Hacker News Reader

Comment by amolsarva | Hacker News Reader

One point many commenters are missing.

Yes the country is plainly less rich than Japan and the first world, and it shows in big cities. Even comparing big cities in China to India there is a big gap.

But here is what you are missing: as total wealth in India is growing there are indeed some places (which the casual tourist driving around will not see) centered in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi that are super rich. One way to spy on it is visit one of the "five star" hotels like JW Marriots etc -- they are numerous, massive, and full of quite rich people with loads of servants and fancy places to live.

By the way, you can find loads of disgustingly miserable poor places in the rich USA too. Maybe they all have sewers and electricity but that's about all that separates parts of the rural US (deep south) or bad urban poverty (right nearby me in NYC) and some villages in India.

View on HN

Please, just stop. You have no clue. I've lived most of my life in poor parts of the US. Now I live in a posh area of Pune and jog through slums fairly regularly. There is no comparison.

Just one stat for comparison. In the US, 70% of poor people own a car, and 25% own two cars. In India, 1.5% (as of 2006, it's probably more like 2-3% now) of all people have a car, and marginally more own a scooter.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_p...

The 5'th percentile in the US is richer than the 95'th percentile of India.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-t...

This is one of my favorite topics, discussing poverty in India and the US.

In India (maybe every developing country), as you mentioned, poverty is lack of stuff. You literally don't have enough to eat.

In US (maybe every developed country), poverty is the lack of HOPE.

Its very very weird. I cannot understand why some "poor" person in USA feels poor when they get to eat, have shelter, drive a car, get to rant at their Congressman/woman etc.

Even the poorest place in the US has access to electricity, clean water, sewage disposal, trash disposal, law enforcement, emergency response, phone service, broadcast television, postal service, and the list goes on. This is definitely not true in India or China, and there is a long way to go before they reach that level.

You are right about most of that being available in the US (except emergency response - but I don't know how quickly you will get rescued in rural US places, or even parts of NYC if you read the papers)

But you are wrong about most of this not being available in most places in India. Maybe sewage isn't great and emergency response sucks, and phone is wireless not landline. But there is definitely postal service and TV! You must be kidding.

But the main point --> a few bits of infrastructure like what you list does not make people happy, comfortable or rich. You can be very poor and miserable here in the US and many millions of people would be much better off if they lived in Mumbai, where at least stuff is cheaper to buy

First, you are absolutely right, though you may have access to the same basic set of services whether you are in rural Mississippi or New York, the quality of those services are different. I'd rather be rushed to the hospital in New York than in Mississippi. But it is far better to have those services than not.

Second, I wasn't suggesting that only the US has all of these services, and cities in India do not. I was saying that every city (even the poorest) in the US has all of these services, whereas there are many cities and villages in India and China who are lacking some or most of these services. Outside of the major cities in India, would most small villages have these services? I don't think so. I have driven across the United States, and seen towns of 1000 people that have all of the services I have in Los Angeles.

It's not quite true that the poorest areas of the U.S have access to those things. Check out these two links about colonias:

http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/border/elpasocolonia... http://www.sos.state.tx.us/border/colonias/faqs.shtml

And two New York Times articles from July:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/us/08ttconditions.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/us/10tthealth.html

colonias built on land that was never zoned for residential uses

And

Many homes, built without regard for indoor bathrooms or plumbing, are treated as substandard or dilapidated by housing inspectors. These homes cannot pass inspection to qualify for hook up to water lines

It is not that these services are not available because the government is unable to provide them. In these cases, the government will provide these services in areas zoned for residential use, and where buildings have passed inspection. Ironically, the fact that these people do not have access to certain infrastructure is a sign of how modernized the US is...not only do we provide the infrastructure, we also have a system in place to ensure its safety and quality.

Thanks for those links, I didn't know about colonias. You can go to some unincorporated areas around LA and find similar surprising backwardness -- like people living in unheated garages without running water.

Nothing like India, though, where you don't have to go out of your way to find really exceptional poverty and deprivation.

You can go to some unincorporated areas around LA and find similar surprising backwardness -- like people living in unheated garages without running water

I think you are confusing the availability of infrastructure with the ability to pay for it. Anywhere in the US that is zoned for residential use will have access to clean water, sewage, trash pickup, mail, broadcast television, landline phone, police, fire, etc. So this garage, if it is in a residential area, and is up to code, will have access to these services, assuming the owners or occupants are willing and able to pay for it. I could go live in the garage at the Playboy Mansion, and I wouldn't have running water or heat their either. That says more about my personal living conditions than the infrastructure the government provides.

OK, I guess I don't see such a clear distinction between the two concepts ("available, but can't afford it" and "not available").

As I tried to say above, I agree that it's a denial of reality to equate India with the U.S. along the "poor infrastructure" axis -- based on some particularly bad examples. I believe we're in agreement about that.

In the USA, poverty leads to obesity. In India, poverty leads to starvation. There's a huge difference when a government's concern for the poor is getting them to eat "healthier".

Have you ever seen a desperately thin homeless person in the US?

Yes I have, but that is because many (probably most) of the homeless in the US are alcoholics or suffering some mental disorder, which often causes bad nutrition - from lack of appetite to self-starvation. More to your point, I think, I have also seen seriously overweight ones too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com