepal, solving it will certainly take vision, courage, and careful planning. The Communist government (2017-2022) with an almost 2/3 majority has power to solve such problems without the support from opposition parties to amend the constitution, pass bills, and regulations. Without such courageous approaches, we will only witness dark sides of urban growth instead of it becoming an economic engine, and the dream of a smart city merely will remain as an election slogan.

Even in the most expensive cities like California and New York, of the United States, there are provisions for renting apartments as small as 35 sq. m with efficient designing of "micro-space" to solve housing problems. In some places, such spaces are intelligently designed with full bathrooms, kitchen, and living spaces to provide the greatest flexibility to tenants and will even allow the costs to be shared with others rather than having everyone cram into their own tiny studios. It is time for the Nepal Government to take bold steps to solve urban housing problems learning lessons of its own and from around the world.

The current level of pollution and overcrowded surroundings has rendered urban spaces in the country almost unlivable. It is time to realize that all the major challenges currently facing urban areas whether it is climate change, political instabilities, or urbanization and demographic shifts needs to be solved timely. Bigger cities like Amsterdam in the Netherlands, for example, through its publicprivate partnership, have brought together municipal agencies, educational institutions, non-profits, and private-sector companies to solve housing problems and alleviate the gentrification issues (Bhattarai 2018a, b, c, d) .

Nepal has no option, but to make an informed decision, by using digital technology. Once housing arrangements are made, the deployment of sensors and analytics will help cut the misuse of utilities such as water and electricity. The smart city applications can deliver significant quality-of-life benefits without causing harm to the average person's income. Smart technologies are available within Nepal if educational institutions like the engineering, computer science, and geoscience institutes are involved in research and policy making. These educational institutions are looking for areas to offer their expertise and make a difference in the Nepali society. Since the Nepal Government is looking for quality services at an affordable cost, it is high time for the Nepal Government to tap educational institutions for expert services to resolve urban housing problems. This will create a win-win situation.

Smart cities operate with commercially available digital database technologies meant to solve public problems, such as lowering gaseous emission, reducing traffic fatalities, homicide, fire hazards, and improving health services. Smart cities use real-time data that has the ability to display events as they unfold, understand how demand patterns for certain issues change, and respond with faster and lower cost solutions. Their goals are to reduce the cost of gathering large-scale (small areas with detail) information.

Smart cities bring an unprecedented volume of data points to the hands of city governments, employers, and residents who are connected with sensors operated by high-speed communication networks and open data portals. Sensors take constant readings of variables, such as traffic flow, energy consumption, air quality, and many other aspects of daily life and put information at the fingertips by translating raw data into the prospective of real-world events. App developers materialize all the data into simplified textual information that is understandable by many. The urban transit system can be improved greatly with the application of such Apps.

The city center and suburban transportation services have not kept up with the pace of rapid urbanization in Nepal. The situation of public transportation is worse in many towns of Nepal and especially outside the Kathmandu Valley. Although various types of vehicular services are available in the Kathmandu Valley, the Valley faces severe problems, including congestion, traffic jams, accidents, traffic violation, road crossing, service reliability, and pollution from dust and vehicular emission. The roads are generally too narrow. Whatever footpaths are available are either too narrow or blocked by huge electric poles, which have been installed haphazardly. Shopping carts also block footpaths. In many places, footpaths are further narrowed by encroachments and "construction add-ons" (Fig. 4.21) built for business purposes. Such are the irregularities and lack of conformity of the widths of footpaths and roadways that visually impaired persons often meet with serious accidents while negotiating their way in them. Disabled people are the worst sufferers of this mismanagement. Article 9 of the UN Convention on the rights of a person with disability (PWD), to which Nepal is a signatory, promises to provide accessibilities to disabled people. Disability-rights activists advocate equal access to social, political, and economic life, which includes not only physical access but also access to the same tools, services, organizations, and facilities to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation of specialized design. In (Bhattarai 2013 ). However, this task was left incomplete as his successors discontinued the task of widening the urban road in the Kathmandu Valley. Today, in Kathmandu, the traffic jams are some of the worst in South Asia. In order to alleviate congestions in the Kathmandu Valley, in the late 1970s, a ring road was built in the core peripheral areas of the Kathmandu Valley. At first, this ring road reduced the core area's traffic; however, today, almost all the areas within the interior of the old ring road are filled and another outer ring has been proposed (Fig. 4.20) with new structures. A proposed new ring road encircling the hinterlands of the Kathmandu Valley (discussed later) may help to alleviate the valley's core congestion problems in the short term, but the current situation may very well repeat (Fig. 4.21) itself unless regulatory measures are strictly enforced with a clear land use plan.

After the promulgation of the new Constitution of 2015 and the formation of a new government in 2017, current government is planning to have at least four smart cities within the Kathmandu Valley and to build at least one smart city in each province. Likewise, the government is mulling to have several smart cities along the Pahadi Lokmarga, Madan Bhandari Highway, East West Highway, and the Hulaki Raj Marga in the Tarai (Fig. 4.19a) . Many private sectors also are taking interest in creating smart cities, and some have already developed them, for example, Vinayak Colony, Budhanilkantha Colony, Sankhu Colony, and Bungamati Colony (Fig. 4.19b ). Since these colonies are located in the outskirts of the Kathmandu Valley, they need reliable transportation to connect them to the city center. Likewise, the Government of Nepal's (GoN) undertaking four smart cities-one each at Nagarkot and Gundu of Bhaktapur, Bhainsepati of Lalitpur, and Samakhushi of Kathmandu ( Fig. 4.19 )-are located in the outskirts of the Kathmandu Valley. In addition, GoN is mulling to construct at least one smart city at a mega scale in each province besides making several smaller smart cities along the Pahadi Lokmarga, Madan Bhandari Rajmarga, and Hulaki Marga (Fig. 4.19 ). All these smart cities need a well-planned transit system that is reliable and comfortable to commute. In the following paragraphs, we explain the theoretical and practical aspects of a mass 

Planners, policy makers, and politicians (P-actors) have been struggling to efficiently manage the urban public transit system (UPTS) in a rapidly urbanizing environment. There are many challenges to sustain the quality of life in urban environments (QoLUE), where almost each day new complex structures are added to the already crowded urban spaces. Complex infrastructures and increasing population in urban areas have necessitated different modes of transit. Transportation plays a vital role in any urban space, and it offers an opportunity to P-actors to demonstrate their performances in a concentrated area within a short time period. However, maintaining quality transportation with the least amount of road congestion has been an ongoing problem because of the addition of infrastructure and different types of vehicles each day to meet the needs of a growing population. Without proper transportation, urban denizens face imbalances between their work and domestic life, especially because the transportation becomes unreliable and expensive (Yue et al. 2017 ) and adds an excessive amount of pollutants from old age vehicles operating on leaded petroleum products. Reliable transportation services have become a great concern in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal (Fig. 4.21 ) despite the operations of over 500,000 vehicles of various capacities. Today, Kathmandu Valley faces an unprecedented level of traffic congestions, frequent vehicular accidents, and an increasingly unreliable public transit system.

The Kathmandu Valley is polluted from various sources. These include, but are not limited to, dust particles emitted from construction works and fine dust fumes from the clayey soils deposited on roads after each rain that get crushed into very fine pieces by hundreds of vehicles plying over 1600 km of roads within the Greater Kathmandu City. Emissions from old-fashioned industries without electrostatic precipitators and emissions from old vehicles using leaded petroleum products contribute to pollution. Additionally, black carbon containing fumes originating from cremation sites also adds to atmospheric pollution. Urban denizens are finding it very difficult to inhale ambient air without using respirators (masks). After having experienced Kathmandu's pollution, visitors may become frustrated and be less likely to visit Kathmandu in the near future. This would hurt the tourism economy that contributes almost 7.57% ($1779 million in the year of 2018) of the country's gross domestic products (GDP) (World Atlas 2017). Direct contribution from tourism includes the economic activity generated by "hotels, travel agents, airlines, passenger transportation services, restaurants and leisure industries" (Magar 2018:1) .

Using a prototype transit-tracker JavaScript, we propose an improved transit system to mitigate Kathmandu's traffic and pollution by using real-time information (RTI). The prototype App operates on mobiles and web-embedded devices and use RTI at four levels. These include (a) normal users, the riders travelling to multiple locations; (b) drivers; (c) administrator, government authority, issuing permissions for bus routes; and (d) sub-administration, to assist the administrator.

The main goal is to improve the urban transit system by using RTI as transportation plays a vital role in contributing to smart mobility and sustaining the quality of urban life. Today, it takes long time to travel even short distances in heavy traffic and road congestion conditions in the Kathmandu Valley. This situation creates imbalance between work and family life, increases the cost of public transport services (Yue et al. 2017) , and affects the living conditions of the public. Public transit plays a critical role in many modern transportation systems in "various urban environments," such as cities and metropolitan areas, as well as in "educational institutions" like schools and universities (Yue et al. 2017:2) .

Safer and more affordable modes of public transportation are needed in cities (Neff and Dickens 2016; Texas A & M 2012) , especially when every individual cannot afford to have personal vehicles, such as the case of the Kathmandu Valley. Operating too many low occupancy old vehicles, without engine improvements (oxidation catalysts to lower hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide), would add nitrogen oxide emissions to the atmosphere. Diesel engines are much worse for the environment because they produce particulate matters as by-products. An integration of filtration processes is essential to mitigate the environment from the emissions of diesel operating engines; however, such engine vehicles are very expensive. Operating many low-occupancy vehicles including a few seater cars and motorcycles at lower temperatures release many particulate materials that pollute the environment. For the Kathmandu Valley, public transit has been the only means for large mobility of low-income people. An improvement in the public transit system is essential to ameliorate the valley's air quality, ameliorate traffic congestions with the improvement in mobility (speed), and decrease gasoline consumption while relieving vehicular congestions and reducing accidents in the urban areas. Today, many transit agencies are competing to provide quality transportation services, but none have become effective in the Kathmandu Valley. Only very recently, the Government of Nepal (GoN) has planned to acquire 300 electric operated high occupancy buses to assist in the mass transit; however, the service of these electric services may face a snag because of the lack of the recharging facilities and increasing potholes on the roads. In addition, other transit systems have become less effective at serving the large community. As these public transits are becoming ineffective, many singleoccupancy vehicles are increasingly plying on the streets of the Kathmandu Valley. These single occupancy vehicles are contributing to a lot more air pollution than the multi-occupancy vehicles do while comparing the per capita pollution emission (Brakewood et al. 2014) . P-actors of the Kathmandu Valley in particular and all over Nepal in general have been struggling to provide timely services to people, especially living in the urban areas. Such transit systems need to be cost effective, fast, reliable, frequent, regular, and less polluting (Walker 2014).

Our attempt is to assess the existing public transit situation taking the case of the Kathmandu Valley and suggest a new mode of public transit system hoping to improve the quality of urban life. Currently, the Kathmandu Valley faces serious transit problems-overpassing without signals, stopping in multiple places without any signage, and irregularity in services. Many low occupancy vehicles are added every year to meet the needs of the growing population. Rarely, does the existing transit system provide timely services. Instead, they contribute to emission and pollute the Kathmandu Valley. People are spending a large portion of their productive time and income in commuting. Despite spending much of their incomes and time on transportation, the public are not served well with reliable transportation services. We propose the use of a Transit Tracker prototype App that utilizes RTI to locate vehicles, estimate time of arrival (ETA), and inform the public about the traffic situations in relations to the road conditions. Our goal is to help commuters, P-actors, and private entrepreneurs to improve the public transit services using RTI. In the recent years, RTI has become increasingly cost-effective in regulating the transit system (Brakewood et al. 2014; Carrel et al. 2013) . The rapid adoption and widespread use of mobile phones and smartphones has facilitated information dissemination, which would be helpful to a large number of public transit riders (Schweiger 2011) .

We are making attempts to find out effective transit mode to minimize traffic congestion and the level of pollution while making the transit system of the Kathmandu Valley the most dependable for the public. Our argument is that replacing low occupancy with large occupancy vehicles, and a technological shift from the use of petroleum products to an electric system would significantly reduce the health cost in the Kathmandu Valley. Also, we argue that our proposed model would be replicable not only to different cities of Nepal but also around the world having similar spatial, demographic, and socioeconomic conditions where the operation of mono-and-metro rail systems is difficult to implement.

Hoping to improve Nepal's urban transit system, we organize our arguments as follows. First, we explain a theoretical framework of how a prototype mobile application would become possible to navigate public transport mode to efficiently manage travel time at the local, region, and global scales. Second, we briefly present the scenarios of the current transit system of the Kathmandu Valley and explain how a new mode of transit system would help improve the urban life quality. Third, we present an algorithm and a methodology explaining how our prototype operates on RTI databases. Fourth, we explain the universal application of our proposed methodology to ameliorate traffic congestion in metropolises like the Kathmandu Valley. Fifth, we present how our proposed system would help to improve the environmental conditions of the Kathmandu Valley. The last part will be the concluding remarks.

For almost a century, urban planners, economists, sociologists, and architects have advanced theories on overall functioning of various urban areas. Some have hypothesized that poorly managed neighborhoods would further worsen the urban environment. Economic theories of change at the city level often emphasize population density and level of education to predict urban neighborhood environment and future improvement. Sociologists emphasize locations and social networks to predict improvements in a city's appearance. Geographers look at spatial associations to see the well-being of cities and their denizens, while computer scientists and mathematicians look at every urban activity both from micro and macro levels, especially through modeling techniques.

One of the major components of a city is the public transit system that affects the quality of urban life (Brakewood et al. 2014 ). The bus rapid transit (BRT) system has become popular in many urban places because it can:

(a) Operate in varied topographic conditions (b) Adjust in varied socioeconomic and demographic conditions (c) Operate quickly, incrementally, and economically and its capacity can be modified even for the largest metropolitan areas (d) Operate in a wide range of environments without requiring expensive road construction (Levinson et al. 2002 ) (e) Operate in a cost-effective manner in city streets in mixed traffic systems (f) Operate at a lower cost than a railway system (g) Operate at high speeds and on high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes or on general-purpose highways and streets covering a variety of urban and suburban environments (Levinson et al. 2002) Historically, the concept of BRT first started in Chicago, USA, to serve the city population where a railway system was not immediately possible (Harrington et al. 1937) . Between 1955 and 1959, the model was adapted in Washington D.C. (Mass Transportation Survey 1959); in 1959, it was adapted in St. Louis (Gilman and Co. 1959) ; and in 1970, it was adapted in Milwaukee (Barton-Aschman Associates 1971). The reasons for the expansion of BRT were due to lower capital costs, a possibility for greater coverage, being capable of serving low-and medium-density areas, and more readily adaptable to changing land use and population patterns than the rail systems (Levinson et al. 2002 ). Additionally, it was able to meet corridor demands in almost all the cities where railway system was not feasible.

Earlier, BRT systems barely used real-time information (RTI) because of the lack of advanced digital technology. The concept of RTI started with the evolution of digital technology when passengers started timing their departure from their origin to minimize their wait time at various stops or stations (Brakewood et al. 2014 ). Since passengers spent less time waiting at stops or stations, passengers perceived that RTI helps them to increase their personal security particularly at night riding . Ferris et al. (2010) conducted a survey of web-based RTI users for the city of Seattle, Washington, and concluded that the use of RTI increased self-reported levels of personal security by 18%; these users remarked RTI made transit "somewhat safer" and another 3% expressed "much safer." Gooze et al. (2013) continued the survey in the same city and received positive responses from over 32% of the web-based RTI users. The follow-up surveys in the city of Seattle, in the year 2009, by Ferris et al. (2010) , and in 2012, and by Gooze et al. (2013) , revealed that 92% of the web-based RTI users expressed being secure. Since then, the use of RTI has increased in designing almost all the urban transit systems around the globe.

Real-time information (RTI) uses geographic data (GD) to provide locationspecific information. Any GD is linked to a specific location by the geographic coordinate system (latitude and longitude) (Dale 2005) , and this particular characteristic distinguishes them from other forms of data. The spatial characteristic of GD is based on the angular relationships (cross points) between latitude and longitudewhat makes a point unique. Eratosthenes, a Greek geographer, first presented the idea of having imaginary horizontal lines on the earth. The biggest circle was marked as the equator (radius 3963 miles~6378 km), which was assumed to be forming a great circle around the earth that is equidistant from the North and South Poles. Then the Tropics of Cancer (23.5 N, the northern most position on the summer solstices) where the sun is directly overhead during the summer and the Tropics of Capricorn (23.5 S, the southernmost positions in which the sun is directly overhead on the winter solstices) were marked. Later, astronomer and mathematician Hipparchus proposed that a set of equally spaced east-west lines called parallels be drawn on maps. Mathematician Hipparchus also added a set of north-south lines called meridians that are equally spaced at the equator, but converge at the North and South Poles. The lines running east and west and the lines running north and south cross each other at different points and help to locate an absolute point on the earth (Fig. 4.22) based on their angular relationships (Dale 2005) .

The numerical range of latitude is from 0 at the equator to 90 at the poles and is represented by N or (+) for north and S or (À) for south. In 1884, the International Meridian Conference defined the north-south axis passing through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, a suburb of London, and called it the Greenwich Meridian or the Central Meridian. Assuming this as center, the earth was portioned 0 to 180 east from the Central or Prime Meridian and 0 to 180 west of the Central Meridian, thus completing 360 of the earth as a full circle. East longitudes are labeled E or (+) and west longitudes as W or (À). When the latitude and longitude are geometrically put together on the earth surface, they cross each other and form the geographic coordinate that helps in pinpointing an object on the earth's surface based on their angular relationships. Following the oldest Babylonian sexagesimal system, the spacing of latitudes and longitudes are marked by degrees ( ), minutes ( 0 ), and seconds ( 00 ) or the decimal degree.

Degree Decimal ¼ Degree þ min ute 60 þ sec ond 3600

In 1660, Sir Isaac Newton, while revealing a theory of gravity, noticed earth's 24-hour rotation. Along with this discovery, he noted the varied gravitational forces, minimum at the pole and maximum at the equator. These discoveries led to the realization of a slightly longer equatorial radius (semi-major) and slightly shorter polar radius (semi-minor) axes. Simply put, parallels are not spaced equally and decrease slightly in spacing from the pole to the equator. The meridians progressively converge from the equator to a point at the North and South Poles. Also, it was realized that the distances measured between two meridians along parallels decrease from the equator to the poles. With 24 hour a day, there is an hour difference between 15 longitudes (360/15 ¼ 24); however, due to the differences in the distance between two longitudinal degrees at the poles and equator, the principle of one hour for each 15 longitudes does not apply. That means the distance between two 15 longitudes at the poles and equator vary. This is why some places in the northern hemisphere see sun until midnight, for example, in Norway. Two longitudes will be closer near the poles than at the equator. Therefore, the distance between two objects standing at two locations on similar longitudinal values at the poles will be nearer than at the equator. Latitudinal values representing locations at the northern poles are represented by positive values (+ or N) and southern poles with negative values (À or S) and longitudinal values east of central meridians are represented by positive values (+ or E) and west of the central meridians with negative values (À or W) (Fig. 4.23) . Readers often find difficulties in translating the positive and negative values of latitudinal and longitudinal degrees. Thus, the degree values are converted into numerical distances. Based on their cardinal values, these distances also become positive and negative. Since distances are measured with positive numbers, a constant number is added to make negative values positive. For example, in order to make negative longitudinal values positive, values between 500,000 and 10,000,000 are added to the numerical values measured for a location within the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) system. Such a value is called a false easting, meaning that negative longitudinal values are made positive by adding a large number. This false easting is a linear value that is added to all x-coordinates (longitudes) so that none of the longitudinal values being mapped are negative. Likewise, to make latitudinal values positive, a large value called the false northing is added. Depending upon the quadrant, the values of false easting and northing vary ranging from 500,000 to 10,000,000. The false northing and easting numbers vary based on the measurement units such as feet and meters. Since Nepal is located on the northeast quadrant of the globe, both false easting and false northing issues do not apply.

After the angular degree decimals are converted to numerical values and are made positive by adding the numerical values of false easting and false northing, locations are traced either east or west (to the right or left), north or south with reference to the point of origin using the standard numerical unit of measure. Such a measurement became possible after the seminal work of French mathematician Descartes, who postulated the theory of the Cartesian Coordinates system. With these developments, the location of an object on the earth is traced based on the angular relationships between latitude and longitude measured in numerical values. Our proposed Transit Tracker App utilizes RTI that is based on the relationship between time (longitudinal values) and location-based latitude on the angular relationships, i.e., an angular relationship between latitude and longitude.

Geographic information systems (GIS) handle lines either as vector or as raster through a series of cells. A vector is a quantity that represents both direction and distance (line) with reference to time and captures the real-time incidence (information) [RTI] along the distance. A Cartesian coordinate gives the vector quantity relative to the origin of the coordinate system. This is how different objects are identified by their distances from the origin and their directions relative to some reference line or point. The direction is known as the bearing and is normally measured clockwise from the north (Dale 2005) . For example, houses in Kathmandu are numbered by distances from an intersection (crossroad) to the north or south and east or west. All houses are assigned odd numbers on the left and even number on the right. For example, if a house is located 74 m north or east of a crossroad, such house has a block number 74 N or E followed by ward number (like a precinct in the United States). Though the allocation of even or odd house numbers in the United States and Nepal follow similar practices, in the United States, houses are labeled by numbers, such as 1, 3, 5, 7 on the left and 2, 4, 6 on the right irrespective of the distance from the nearby intersection (crossroad). In Nepal, if a house is built 74 m away from a crossroad, it is numbered 74 N/2 where 74 is the house number that is 74 m north from the crossroad and two is the ward number. If another house is built at 25 or 26 m distance from the crossroad at the later date, the newly built house will get the house number based on the distance from the crossroad. For example, a house built at 25 m away from a crossroad will get 25 N or E/2 [Ward number]. By using RTI, not only is the location of each household identified, but also activities that are happening near any household are tracked. A similar principle is applied to locate the spot of high gaseous emissions, traffic conditions, accidental fatalities, homicides, fire hazards, and locations of health services. Users do not see the numerical RTI (angular or numerical) values on the screen of their devices, but see the names and descriptive activities of any incidences happening in a particular location. The locational information is derived from the Cartesian coordinate system, and the incidences are linked with time, which makes the real-time information (RTI) data. Real-time information (RTI) requires voluminous data points. These data points are linked to sensors operated by high-speed communication networks and open data portals. App developers translate raw data (geographic coordinates tied to time) into actions (meaningful information understandable by general users) by feeding these RTI into Apps. The public widely adapt such spatial data and adapt their behaviors according to the outcomes of the data and make their decision choices, for example, the present-day GPS locating a certain point and directing users to take a left or right turns or moving forwards or backwards to reach to the desired destination. Likewise, emergency health workers utilize transit trackers to locate emergency medical cases.

A wide range of Apps help cities in functioning "efficiently." App designers gather information from high-powered decision-makers from almost all parts of a city ecosystem that include city leaders, vendors, academics, researchers, and non-profit organizations through open conversations. Computer programmers utilize such data and convert them into an actionable intelligence to make informed decisions. Further, App designers help to process raw data to make them usable in mobile phones, iPads, and computers using the Internet or cloud computing. Smartphones become the keys to the proposed prototype App operation. These Apps convert raw data into information, such as traffic conditions, available health services, safety alerts, and community news, traffic jams, and conditions of pollution, and put data into the hands of millions of users.

In this study, we offer some measures to improve traffic conditions in the Kathmandu Valley by the choice of transportation modes to ameliorate the environment by locating the transit media such as bus, using geographic data linked to a location-specific incidence happening at a certain time. Simply put, our goal is to create a safe environment for the public by proposing the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in the Kathmandu Valley. The first step is to find distances between multiple locations and then to develop a schedule for the BRT system for various roads in the Kathmandu Valley. With the implementation of the BRT system, we anticipate a drastic reduction in vehicular emissions by improving the driving speed on the road of the Kathmandu Valley. If the current rate slow speed of 10-15 km is increased up to 45 km per hour, the levels of emissions would decrease because most vehicles driven between 55 and 75 km in urban areas would perform better and the amount of emissions also would decrease. The reduction in emissions would help improve the life quality for the Kathmandu Valley with the reduction in hospital visitations for the treatment of various respiratory ailments. Since our model works well in all geographic locations, for example, northeastern, southeastern, southwestern, and northwestern quadrants (Fig. 4.23) , we argue that this model would have global applications.

The Kathmandu Valley expands into three administrative districts (out of 77) of Nepal, namely, Bhaktapur, Kathmandu, and Lalitpur ( Fig. 4.19) . Bhaktapur District covers 123.6 sq. km., and all the area of this district is fully urbanized and is located within the Kathmandu Valley. Kathmandu District covers 415.5 sq. km, of which 85% of the area is urbanized. Lalitpur District covers 397.4 sq. km. of which 50% is urbanized. The total urbanized area within the Kathmandu Valley is 675.5 sq. km.

Mountains and hillocks of various heights ranging from 2300 to 2800 meters (m) surround the Kathmandu Valley (Panday and Prinn 2009). These pristine hills surrounding the Valley used to be serene and look blue around two decades ago, but now appear gray and hazy because of the "stagnant smog that hovers over them" (Saud and Paudel 2018) . The majority of the Valley area is within the range of 1300 m elevation, where summer temperature ranges from 9 to 27 C and winter temperature ranges from 2 to 20 C. In average, the Valley's air has 75% humidity. In the winter, around November, about 7 mm of rainfall occurs, and in July, the rainfall goes up to 364 mm. The mean precipitation between July and September is about 2000 mm. The bowl-shaped Valley (Fig. 4.24 ) generally remains calm, and its atmospheric layers closer to the surface are less disturbed holding the polluting particulates in the atmosphere (Parajuly 2016; CANN 2014; Regmi et al. 2003) .

Traditionally, Kathmandu was a pedestrians and cyclists city. The Valley denizens largely relied on walking; some bicycled; others used public transportation that was managed by corporate bodies such as Sajha Yatayat (common transport mode). After the construction of the ring road, urban sprawl started, and many houses were built everywhere in the Valley. The newly developed areas lacked any reliable transportation services. The unmanaged sprawl caused by the construction of the ring road with haphazard buildings without any urban planning lacks reliable transportation services. Especially, with the remittance propelled economy since the 1990s (Mahat 2019; Nepal Economy 2018; World Bank 2011a , b, 2012 Xinhua 2014 ) is making the Kathmandu Valley's environment much worse as more and more houses are added along with the addition of other concrete infrastructures that has increased the albedo. Consequently, motorized vehicles grew in large numbers each year to fill the void created by the lack of a mass transit policy or any implementation thereof. Overtime, with the growth of population, the Valley transit system is becoming unmanageable and very crowded as in Bangkok, Thailand (Plate 4.4a-f), where the transit system is very unreliable. Road construction has been very haphazard and pollution level is too high both from vehicles and constructional work (Plate 4.5).

There is no reliable population record for the Kathmandu Valley to plan exactly how many people live in this crowded Valley and how many need regular transit services. Between census years 1991 and 2001, a population of 0.52 million was added to the Valley. Over the next decade, the total population rose by another 0.83 million. In two decades, the census population of the Valley more than doubled from 1.07 million in 1991 to 2.43 million in 2011 (Joshi 2019) . These figures do not include floating (student and tourist) populations. Based on the count of the dwelling units (Bhattarai and Conway 2010) , an estimated 4 million people, or probably more, now live in the Valley at any given time (Joshi 2019) .

Number of vehicles has increased in proportion with the increase in population. The Valley's population increased during the Maoist 10 years (1996) (1997) (1998) (1999) (2000) (2001) (2002) (2003) (2004) (2005) (2006) of countryside insurgency. There is no exact record of the total population of the Kathmandu Valley, but various estimates put it between 4 and 5.5 million (Bhattarai 2015a (Bhattarai , b, 2018a . Despite such concentrated population, the Valley's transit systems and streets are poorly managed (Fig. 4.24, white lines) . Both pedestrians and drivers face multiple problems.

There are no standard sidewalks. Existing sidewalks are poorly built and ill managed. Some intersections are very dangerous. In 2018, a survey by the Resource Centre for Primary Health Care (RCPHC) of 35 different sections of the Kathmandu Metropolitan showed that more than 70% of roads do not have basic amenities for pedestrians. The same survey revealed that more than 70% of respondents were afraid of crossing the road, while more than 40% reported to have had multiple incidents and injuries due to the lack of sidewalks of minimum width, crosswalks, traffic lights, and handrails (Shrestha 2018) . Almost 80% of the roads do not have zebra crossings. Pedestrians have to wait frustratingly because of a lack of traffic lights to regulate vehicles at various crossings, where both drivers and pedestrians get confused. Many footpaths are very narrow, four to six feet or less in width, and these too have several obstructions from electric poles (pillars) and telephone poles and cables. Besides, there are shops, construction materials, trees, trashcans, and vendors that obstruct the movement of pedestrians. The national road standard suggests having a minimum width of 1.5 m (~5 ft.) for footpaths and 1.8 m (~6 ft.) width for a passing zone and 2 m (6.6 ft.) of foot paths width at every 50 m (~164 ft) in case of a narrower footpath. Additionally, a densely populated area needs at least 2 (~6.6 ft.) to 2.5 m (~8.2 ft.) in width for pedestrian road. Footpaths are an integral component of standard roads, and they should follow certain standards (Burathoki 2018). "The unplanned road-widening in 2013, actually reduced footpaths in many places and gave way to vehicles at the cost of pedestrians. It is clear that these ad-hoc actions ignored the larger city planning and more importantly, the reality that Kathmandu was a highly pedestrian city" (Burathoki 2018). In 172 locations, roads have been expanded without any planning even encroaching the security walls of petrol pumps and private residence. Such a practice of expanding road has made petrol pump operations in the Kathmandu Valley into safety hazards (Sharma 2019) .

In order to facilitate the road crossings, over 14 movable overhead bridges have been installed in high traffic zones of the Valley, but many of them are in dilapidated conditions and are very unfriendly to disabled and older adults. Open spaces are shrinking in the Kathmandu Valley. Though roads are expanded in some places, such expansions have created additional problems by merging with footpaths, especially without proper crossings and merging intersections; for example, several portions of roads from Koteshwor to Kalanki section of the Kathmandu Valley have the large number of pedestrian accidental incidences. The roads are widened and speed limit has been increased, but pedestrian casualties also have increased (Shrestha 2018) . Due to overcrowding of traffic followed by the poor regulations across the Valley, over 27,150 accidents are recorded annually with an average of 624 deaths and about 1157 serious injuries per year (Shrestha 2018) . Of the deceased, around 300 are pedestrians followed by motorcyclists. Already congested traffic during the peak period (Table 4 .3) has become much worse with the addition of many vehicles (Table 4 .4) beyond the carrying capacity in the Katmandu Valley. The well-to-do families own low occupancy vehicles such as motorcycles, and cars. The purchase of motorbikes has increased by 2.40 times and cars by 1.72 times (Table 4 .4). These additions of vehicles on crowded spaces are making the traffic of the Kathmandu Valley one of the most unmanageable in Asia (Joshi 2019) . It is projected that many more vehicles will be added by 2021 , 2025 , 2031 , and 2034 . Already existing old vehicles that operate on leaded petroleum products including diesel emit a large volume of emissions. Though the concerns of vehicular emissions started from the late 1960s even when there were rarely any vehicles plying on the roads of the Kathmandu Valley, the situation has never been as serious as it is today. In 1965, the Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act was enacted. In 1967, the Air Quality Act was introduced, and the emission regulations for cars started under the Clean Air Act of 1968. In 1970, the Clean Air Act was amended to set the standard of National Ambient Air Quality. Despite these attempts, positive effects of these Acts and Laws are rarely seen in Nepali traffic and environmental management.

With the increase in the number of vehicles, the atmospheric gaseous concentration in the bowl-shaped Kathmandu Valley has increased. Also, the increase in concrete structures has increased the level of albedo. Both gaseous concentration and albedo have contributed to high temperature in the Kathmandu Valley. The thick fog/smog in the early part of the day (around 11 am) and the wind and higher ground-level temperatures act to break the temperature inversion and trap the pollution. Nearly every night in winter, this pollution event repeats itself. More pollutants are trapped during the winter than during the spring and autumn because the brick factories are only operational during the winter when there is no rain. The projections are based on the trends of vehicles registered with government agencies. The average increases are between 0.80 and 1.75 for passenger transport, 1.25 for freight transport, and 2.00 for motorcycles Source: Technical Assistance to Nepal for preparing the Kathmandu Sustainable Transport Project under (TA7243-REG) preparing the implementation of Asian City Transport-Promoting Sustainable Urban Transport in Asia (estimated) a AADT annual average daily traffic Though spring and autumn episodes of air pollution in Kathmandu are not as severe as in winter, still they can certainly cause health problems from the fine dust particles fumigated into the atmosphere after dust particles are crushed into fine pieces by over 500,000 vehicles plying in the valley's roads. The polluted air does not escape from the atmosphere. As the pollutants are trapped in the atmosphere, heat islands are created in densely populated areas with taller buildings (Fig. 4.13) . The mild climatic conditions of the Kathmandu Valley becomes like subtropical and even tropical humid types of climate between the months of June and August. The Government of Nepal (GoN) has not been able to keep pace with the rapid increase in demand for building construction, road infrastructure, and other types of services due to the uncontrolled population growth. The GoN has taken some steps to improve the environment, for example, relocating the large existing industries from the Valley, such as the Himal Cement Factory from Chobhar, distilling industry from Balaju, and leather tanning industries from Bansbari are now being relocated either outside the city or being closed down (WWTG.com 2018) for good. While these government policies have definitely curtailed the frequency of severe air pollution in the Kathmandu Valley, it has not solved the problems of vehicular emissions.

Kathmandu air is very polluted, and it is getting much more polluted over time (Plate 4.5). For example, towards the end of 2013, the PM 10 particulates were 260 micrograms per cubic meter (260 μg/m 3 ) against a maximum limit of 40 μg/ m 3 recommended by WHO (Quoted in Clean Energy Nepal 2014). In 2014, PM 10 particulates increased to 400 μg/m 3 against the WHO's set National Ambient Air Quality Standards of 120 μg/m 3 (MSTE 2014). These samples were from Putali Sadak/Ratna Park (Plate 4.6) and Tripureshwor (Fig. 4.13 ). In 2015, Kathmandu was ranked as the fifth most polluted city in the world (Thapa and Adhikari 2016) . In 2016, Kathmandu was ranked (96.66) as the third most polluted city in Asia on the Pollution Index 2016 (Parajuly 2016; Thapa and Adhikari 2016; Numbeo.com 2016) . These pollutants have caused a variety of respiratory and other diseases, some of which have become fatal (WHO 2017a) . Dust particles generally result in particulate matters (PM 10 ) that remain suspended in the atmosphere. These particulates cause irritation to eyes, nose, and cause acute respiratory infections (CDC 2017; Gautam 2015) . Even more harmful are the PM 2.5 particulates that penetrate deep into the lungs; irritate and corrode the alveolar wall, "consequently impairing lung function" (Xing et al. 2016) ; and "even penetrate [into] the blood vessel" (WHO 2017b, c) . The high concentration of CO in the blood increases carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) that leads to heart attacks and affects the nervous system. Nitrous oxide (NO 2 ) emitting from vehicles causes bronchitis and bronchopneumonia, and SO 2 causes eye irritation and conjunctivitis (Li et al. 2016) . These gases cause shortness of breath, chronic bronchitis, asthma, and even lung cancer (Gautam 2015) . Because the overaccumulation of PM 2.5 particulates causes these diseases, it is suspected that the overall life expectancy in the Kathmandu Valley has decreased (Wang et al. 2016; Crouse et al. 2015; Beelen et al. 2014) .

It is necessary to find some solutions to ameliorate the atmospheric conditions of the Kathmandu Valley by improving the urban transit system. We propose to replace the low occupancy vehicles with high occupancy vehicles in order to reduce the per capita pollutant emission in the Kathmandu Valley. It is necessary to reverse or retard the increasing trends of vehicle registration that has been on the rise in successive years, for example, in 2021 , 2025 , 2031 , and 2034 .

In order to discourage the rapid increase of vehicles in the Kathmandu Valley, some stringent measures such as restrictions on private car and motorcycle usages in the city center may be necessary. This can be done by pedestrianization and restricting the parking facilities, and informing people about the cost of various transport modes (Table 4 .5). Such information would also help planners and policy makers for long-term transportation for the Kathmandu transit system. Replacing low occupancy vehicles with high occupancy vehicles and increasing their frequencies of operations would help to reduce traffic congestions, reduce the number of accidents, and reduce gaseous emissions, which will help not only in improving air quality, but also in travel reliability. Simply put, limiting the number of vehicles on the street and using high occupancy vehicles with fixed schedules would help in the reduction of cost, time, emission, and traffic jams. In order to achieve these goals, we have proposed to use a decision-aiding Transit Tracker methodology for bus scheduling using real-time information (RTI).

Implementing an urban transit system will be a challenge because the transit syndicates have made a very strong comprador with various investors, who, in the past, have repeatedly blocked official attempts to modernize the highly inefficient bus network of the Kathmandu Valley and other urban areas of Nepal (AFP 2017). Because of their strong nexus with various political forces, these syndicates have managed to take control over the roads. In order to ensure that the future laws are favorable to them, they have been successful at sending off politicians extremely (Shrestha and Bhattarai 2017; Dixit 2017) . Starting from 2012, the Asian Development Bank proposed implementing a 6-year program to replace low occupancy with high occupancy vehicles (DUDBC 2018) . There are speculations that both politicians and government employees are behind the failure of the ADB's proposed transit improvement plan. The transportation syndicate have lobbied government authorities and politicians through 3-M (money, muscle and mask-pretending to be people's representative, but working clandestinely for transit syndicates). The corruption is so rampant that Nepal currently ranks 124 out of 175 countries in the watchdog of Transparency International's global corruption perception index (Trading Economics 2019). Over 10,000 buses and minibuses in various conditions ply over the streets of the Kathmandu Valley each day (AFP 2017). These vehicles use lead containing gasoline and diesel at various rates when operated in different speeds (Table 4 .5) and emit pollutants (Table 4 .6). Since these vehicle operate below normal levels (slow speed and traffic jams), they emit tremendous amounts of fumes, but none provide efficient services. An analysis of vehicle trips, consumption of gases, speed limits, and types of vehicles suggest that the ADB plan would have significantly reduced congestion and emissions in the transit of the Kathmandu Valley (Tables 4.6, 4.7a, and 4.7b; Fig. 4.25) . It would have helped bringing down the concentration of PM 2.5 particulates to below 150 μmg/m 3 . Yet, this 150 μmg/m 3 is much higher than the WHO recommended level of 120 μmg/m 3 . However, the owners of the low occupancy vehicles (National Federation of Nepal Transport Entrepreneurs-NFTE-an umbrella group for the bus operators) argued that the ADB plan amounted to "bullying small investors." The NFTE rather challenges the ADB and Kathmandu Sustainability Urban Transportation Project (KSUTP) to enter open competition with NFTE rather than replacing the low occupancy vehicles. According to NFTE, the replacement of low occupancy vehicles with high occupancy ones will be a dire injustice to the investors (Dixit 2017) . Amidst these controversies, the trend of vehicle registration is on the rise and projected to increase by 2021 , 2025 , 2031 , and 2034 . These estimates are based on the annual traffic growth around 5% for trucks and 7% for other types of vehicles.

Assumptions for the Kathmandu Valley

• 1 liter (L) of petrol weighs 750 grams. Petrol consists of 87% carbon or 652 grams of carbon per liter of petrol. In order to combust this carbon to CO 2 , 1740 grams of oxygen is needed. The sum is then 652 + 1740 ¼ 2392 grams of CO 2 /liter of petrol. • A motorcycle yields 40 km by consuming a liter of petrol in on average. On average, a motorcycle covers 60 km/day in the Kathmandu Valley. An average consumption of 1.5 L/60 km then corresponds to 1.5 L Â 2392 gram/L per 60 km~60 gram CO 2 /km. Article 30 (1) of Nepal's Constitution of 2015 guarantees that each citizen shall have the right to live in a clean and healthy environment and enjoy compensation from the polluting agents for the harm they are caused by pollution. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) recommended that the government develops a schedule comprising the date of commencement for the implementation of high occupancy bus services. It recommends that all vehicle operators must abide by pollution control measures as set forth in the laws as per the Constitution of Nepal 2015. The NHRC asked the government to formulate a law empowering the concerned authorities to impose on-the-spot fines on vehicles for not meeting the existing emission standards. Nepal can learn a lesson from Indian's example, for example, in Bangalore where the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has been very effective in reducing pollution.

Evidences on emissions presented for the Kathmandu Valley (Tables 4.7a and 4.7b; Fig. 4 .25) suggest a need for immediate improvements. It would have been better to introduce a railway transit system in the Kathmandu Valley, but the immediate operation of a rail transit is not possible mainly due to the lack of physical (land) spaces. Given the existing road connectivity (Table 4 .8), it might be best to introduce a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system for an immediate solution to reduce vehicular emissions. Traditionally, the Kathmandu Valley was a pedestrian city, but in recent decades people of this Valley are served with the ring road and several radially linked feeder roads (Fig. 4.24; Table 4.8) . There are more vehicles that ply on the streets both at peak and off-peak hours (Tables 4.3) in the Kathmandu Valley. Their numbers are increasing over time (Table 4 .4) more than the length of road (Table 4 .8) can sustain.

The remittance economy that is contributing to the national GDP incrementally over the years, for example, 17% in 2007 (Mahat 2019 ), 23% in 2011 (World Bank 2011a , b, 2012 , 29.97% in 2014 (Xinhua 2014 ), and 30% in 2018 (Nepal Economy 2018 , has triggered the addition of many new vehicles in the Kathmandu Valley (Table 4 .4). In Western countries, the infatuation with private cars and wide roads is diminishing, and some urban denizens are pleading for car-free compact cities. For example, cities like Barcelona and Paris are transforming roads into car-free public spaces. However, the opposite is found in the Kathmandu Valley, which is already known for compact settlements. Paris has also come up with a concerted effort to reduce the number of private cars on its streets. Paris is slashing the number of lanes on major axes and redesigning seven major squares to reduce vehicle lanes and parking. The city plans to turn the neighborhoods into car-calmed, pedestrian-and bike-friendly zones with increased pedestrians space and greenery (Joshi 2019 ). However, due to an unmanaged public transit system with uncertainties of reaching destinations in the Kathmandu Valley, the number of motorcycles has increased by 50% between 2009 and 2015. If the present trend continues, the number of motorcycle would increase by 49% between 2015 and 2034 (Table 4 .4). In the Valley, various vehicles make around 5000 trips per day, and it is expected that the trip would increase to 5456 per day by 2021 if the present trend of population growth in the Kathmandu Valley continues. It is projected that the intra-central trips would increase by 1.59 times and inter-city trips would increase by 1.62 times (Table 4 .4). Assuming that the current trends of population growth (Table 4 .4) and remittance propelled economy continue (World Bank 2011a, b; Xinhua 2014; Nepal Economy 2018; Mahat 2019) , the number of both motorcycles and cars will increase exponentially, and their emissions would also increase (Tables 4.7a and 4.7b; Fig. 4.25; Plate 4.5) . If nothing is done to alleviate the current transit system of the Kathmandu Valley, after 10-15 years, every activity will be restricted due to severe traffic congestion, particularly along the central area inside the ring road ( Fig. 4.22) . On the other hand, if the proposed outer ring road expansion becomes complete, it is certain that the level of mobility in 2021 onwards will sustain the same existing level. Proper management of public transit systems will improve the average vehicle speed during the peak hours from the average speed of 15 km per hour (kph) to 18 kph and increase the average travel speed during off-peak hours from 25 kph to 28 kph. The improvement of travel speed will also help in the reduction of pollution. A vehicle consumes the maximum gas when it is moving below the speed of 56 km (35 miles) per hour and above 113 km (70 miles) per hour in non-urban areas. A vehicle performs with maximum efficiency if it is within a speed range of between 56 and 112 km (35-69 miles) and emits less gas. Beyond those cutoff points, a vehicle would consume more gasoline and would emit more emissions (Black and Nijkamp 2002) . At present, many more motorcycles are added to the streets of Kathmandu Valley that are generating the maximum amount of emission (Tables 4.7a and 4.7b). In the Kathmandu Valley, for an immediate solution to ameliorate pollution, a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) could be the feasible option. We propose to use a prototype Transit Tracker App to implement a good BRT system.

According to urban literature, in France, on average throughout a driving life, a vehicle driver spends about 4 years looking for a parking spot (Smart Cities Connect July 2018 cited in Bhattarai 2018a, b, c, d) . However, after the development of Apps, a person outright can reserve an available parking spot and save time looking for a parking place. Applying the similar analogy, in Nepal, we propose the use of a prototype Transit Tracker App to regulate the BRT system. A BRT system has become a must for the Kathmandu Valley because in recent decades, unmanaged traffic not only has been problematic in balancing work and family schedules among the Kathmandu denizens, but also holding off traffic on the road has created several environmental and accidental problems (Bhattarai 2015a (Bhattarai , b, 2018a . Worldwide, accidents have become the eighth leading cause of death, killing 1.35 million people a year. This figure is higher than that of the deaths caused by malaria, HIV, or tuberculosis (WHO 2018). More than half of the deaths are among vulnerable road users-pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists. Some argue that the road expansion in the Kathmandu Valley was a blunder without necessary provisions to escape from the main road. Currently, many engineering students from various colleges of Nepal along with transportation experts from China and Japan are conducting research to find the causes of increasing road accidents in the Kathmandu Valley.

In 2009, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) suggested to have primary, secondary, and tertiary routes and replace the small buses and minibuses by fewer or larger buses. This was assumed to have substantially reduced the number of vehicles plying on the streets of Kathmandu and have minimized the current emissions ( Fig. 4.25) . By doing so, it would have reduced the cost of transportation per passenger with the decrease in the per capita gaseous emissions. Unfortunately, in the Kathmandu Valley, the location of bus stops are not marked clearly and most of the bus stops are not provided with minimum facilities such as shelters and bus bays; and no time table, route map, and fare rate have been made in public for the convenience of users. In the following paragraphs, we discuss the principles on how an App can help in tracking the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).

The history of the Uber Apps technology is not that old at the global level. However, when it started, it soon became viral in over 600 cities of North Americas (Rana 2018). Individuals educated in the US educational system have translated the Uber tracking technology to Nepal's geographic conditions in 2009. Since then many independent taxi drivers in the Kathmandu Valley are serving on the "on call" basis. Customers are advised to install Uber Apps on their smart phones, register, and feed information regarding the pickup and drop locations for taxis and motorcycles (Rana 2018). Recently, in Kathmandu, there are Kawa Rides, Sarathi Cab, Onver Smart Taxi, Eddy Cab, and "Tootle Today" (a motorcycle ride sharing Apps). Users have been using these facilities with reliability and user friendliness (Rana 2018). Motorcycle ride-sharing and taxi-hailing Apps have drawn the interest of the Kathmandu dwellers. Understandably, in the context of the Kathmandu Valley, these services are conceived to do away with problems faced by passengers. Unfortunately, taxis rarely run on meter, bargaining is the norm, taxi drivers reject a customer outright if the destination of the ride does not match with their liking and usually taxi drivers quote whatever number fancies them (Rana 2018). Even if these taxis and motorcycles provide services, these low occupancy vehicles generate many emissions. Thus, to improve the environmental conditions of the Kathmandu Valley, it would be worthwhile to start with the BRT system and use Transit Tracker Apps. Our proposed Transit Tracker Apps are based on the haversine formula that uses real-time information (RTI) on a geographic information system (GIS) platform.

The very first step of the Apps is the calculation of distances between different points. The haversine formula is used to calculate the shortest distance using the great circle distance (Fig. 4.26) between two points over the earth's surface. It uses the "crow-flies" distance between the points, which obviously ignores the topography of the earth (Dale 2005) .

The great-circle distance or orthodromic distance is the shortest distance between two points measured along the surface of the sphere (as opposed to a straight line through the sphere's interior). The distance between two points in Euclidean space is the length of a straight line between them, but on the sphere, there are no straight lines. In spaces with curvature, straight lines are replaced by geodesics. Geodesics on the sphere are circles on the sphere whose centers coincide with the center of the spherical earth and are called great circles (Dale 2005) . The great circle distance is given by Eq. (4.1)

where, φ is latitude in radian, λ is longitude in radian, and R is earth's radius (mean radius ¼ 6371 km~3960 miles). The angle is measured in radians and trig functions are used to calculate the distances. Our Transit Tracker Apps uses Java script and computes distances between different locations by converting geographic data (latitude and longitude) into the metric system, such as distance in miles (ml) or in kilometers (km) or in feet (ft.) or in meters (m). Also, latitude and longitudinal values are used to find location-specific information, such as where a bus is, how is the traffic condition of that place, how far apart is the bus from the location of a waiting passenger, what is the condition of a road, and how long will it take for a bus to go to the subsequent multiple stations (Sinnott 1984 where, "φ" is latitude in radian. "λ" is longitude in radian. "lat1," "lat2," "lon1," "lon2" are latitudes and longitudes in degrees for various locations. "c" is the angular distance in radians. If atan2 is not available, c could be calculated from 2*asin(min(1, ffiffi ffi a p ) (including protection against rounding errors). "a" is the square of half the chord length between the points.

The haversine formula is used to calculate distances between small and large scales. A cell phone is capable of utilizing RTI and computing the distances efficiently. To calculate distances for a smaller area, the spherical law of cosines method or Pythagoras theorem are also useful.

In our programs, we have utilized JavaScript with 64-bit floating-point numbers, which provide 15 significant figures of precisions. These 15 significant figures of precisions are needed to calculate the exact distance between places in smaller areas. For example, our study area of the Kathmandu Valley is small where east-west extension is hardly 40 km and north-south expansion is about 35 km. Within such a short extent, many structures are built in an unplanned manner. In such unorganized urban area, it is truly hard to find the exact location without high precision. Thus, 15 decimal places high precision are needed to pinpoint an exact location. For example, a popular spot can be tracked using values at the degree scale (60 min). One degree in Kathmandu is equivalent to 102.25 km-02,250 meters (m) in horizontal extent. Likewise, 1 min represents 1704.167 m and 1 sec represents 28.40278 m. It is safer to use high precision points to locate any particular location. Our proposed Transit Tracker App utilizing spherical law of cosines formula (cos c ¼ cos a cos b + sin a sin b) to calculate distances as small as few feet or meters. Calculation of such a precise distance requires a powerful smart phone. However, if a powerful smart phone becomes an issue, the Pythagoras theorem can be used to compute distances for shorter routes. In using the Pythagoras theorem, some accuracy might be compromised. No matter which algorithm is used, our proposed App utilize information of earth's major axis, minor axis, its flattening, and eccentricity factors to calculate the distances between locations with minimum error as given in Eq. (4.3).

In order to check the wider applicability of our proposed App, we have tested Haversine modules for long and short distances and the spherical law of cosine and Pythagoras theorem to compute shorter distances. These tested examples are presented in the Appendices A and B for all the four quadrants of the globe (Fig. 4.23) . These results justify that our proposed Apps are applicable for global, regional, and local scales (Appendices B and C). Though several Apps are in use in Nepal, none are designed to track the RBT system as of writing this manuscript.

Four types of users can use our proposed Transit Tracker Apps. These users include (i) normal user; (ii) drivers; (iii) administrator(s); and (iv) sub-administrator (s). This application can be accessed by mobile application and web application.

Normal users are the basic users who use the Apps to track the location of a busarrival and departure time-at different locations, seat availability on the bus, conditions of roads, and stops over time per station. To be exact, normal users are the passengers who track the locations of a service providing bus that is plying on the service routes. These users utilize the proposed App ( Fig. 4 .27a) on a mobile application and can see the list of buses available (Fig. 4.27b) . Users can click on the image of each bus, which will redirect them to the next page where they can see the current location of that particular bus.

Passengers can track the location of a bus (Fig. 4.27b) . The button, at the top right in the tracker, will open up a native map application and can help to track the exact path and distance between the passenger in waiting and the bus. A normal user may apply for any driver's position (Fig. 4.28) , if interested, when it is opened. If applied for a driver's position, users can also check their inbox to see where their application status is or where this application is advancing from this point onwards ( Fig. 4.29a, b) . The applicant can see the status of his/her application, such as a. under review; b. approved, but waiting for admin approval; and c. finally approved (Fig. 4.29) .

Drivers are the users who are assigned the status of a driver. A bus driver would use this application in his/her smartphone and punch limited keys to send detailed information, such as the conditions of a bus, exact location of the bus, road and 

An administrator controls many aspects of this proposed BRT. An administrator is responsible for looking into who to assign a driver's position and what matter needs to be directed to the sub-administrator. The administrator would direct a driver to take certain routes, avoid certain routes, and reach a certain station within the designated period (Fig. 4.30) . Figure 4 .31a, b shows how sub administrators and administrator interact.

If a user requests to be a driver, first, it will go to the sub-administrator's dashboard ( Fig. 4.31b) . The application may be accepted or rejected at the sub-administrator's level. The sub-administrator would first verify the authenticity of the user by various means (phone call verifications for now, document checking manually) and then approve or disapprove for the driver position, which has to go through the administrator. This is to minimize any fraudulent characters that have to be filtered by the administrator itself. The sub-administrator would be able to add the new bus details and publish new notices about the availability of driver's jobs from the web application. The administrator may add a new bus service to a certain route (Fig. 4.32a) . A sub-administrator issues government notices, such as opening positions for drivers, and forwarding received applications after scrutinizing all the necessary details. Sub-admins can also add and remove buses. The schematic diagram of the complete model is given in Fig. 4 .33. In order to operate the BRT in the Kathmandu Valley, we grouped the BRT transit operation in five steps (Fig. 4.34) . For experimental purposes, we have identified 59 stations along the existing ring road and inner roads (only those inner roads where the operation of BRT is possible), marked the locations of bus stops, computed their latitudes and longitudes for each individual station, and computed distances between these locations using different formulae (Eqs. 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3). We also measured the distances among various stations using Google Earth. Additionally, we have also measured distances between different stations using a pedometer (walking) and a mileage reader (odometer) on motorcycles. The results of our computed distances are consistent with the ground verifications. These findings suggest that our proposed model is applicable both for large and small areas. Having observed consistent results from our approach, we developed schedules for the BRT. This schedule is based on the distance covered by a bus, anticipated traffic situations, and road conditions based on real-time information (RTI). We hope that our proposed Transit Tracker Apps would facilitate the operation of the BRT system that would ameliorate the environmental conditions of the Kathmandu Valley.

In the urban areas, a major factor of air pollution is due to vehicular emissions. An increasing number of vehicles and their emissions have increased the annual average level of total suspended particulate (TSP) matters (PM 2.5 and PM 10 ) (Fig. 4.25) . Reduction of these particulates in the atmosphere could have positive impacts on public health.

An analysis of the emissions in , 2021 , 2025 , 2031 , and 2034 Fig. 4.25) clearly indicates that the per capita annual CO 2 emission differs for various vehicles. For example, a car taxi releases 6020 grams of CO 2 whereas a minibus releases 1407 grams of CO 2 . Likewise, a microbus releases 1772 grams of CO 2 and a motorcycle releases 3000 grams of CO 2 . The maximum amount of CO 2 emission from a car taxi is due to fewer people travelling by this transit system because of its expensive nature. The other high gas emitter is the motorcycle that fetches up to a maximum of two people per automobile. Low occupancy means higher per capita emissions per vehicle.

We argue that if high occupancy vehicles such as 35-40 seater buses replace low occupancy vehicles, for example, a bus replacing 17 motorcycles, with strict schedules and transit rules in the Kathmandu BRT system, the amount of emissions can be reduced to some extent (Fig. 4.35) . Table 4 .4 shows that by 2021, almost 2,563,239 passengers would utilize public transit system, and this number would increase to 3,216,351 by 2025, to 4,445,652 passengers by 2031, and to 5,316,149 passengers by 2034. In order to accommodate all these passengers (Table 4 .4), we propose to increase the number of buses by 10.8%, but reduce the number of high per capita emission generating automobiles such as minibuses by 4.87, microbuses by 4.99%, cars by 9.12%, and motorcycles by 7.69%. We came to these percentages while meeting the transit needs for the number of passengers presented in Table 4 .4. Our arguments are that high occupancy vehicles would help in the reduction of per capita emissions (Figs. 4.32 and 4.33) , and thus, the transit system in the Kathmandu Valley would be effective by the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system.

Literature suggests that riding high occupancy public transit, when possible, becomes cost-effective and environmentally benign compared to riding low or single or few passenger vehicles. Riding a bus would reduce environmental pollutants per person than riding low occupancy vehicles. The fuel efficiency of a fully occupied bus is six times greater than that of the average single-occupant auto (Black 2010) . It would have been very cost-effective if Nepal had a metro train; unfortunately, Nepal has to rely on a BRT for commuting because constructing a metro-rail or monorail is Fig. 4.35 Projected gas emission with a BRT system not feasible on a technical ground in the overly crowded urban area of the Kathmandu Valley that is seismically sensitive. Although the carbon emissions from the BRT system, especially from buses jumps from 683 tons in the current stage ( Fig. 4.25) to 16,255 tons under BRT system (Fig. 4.35) , the overall CO 2 emissions in the Kathmandu Valley decreases by 4000 tons per year (Fig. 4.35) . Thus, looking at the overall trends for now using a BRT would be the best choice to improve the environment and transit system in the Kathmandu Valley (Fig. 4.35) . A study done by the State of Delaware (2018) revealed that a bus uses 8.7% less energy per passenger mile than a typical automobile such as a motorcycle and/or car taxi. If it were possible to have a train in the Kathmandu Valley, commuter trains would use 23.7% less energy per passenger for a mile than a typical automobile. In terms of energy consumption per passenger mile (energy used to transport one passenger one mile), a BRT system is more energy efficient (State of Delaware 2018).

A BRT public transit system can move people efficiently while producing significantly less air pollution to move one passenger per a mile-compared to moving a person one mile in a single-occupant auto. Buses emit only (a) 20% of carbon monoxide per passenger mile as compared to a single-occupant auto; (b) 10% as much hydrocarbons per passenger mile as compared to a single-occupant auto; and (c) 75% nitrogen oxides (another ozone precursor) per passenger mile as compared to a single-occupant auto. Trains emit only 25% nitrogen oxides per passenger mile as a single-occupant auto and nearly 100% less hydrocarbons and carbon monoxides. Clearly, riding a public transit throughout the year makes a big difference in air quality especially for those with health and breathing problems (DART 2018). Thus, in order to keep Kathmandu relatively clean, it would be more worthwhile riding public buses than low occupancy vehicles. Additionally, only recently, the Government of Nepal has proposed the introduction of Electric Bus system in the Kathmandu Valley. Electric buses would reduce the emission by almost 50% (Spector 2018; Fig. 4 .36).

The introduction of the proposed BRT system would help in the reduction of atmospheric particulates. Though our proposed approach might not lower the atmospheric particulates in the Kathmandu Valley to the level of international standards, i.e., 50 mg/m 3 , implementation of this model might improve the environment of the Kathmandu Valley. If implemented properly, our approaches might contribute to the reduction in health costs and accidents as other researchers have argued for elsewhere and also, specifically, for the Kathmandu Valley. Implementing the proposed BRT system and using electric buses will bring the following scenarios: Today, motorcycles and scooters are the major modes of transportation in Nepal in general and in the Kathmandu Valley in particular. These low occupancy vehicles contribute more per capita emissions than by high occupancy vehicles. For example, a car on average generates 9.41 metric tons (1.882 metric ton/person assuming 5 persons per vehicle) of CO 2 equivalent throughout the year, while a motorcycle generates 13.7 metric tons (6.85 metric ton/person assuming two persons per motorcycle) of CO 2 (Vasic and Weilenmann, 2006) assuming that these transit modes are used regularly, about 3-4 h a day in average. Riders use them very often because they have better gas mileage, readily available, and can pass through small spaces even during the time of traffic congestions. Unfortunately, they emit an excess of carbon monoxide (CO), nitrous oxides (NOx), and unburnt gas (HCs) which negatively affect human health. These emissions vary with the level of road surface roughness measured at the international roughness index (IRI) in meters per kilometer (m/km). The Highway Design and Maintenance Standards Model (HDM-4) (Watanatada et al. 1987) suggests that on average, an IRI for the urban Kathmandu ranges between 4.0 m/km and IRI 6.0/km, which is considered very high, major cause to emit high gaseous emissions. Therefore, Nepal needs a change in its transit system and must improve the conditions of roads. 

With the promulgation of the new constitution in 2015, almost 65% of the total population of Nepal became urban dwellers. Overnight, the number of urban areas increased from 105 to 396 (276 municipalities, 11 sub-metropolises, and 6 metropolises) (Figs. 4.18 and 4.19) by annexing many of the adjacent rural areas. However, many of these urban areas so classified are characterized by ruralopolises, yet they dream to emerge as "smart cities." These aspiring "smart cities" would need a well-planned urban transit system. Our proposed Transit Tracker App would be instrumental in regulating transportation in many of the proposed smart cities throughout Nepal. The concept of a smart city embraces several definitions depending on the meanings of the word "smart": intelligent city, knowledge city, ubiquitous city, sustainable city, and digital city. Many definitions of a smart city have become viral, but not one has been universally acknowledged yet (Cocchia 2014). An effective transit system is one of the major components to making a "smart city" a success.

We argue that our proposed Transit Tracker App will help to develop a wellorganized Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in many of the proposed 15 smart cities located in different parts of Nepal with one smart city in each province at the metropolitan level and four proposed smart cities in the crowded Kathmandu Valley (Fig. 4.19 ; Plate 4.6).

This Transit Tracker will help in knowing the average speed, velocity, conditions of traffic, and arrival times to subsequent stations thus reducing the waiting times for passengers. Since many users are equipped with navigation devices, they will be able to utilize the real-time information (RTI) to track traffic conditions, for emergency services in accidents within the transportation network. Using the proposed Transit Tracker, not only will help users to know their waiting times for the bus, but also it will guarantee the bus trips and bus-to-bus transfers with assured securities.

We expect that various investment agencies would be attracted to implement a BRT system in different smart cities of Nepal. We argue that our approach would benefit in saving travel time for users, lowering vehicle-operating costs (VOCs), improving safety and quality of public transit systems while minimizing repeated accidents.

Though we have attempted to make the App perfect, we are now limited to the android mobiles; we are working on fine-tuning the iOS system. In this attempt, we have not perfected in addressing unreliable network, fuel shortage, poor infrastructure, roadblocks, traffic jams, and promotion and marketing in most cases. It will take time in educating people about the use of Apps.

The intermittent internet service becomes the major hurdle to implement this App. The intention of this section is not to describe the in depth technical part of each application and their disadvantages, but to provide a starting point for urban planning using androids. In the future, we plan to undertake surveys of public transport systems to gather information on total traffic, its composition (number of buses) and vehicle occupancy, the prevailing average vehicle speed, and steps needed to improve public transportation and traffic management. Presently only Android users can benefit from their services. Use of smartphones without uninterrupted internet services would help to use the Apps by a large number of users.

Any future research needs to measure distances from point to point; travel time; various incidences such as accident, level of carbon dioxide emissions, air quality, and noise level; and travel reliability for various locations. The Government of Nepal (GoN) is planning to operate electric buses to improve the Kathmandu Valley's transit system. Using the proposed Transit Tracker App with the use of electric buses would be a win-win situation for academia, the public, and the government. Transit entrepreneurs also will find this application promising for investments in transit systems.

Air pollution stands as the fourth major factor for causing death (1:10) and economic impacts worldwide leaving aside the deaths from bad dietary habits, tobacco consumption, and vehicular accidents (The World Bank 2017). At the global scale, annually $225 billion is spent to cure illness resulting from air pollution. South Asia alone spends over $66 billion on health annually, which is approximately 1% of the gross domestic product (GDP) (The World Bank 2017). At the global scale, approximately 7 million people die each year due to breathing in fine particulate matters. It is one of the preventable causes of death (Shrestha 2016 ) through environmental policy. PM 2Á5 caused an estimated 7.6% of total global mortality in 2015. In 2015, there were reports of 14% of preterm births being caused by the preventable environmental pollution (Kc et al. 2015) . Further research revealed that in 2017, 2.7-3.4 million "preterm births" were associated with PM 2.5 exposure (Malley et al. 2017 ). In 2017, 12.6 million died due to environmental pollution of which air pollution alone killed over 7 million (WHO 2017a, b, c) . Every year, air pollution causes around 6.5 million premature deaths globally, of which, in-house deaths account for 3.5 million and ambient air pollution deaths account for 3 million. By the 2040s, annual premature deaths could go as high as 7.5 million (Lancet 2017). Although global rates of mortality due to PM 2Á5 exposure decreased from 1990 to 2015 as a result of improved air quality in high-income countries (Cohen et al. 2017 ), Nepal's case is the complete reverse, especially in the Kathmandu Valley.

According to the various surveys, almost 14% of the Kathmandu denizens lose their lives due to an excess exposure to open air, 25.5% die because of chronic bronchitis, 12% suffer from restricted indoor activities because of no healthy recreational facilities to easily accessible areas, and 5.5% suffer from asthma (Tuladhar 2004) . If the concentration of PM 2.5 is reduced to 58 μmg/m 3 , Kathmandu's mortality may go down by 9% and hospital admissions may decreases by 29%, and if it is reduced to half (44 μmg/m 3 ), Kathmandu's mortality can be reduced by 22%. This step would help in the reduction of $2.7 million in health costs (Tuladhar 2004) . The Transit Tracker model we proposed here is to overcome pollution problems and make the Kathmandu Valley's environment livable. This is possible because in recent years, both individual users and the perspective network managers can use cell phones and can navigate the location of buses to reduce their transit time and reach their destination on time even after they give up the use of low occupancy vehicles. Many more people are equipped with navigation devices that can track real-time traffic conditions of the transportation network, emergencies, or accidents (Gkiotsalitis and Stathopoulos 2015) .

A mobile application can simulate the traffic conditions through a routing algorithm that can help in projecting and detecting traffic jams by providing prior information. The proposed Transit Tracker App will help to locate a bus, where it is parked, how long it takes to arrive at a certain location, what bus would be best to use to reach a certain location, in which station the user should make a change between different transport modes, and how to continue until the final destination. We argue that our App users would find it useful in their route choice decisions. The core aspects of this application are to (a) use live traffic data and estimations of arc (distance) travel times; (b) store users' preferences in their profiles; (c) suggest paths to the users and public transport modes; and (d) consider the users' preferences during the optimal path decision. Our proposed App would help establish an approach for mobile navigation in the Kathmandu Valley, but the caveat is the requirements of continuous data feed from different sources and a communication system between mobile phones and external servers. However, the intermittent internet services might cause problems.

Nepal needs a drastic improvement in her urban transit system. With the current trend of internal migration and the trend of urbanization, over 70% of Nepali will live in urban areas by 2040 (WHO 2017a). The number of vehicles is increasing in urban areas in every successive year. Currently, the concentration of particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) in urban areas of Nepal is more than 10 times higher than what WHO's (2017a) recommended level of 140 μg/m 3 . In 2012, the Ministry of Science and Technology of Nepal published guidelines on "National Ambient Air Quality (NAAQ)." The NAAQ's set standards for Nepal were still higher than that set by WHO (CBS 2013) . Given the alarming level of particulate concentration in the atmosphere, the Department of Environment (DoE) has established environmental monitoring stations in nine different places, three stations within the Kathmandu Valley, and six stations outside the valley, namely, in Kavre, Pokhara, Chitwan, and Rupandehi (http://pollution.gov.np) (DoE 2017a, b) . It was revealed from 24-hour observation that the average total suspended particles (TSP) in Kathmandu was 4749 μg/m 3 , PM 10 was 2928 μg/m 3 , and PM 2.5 was 226 μg/m 3 , which were much higher than WHO's recommended (SEI 2007) .

If the trends continue, by 2030, annual premature deaths in Nepal due to outdoor air pollution are expected to rise up to 24,000 (Shindell et al. 2012) . The most alarming diseases will be due to respiratory illness, allergy, eye infection, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), ischemic heart disease (IHD), and stroke (SEI 2007) . Mortality from ambient air pollution obtained from the Global Health Observatory (GHO) for 2012 for Nepal shows 9944 deaths. Of these deaths, ischemic heart disease (IHD) deaths were 33.4%, 32% from stroke, 17.8% from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer 9.3%, and acute lower respiratory tract infection (ALRTI) 7.4%. Females were in a larger number compared to males (WHO 2017a, b, c, d) . In 2013-2014, COPD was the most common (43%) cause of mortality among inpatients. Among the outpatients, the top fourth category disease was the respiratory tract (40%) with both upper and lower respiratory tract infections (MoHP 2014) and cancer (5%) (Bhandari et al. 2014) . District wise distribution within the valley showed that the highest number of patients from Kathmandu (44.4%), Lalitpur (10.3%), and Bhaktapur (10.2%). Many police officers who are involved in the regulations of traffic are exposed to different levels of air pollution. Traffic police who are being continuously exposed to dusty roads (Bhandari et al. 2015; Bashyal et al. 2008 ) have their lungs seriously infected (Shrestha et al. 2015) . At the time of writing this manuscript, the Government of Nepal has made some attempts to address the environmental issues (DoE 2017a, b), a continuation of the policies since the 1990s. These include: The Ambient Urban Air Quality Management program aims to bring the level of air pollution to the targeted level in the Kathmandu Valley within the next 5 years with the following approaches:

• Building an environmentally sustainable transport system • Implementing environment-friendly construction activities • Reducing the number of industries that emit polluting gases in the Valley • Promoting cleaner fuel and technology to minimize domestic pollution (indoor air pollution)

The Metropolitan Traffic Police Division has directed schools and colleges in Kathmandu to carry schoolchildren before office hours. A simple approach such as carpooling has been encouraged to manage traffic generated by public offices (Joshi 2019) . Additionally, the Government of Nepal is planning to improve the conditions of pilot routes, implement traffic management measures, pedestrianize heritage routes within the city center, and monitor air quality in sensitive places. It is also hoped that such approaches would result in saving travel time for users, lower vehicle operating costs (VOCs), and improve the safety and quality of the public transit system. The government intervention is essential because many of the urban transport services belong to private individuals or organizations and an improvement to the transport system will protect public welfare through a hygienic environment and will reduce costs associated with negative externalities such as pollution and climate change (CANN 2014) .

Air pollution has been a huge burden to the residents of Kathmandu, threatening the lives of thousands of people every year. It is likely that the scenario will be much worse in the coming years if immediate preventive measures are not taken on time. It is of utmost urgency to educate the common people on harmful aspects of air pollution and the necessary precautions to prevent its deadly consequences. The solution to Kathmandu's air pollution can be achieved only when the government takes stern actions to address vehicular emissions. The Constitution of Nepal 2015 has mentioned that a clean and healthy environment should be guaranteed to the people as their primary right. The National health policy of Nepal has included air pollution as a priority research/public health agenda, but the implementation has not been efficient. The benefit of doubt can be given to government as the political stability has been established and the government has made many tall promises to address pollution issues of the Kathmandu Valley in particular and all the urban areas throughout Nepal in general. We hope that the use of our proposed App using real time would reduce passengers' waiting time for the bus, one of the most disliked elements of transit trips. It will also guarantee the bus trips and bus-to-bus transfers within the scheduled time. Many people in the Kathmandu Valley are transitdependent, and an improvement in the urban transit system would help them balance their home and work schedules.

We have examined the accuracies of our App at the global, regional, and local scales (Appendices B and C). Our results are matching with the ground reality. Though the haversine formula ignores the curvature of the earth, calculating distances and estimating travel times to different locations make no difference, especially for smaller areas like the Kathmandu Valley. In other words, our Apps have very high accuracy for local scales. Yet, we argue that our App will have universal applications because it is easy to locate popular places such as amusement park, historic sites, and public places even if the App shows locations 10-15 m away from such places. We believe that our proposed prototype App will enthuse scholars, investors, researchers, and P-actors to advance transportation modeling in the Kathmandu Valley and later translating to countrywide to serve in all the proposed smart cities and other general routes (Fig. 4.37 ).

Urban geography is a spatial lens that builds explanations of urban patterns and processes of past centuries, contemporary changes, and time-space viewpoints on city evolution, city livelihoods, and city complexity. This sub-discipline has become a leading substantive area of human and environmental geography and one in which geospatial technology is used for spatial analysis to better understand the spatial dynamics of urban systems. Nepal's urban areas face myriad of spatial disorganizations and irregularities, enormous social and economic inequalities, and degrees of political instability that make civic management and oversight extremely difficult to accomplish. Rapid urbanization has taken place amid a conflict-ridden environment, while the country was caught in a prolonged period of political instability. Many urban infrastructures were damaged during the Maoist insurgency period (1996) (1997) (1998) (1999) (2000) (2001) (2002) (2003) (2004) (2005) , and few structures that were designed during such unstable period were not conducive to sustain urban needs (World Bank 2011a, b). The Government of Nepal (GoN) faces difficulties to decide whether to demolish such structures and build completely new structures or retrofit the existing buildings. If managed properly, however, Nepal can leverage the comparative advantages of these old cities and their building structures to break the cycle of economic stagnation, reduce poverty, and meet its GDP growth target. Nepal's urban areas are full of both skilled and unskilled manpower. It is essential for Nepal to broaden the base of economic activity and job creation in urban areas through systematic planning from the very beginning and create more jobs within various cities. As Muzzini and Aparicio (2013) argued only vibrant competitive cities can attract high-return investments and generate high-productivity jobs to accelerate growth to meet required GDP, Nepal needs to make a balance between urban growth and environment so that resources are not misused to clean the problems created by fast urban development.

Despite influence by the neoliberal economic agendas under the directions of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), Nepali cities have failed to modernize and achieve even the South Asian standard, forgetting about the Asian standard. Under the modernization and globalization schemes, over the last three decades, a few Asian countries including Singapore, Taiwan, Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru have successfully demonstrated several positive changes in their urban plans. In order to make its cities vibrant, Nepal needs to involve all actors of civil society, particularly the private and community sectors into city planning through partnerships. Local government needs to be empowered with greater autonomy in finance and legislation to increase city-to-city cooperate to exchange their experiences to share lessons learned from elsewhere. Heavy taxes need to be imposed on excessive wastes and gaseous emissions. All environmental issues need be properly integrated into developmental planning through careful spatial organization of infrastructures. Roads need to be widened to provide accesses to all households by heavy duty vehicles, and annexation of hinterlands can be done only if the infrastructure can serve urban population.

New urban areas have been added each year without full analyses of spatial arrangements of urban clusters. A number of Nepal's municipalities present large shares of land area with rural characteristics (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) . The political approach of defining any area into urban while the area has a predominantly agrarian economy has created a situation of ruralopolis. Within the ruralopolis, the population is competing for an agglomerated metropolitan or municipal facilities and services. Due to ad hoc bases of decision-making, many hinterlands are racing for ruralopolis with the fusion of rural economic and social systems with metropolitan spatial organizations. There is a disconnection between urban geography and the politico-administrative definition of urban areas that overemphasizes the population size while putting little weight to other urban criteria such as infrastructure development and economic growth (Muzzini and Aparicio 2013) . Urban infrastructures have been minimal, if they exist; their spatial organizations are not systematic from a long-term urban planning perspective.

Outside the Kathmandu Valley, several urban corridors have been developed by annexing many rural areas. The ruralopolises are essentially becoming new urban frontiers without spatial and infrastructural facilities. Employment opportunities are missing. Many household are bound to live hand-to-mouth adding to urban poverty. Irregularly built substandard housing, air pollution, insufficient or contaminated drinking water, inadequate sanitation and solid waste disposal services, vectorborne diseases, increased industrial waste, motor vehicle traffic, and stress associated with poverty and unemployment, among others, have become common features in these areas. Though these ruralopolises have brought a unique set of advantages such as an agglomeration economy, there are a number of disadvantages. A significant proportion of population still lives below the poverty line and are particularly vulnerable to diseases resulting from poor sanitation with an already compromised primary health-care delivery system (Trivedi et al. 2008) .

Waste dumping sites are not properly planned in most of the Nepali cities. Dumping wastes haphazardly has polluted watersheds. Along with the wastes, strict control measures are needed to limit vehicular and industrial emissions. Proper regulations are required to acquire and register new vehicles based on the available spaces and accommodations. Public transit system needs strict regulations and reliable scheduling.

There are heightening health-related risks among city dwellers as many people live in poorly drained areas. Many are suffering from multiple health complications such as bronchial and respiratory problems. Despite all these problems, urbanization is considered necessarily as an effective strategy to reduce poverty. However, reduction in urban poverty would also need to undertake a variety of economic instruments designed to deal with specific polluting sources in a technologically appropriate and economically non-distorting manner. In order to minimize health risks from indoor and outdoor air pollution, it is imperative to find sustainable supplies of electricity. Though the supply has been improved recently, it is from the import of energy from India. An alternative source of energy is essential. Alternative energy such as biogas and solar energy can go a long way in reducing air pollution, especially in many ruralopolises and the city suburbs when the electricity is not sufficient. 8 Despite these shortcomings, in recent years, urban social geography has been changed rapidly. Western bars and liquor stores have become cosmopolitan in cities. Previously, where doctors were practitioners of indigenous medicines, now the practitioners of modern Western medicine are found all over the cities with the opening of many medical colleges and hospitals. Many educational institutions are sprouting and students can specialize in high-tech degrees within Nepal. Remittances have changed the faces of the urban areas making them as expensive as the European and North American cities, but with substandard facilities. Land prices have skyrocketed and congestions have become unbearable each day with high levels of pollution. The smart city dream after the promulgation of the new constitution and the creation of model smart cities by private entrepreneurs have given hope of modernizing and improving urban life. An improved transit system with reliable service is needed to serve those smart cities. Each residential unit needs to have accesses to heavy-duty vehicles that are essential for rescue purposes, if earthquakes or other natural calamities happen.

1. Nepal is rapidly urbanizing. All cities need well-laid spatial plans. All infrastructures need to be properly located using well-referenced information by following stringent and geometrically aligned infrastructures (Box 4.1) to make these cities' modules replicable 9 to other geographic areas (Adhikari 2013) .

Box 4.1 Data Aligning and Using Right Datum A long-term urban planning requires proper spatial arrangements of built-in infrastructures on a landscape with detail biophysical information attached to each object. Such information could be integrated from a variety of sources including information from satellite sensors and ground surveys, for examples. Advances in GIS, GPS, and airborne remote sensing data have made it possible for bridging both aspatial and spatial data on a common platform. An arrangement of data in a common platform using proper datum helps to identify topological associations of various objects (Zhang 2005) . In ordinary mapping, latitude and longitude or Cartesian coordinates are used directly. In geospatial analysis, even if each "sub" dataset is intrinsically correct, data needs to bring together in a common reference frame. Planners using data from various sources face significant risks, if their datum mismatches. Potential failure to match seismic data with surface location or mismatch of spatial association could cause structural damages. This could happen due to missing geological horizons and encroaching on other horizontally deviated structure because of wrong horizontal datum and vertical reference. In determining the optimum route on a transportation network or computing the area of land parcels, one needs accurate projection based on the right datum. Since the earth is not perfectly round, geoid varies from place to place, and it is essential to clearly define a shape based on location-specific information. Accurately defined data helps in geovisualization of spatial associations in a 3-D form utilizing a specific spatial reference system. A spatial reference system helps to locate any landmark such as trees, houses, roads, and buildings with own unique address. To correctly determine positions of geographical features on the surface of the earth, spatial datasets must all be related to a single, common reference system for a specific location. To have a good spatial reference system, knowledge of geodesy is essential. Knowledge of geodesy helps to know the complicated nature of earth's by mathematically representing the ellipsoid or spheroid of the earth surface. An ellipse rotates on (continued) 9 Following the Kathmandu's model of widening roads, in 2013, Pokhara Valley Development Committee (PVDA) in coordination with District Administration Officer (DAO) also has removed illegally built houses on the bank of Phirke River with a view to conserve river water. The PVDA has recommended removing settlements that are located on either side of the river. Box 4.1 (continued) its minor axis and generates an ellipsoid. On this ellipse, a terrestrial position can be identified with longitudinal and latitudinal angles. North-south lines constitute longitude or meridians ranging from 0 AE 18 , and east-west lines constitute latitude or parallels ranging from 0 AE 90 . The longitude and latitude give a locational position on the surface of the stated ellipsoid; the real points on the ground are actually above (or possibly below) the ellipsoid surface. Thus, a third coordinate, i.e., ellipsoid height, is needed which is a long a straight line perpendicular to the ellipsoid surface. It does, however, unambiguously identify a point in space above or below the ellipsoid surface in a simple geometrical way. In order to use latitudes and longitudes with any degree of certainty, it is essential to know which ellipsoid to choose. Cartesian coordinates describe position in three dimensions, using three perpendicular axes X, Y, and Z. Three coordinates unambiguously locate any point in this system. Using a Cartesian coordinate system, any point on the earth's surface has an x, y, and z coordinate value, and that coordinate value can be translated into an ellipsoid coordinate, that is, latitude, longitude, and an ellipsoid height. In practice, the ellipsoid height is traditionally referred to as mean sea level, that is, geoid height, rather than ellipsoid height. While aligning all spatial data, it is essential to use the right datum, and WGS 84 has been used as a common platform to align geospatial data. Nepali Geodesists have used Modified UTM (Modified Everest 1937). The basic geodesy information originate from WGS 84. Only very recently, Nepali geodesists started using right datum WGS 44 N and WGS 45 N and many of the Nepal's maps now confirm with the international boundaries of Google Earth.

In 1992, a group of women took initiative for waste management in the Kathmandu Valley and their organization became a registered NGO in 2012 in the name of the Women Environment Preservation Committee (WEPCO). This WEPCO has been very active in converting non-biodegradable wastes such as plastics and metal wastes into usable products and earning over $40 each day. It received an internationally recognized Gender Equality Award in 2012 besides receiving several national and international awards in 1996 and 2003 (Amatya 2013) . These award incentives have encouraged many other institutions to utilize biodegradable waste into usable products, such as the production of methane gas. In a similar line, the Budhanilkantha School produces 14.2 kg of methane gas each day from biodegradable wastes. The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), Nepal Pollution Control and (continued) Box 4.2 (continued) Environmental Monitoring Center ( NEPCEMAC), and Bio Camp Nepal (BCN) are involved in composting various wastes. Between 2002 and 2011, the KMC had sold more than 6000 compost bins of 100 liters capacity, each costing $20 to encourage composting at the household level. Each household is encouraged to reduce the volume of wastes by managing organic wastes at the source of production. Since almost 65% of waste products are of organic nature, such products could be managed at source sites (Amatya 2013) . Minimizing garbage amount is essential because the dumping sites are limited and there are resistances from local people to dispose wastes in their neighborhood. In order for alleviating these wastes, the Kathmandu Metropolitan area has encouraged vegetable farming on the roof top of each house. Bins are provided as incentives to plant vegetables.

2. The garbage produced from each household should be segregated, reused, and recycled in order to cut the volume of waste disposed at landfill sites. Properly managing wastes would decrease the amount of waste to go to the sanitary landfill sites. Innovative ideas of utilizing garbage (Box 4.2), such as converting garbage into other uses, such as methane gas, electricity, and fertilizer should be encouraged. 3. Taxes should be imposed on excessive wastes and vehicular emissions. That would help to reduce the amount of wastes and emission; however, such an approach has been cost-effective only for areas with over 1.5 million people. 4. There should be prohibition in the uses of leaded gasoline and the mandating of the use of low-sulfur diesel fuel in order to reduce the amount of depositions of pollutants on the ground. 5. The Ministry of Physical Planning and Works has plans and planners, while the Ministry of Local Development has the authority, but it has no direct ownership of the plans. Both agencies are involved in sustainable urban development. A proper coordination between the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction and Ministry of Local Development is essential for sustainable urban planning. 6. With the promulgation of the Local Self-Governance Act (LSGA 1999), municipalities have been tasked with the responsibilities of drainage and water supply. This task would be very effective, if used through public-private partnership approaches and if decisions are made through public hearings. The role of LSGA has to be clearly spelled under the new federal structure. 7. Nepal Building Codes 1994 (NBC-94) should be strictly institutionalized while constructing buildings. Change of use or occupancy should be prohibited without examining the load bearing capacities of buildings. Buildings should have proper escape routes in case of emergency. 8. Existing fire protection and sprinkler systems should be thoroughly refurbished, as these systems are nonexistent in many urban areas and if there are some structures, they have been obsolete in almost all the urban areas.

9. Utilizing the bitter experiences learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, the following recommendations are made (Adhikari and Bhattarai 2020):

(a) The public transit systems need to be operated with superior hygienic standards including frequent use of disinfectant, washing, passenger load reduction, hand washing facilities at transit stops. Transit system must follow the strict sanitary protocols such as requiring masks for all passengers. (b) The walking and biking trails should be well maintained while creating enough physical space to reduce the spread of communicable diseases. (c) There should be easy access to medical care services including the ability to conduct tracking of any infectious diseases and testing. (d) Multifamily residential dwelling units should be designed with multiple communal staircases to use the stairs closest to their units in order to maintain proper physical distance from others. (e) If possible, provide touchless technologies in elevators, and multiple routes for the residents in and around the building. Designing the common exterior walls and floors with washable and disinfectable materials will help in stopping the spread of any communicable diseases. (f) Maintain open spaces for recreation, fresh air, and to maintain escape space in case of disasters like the earthquakes, fire, and flooding. (g) Maintaining therapeutic gardens as in many Western countries and in Singapore will be beneficial. Maintaining safe spaces (meeting centers) for people to exchange ideas and socialization especially in times of a pandemic such as the COVID-19 will be helpful. (h) Providing delivery services, curbside pickup, and providing spaces to queue outside essential businesses will help to control communicable diseases. Maintaining well-planned parking spaces with strict regulations will save time and possible contaminations from delivery vehicles.

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