The Ruin of Mumbai
asteriskmag.com
asteriskmag.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brihanmumbai_Municipal_Corpora... has more info including controversies.
Also, regarding housing specifically, due to a perpetual population growth and inflation, many buildings sit empty because builders know that people will cave in, even if property is temporarily overpriced and no one is buying them in the short term. Additionally legal disputes often block up other buildings, resulting in large dilapidated buildings sitting in the middle of busy/high-value areas but providing no benefit.
In any case, there are lots of factors, but I think most Mumbaikars would agree that the city could be run much better with similar/the same resources.
Something similar in my country (Nigeria). Many people keep pointing out that Lagos, our most crowded and number one commercial city, has an annual budget of roughly $1 billion, meaning there should be world-class infrastructure.
Until I point out that $1 billion is roughly $50 annually per person. Even accounting for labor and cost of living differences, you need at least 20x that before you start expecting world-class infrastructure.
Sure, labor is cheaper, but power plants, buses, and trains are mostly imported and cost a damn lot. No way you’re getting first-world infrastructure with third-world budget and taxes.
I wanted to make a comparison with New York Metropolitan Area and they spend 20 billion only in traffic stuff.
In purchase parity, it's 27 billions dollar vs 200-300 billion of California. Still 10x less.
I wanted to complain about bangalore garbage and traffic but it will take too much space.
Well when one divide total budget by population per person won't be much. Economist and even politicians mentioned as much that Indian tax revenues per person are 1/20th of first world but regardless they do think they deserve facilities comparable to developed nations.
Municipal Corporations all over India have minimal autonomy outside of PWD procurement [0].
[0] - https://www.impriindia.com/insights/urban-governance-in-indi...
(Edit: quick googling shows property tax to be the biggest current revenue stream since octroi has gone away after the introduction of a national GST.)
And for all the fascination with bureaucracy, the bureaucracy is never efficient. My aunts and uncles who landlorded there for a while had so much trouble evicting tenants for things that would be trivial in America, such as failure to pay. Courts, municipal officials, just drag their feet. It's a cultural problem, and shocks the American conscience.
Such a sad squandering of potential and a good case study in how culture absolutely affects outcomes.
Isn't that perhaps the point? Corruption allows everyone to get their hand in the till for money, power, etc. Maybe this drives the "central planning" so that the elites get their graft too.
India as a country is about 75 years old. It’s ridiculously young.
India is the largest democracy in the world despite having half as many official languages as American states, and an order of magnitude more spoken languages, cultures and religions.
Despite this India has remained a largely integral state, has seen authoritarian rule and seen it off in a few years, unlike nearly every other democracy formed around the same time has never been ruled by the military for even a moment.
The greatest economic miracle in the history of human civilization, the growth of China was a product of almost complete central planning to the point that the state also coercively controlled the number of kids you could have. Central planning is clearly no barrier to growth.
India, on the other hand has a highly federal system of government. Arguably the last few years have seen a lot more top down management but that’s a result of the party in federal government also being in power in most state governments.
The current debate playing out in the world is the exact opposite of what you’re claiming. China’s success has made central planning and authoritarianism appear highly desirable. India’s slower growth has made it appear that federalism and democracy are not popular.
However, as the pandemic is showing, when authoritarians mess up they tend to cause irreparable harm whereas democracies are able to absorb a lot more hits.
Your vision of India is a mirror house vision of a 50 year old India at best.
(Btw, even the court and municipal problems you’re referring to is clearly not cultural. India’s slow legal system is very clearly a result of sticking to an antiquated British system and not modernizing it to allow, for example, out of court settlements, which has led to massive backlogs that are now being addressed.
And in terms of municipal actions the Indian state is addressing those issues to the point where there are many functions where the Indian equivalent are significantly faster than the U.S. Try getting a passport in the U.S. today vs India.
Try making payments. India is far ahead of the U.S. which is frankly shocking considering the massive head start the U.S. has here.
Try IDs. While Apple is celebrating something like 4 states doing a pilot system of digital IDs which hasn’t even grown in the 5 years or so, nearly every municipal ID in India today is digital.
Most civil functions can now be done online.
India has also drastically improved government distributions. While the US government was sending literal checks through the mail over COVID Indian monetary benefits are now directly deposited in a bank account.
Well realistically, this is when my family left, but the article seems to cite the same pain points today.
Also, I think this comment exemplifies some of the issues with Indian society. The moment one levels a criticism, suddenly, the rather pointed criticism is taken as a criticism of society as a whole.
At no point did I criticise India's democracy or accuse it of authoritarianism. There are many centrally planned economies without authoritarianism. Nor is central planning associated with military juntas / coups. At no point did I say anything negative about India's growth story, which as you point out, is astronomical, but slower than China.
Overall, I think India's great. I'm just pointing out some issues that I see. It would behoove you, and Indians more generally, to listen to the criticism without getting confused over what's being criticised.
Also, the existence of centralized planning in a more concentrated form in China does not mean the centralized planning in India cannot be criticized. Again, we must stay tuned to exactly the criticisms I've outlined, not strawman.
> India, on the other hand has a highly federal system of government. Arguably the last few years have seen a lot more top down management but that’s a result of the party in federal government also being in power in most state governments.
The US, Australia, Canada, etc all have federal systems. This is hardly an excuse.
> And in terms of municipal actions the Indian state is addressing those issues to the point where there are many functions where the Indian equivalent are significantly faster than the U.S. Try getting a passport in the U.S. today vs India.
How long does an Indian passport take?
> India has also drastically improved government distributions. While the US government was sending literal checks through the mail over COVID Indian monetary benefits are now directly deposited in a bank account.
Again, however ahead India is of the US in terms of bank deposits, does not detract from the criticism that the Indian state and Indian culture as a whole is very into central bureaucracy. Actually, I think the check thing is yet another good example. Checks are an extremely distributed form of payment. Basically anyone can write a check on a piece of paper and banks will accept it (within reason). I can have anyone print my checks, and as long as my information is correct, the bank will cash it. Moreover, check fraud is taken very seriously, so that people aren't just doing this willy nilly. As a whole, the US is fairly high trust, so this distributed model works well, and has certain advantages, such as being able to cash checks anywhere, the ability to easily transfer a check to another payee (just write a new endorsement), etc. I'm not sure what Indian system you're referring to, but for me personally, I like being able to hand over money without having to give my life's information to private brokerages.
I'd applied for a passport in the summer of 2020, during the height of the COVID lockdown. I could get an appointment at the passport office within a week (socially distanced, reduced capacity), and had my passport in hand the next week. Prepandemic I'd say the average was about 10 days, for passport renewal. A fresh passport takes more time since it requires 'police verification', where a cop from your local police station goes physically to your address to verify you actually live there, and gets attestations from your neighbors on how long you've lived at this address.
So no different than America? The official site says 8 - 16 weeks, but in my experience, they come promptly within a week or two at most. Unless you have confusing circumstances that require manual review. I had a friend going to Ireland and his entire family had the passports within days but he filled out his form wrong and it took the full eight weeks, including a visit.
I mean, we just renewed a passport last week, and got it this week.
I'm happy the passport process is so streamlined, but again that wasn't the point of the article. Nor is passport processing times at all related to government intervention in the economy.
The issues raised by the article are a result of colonial era policies. And it’s not clear what the author means by “Mumbai” because they don’t link or reference most of their claims but I suspect they’re talking about Mumbai proper which is fully built out. The growth of Mumbai is happening in the “suburbs” (very different from American suburbs in that they’re denser than Mumbai proper) and connecting them through a newly built subway system.
> At no point did I criticise India's democracy or accuse it of authoritarianism.
You claimed Indians have an insatiable appetite for central planning and this has led to a massive waste of human potential. I showed through the Chinese example that Central Planning does not necessarily lead to any waste of human potential and almost certainly is responsible for the greatest use of human potential in the history of human civilization. But more so, India is an extremely federal state, maybe behind only the U.S. and the EU if you consider the EU a state.
> It would behoove you, and Indians more generally, to listen to the criticism without getting confused over what's being criticised.
I agree Indians don’t take criticism well and that’s a problem. My comment was not because I can’t take criticism. I can write a critique of India today where the footnotes would be longer than the original blog post. Heck I’ve written that (I won’t post because I don’t want to lose my anonymity).
The problem is that your criticism is completely wrong and worse backwards. India’s problem has nothing to do with an insatiable appetite for central planning. If anything India’s problem arises from a lack of sufficient central planning.
Let’s talk about the U.S. The US is extremely federal but almost all the useful infrastructure in the U.S. is still a result of central planning around World War 2. The highway system, the massive series of dams and other energy projects, land grant colleges, etc.
My issue isn’t with you criticizing. My issue is with you criticizing based on knowledge from 50 years ago where the criticism isn’t just wrong but actually backwards.
Hold your horses. I agree that Chinese central planning has done wonders for China. However, American-style distributed planning is still clearly superior. American GDP growth has been continuous for years, and America is currently completely outpacing China. Many economists predict China's decline over the next few decades as the centrally planned demographics cliff hits. I think it's foolish to be overly impressed by China, and I think your characterization of it as the 'greatest use of human potential in the history of human civilization' is completely off point.
> Let’s talk about the U.S. The US is extremely federal but almost all the useful infrastructure in the U.S. is still a result of central planning around World War 2. The highway system, the massive series of dams and other energy projects, land grant colleges, etc.
Hmm... well certainly some are, but the highway system is distributed planning. The feds centrally fund it, but individual states are responsible for actually planning the highway's routes, as long as certain conditions are met. The majority of American highways existed before the interstate acts. The acts simply brought them up to standards and ensured a consistent numbering system. For example, before I-5 was designated, there was the 'Pacific highway' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Highway_(United_States...) built in a distributed manner by three states acting together at the behest of groups of individuals.
Moreover, a lot of American infrastructure is private: hospitals, banking, energy, rail. This was even more true in the developing years of the American economy. By the time the federal highway funds came in, America was already a 'developed' country, and had developed without much central planning.
Same - my Pathareprabhu ancestors have been in the area since about the 13th century, when the only other people in the region were the Koli fisherfolk.
Evicting tenants is a MASSIVE pain in the ass in many American states.
If they were a blocker to slum redevelopment, then similar cities like Delhi (or even neighboring Thane and Navi Mumbai, or nearby Pune) would be equally as decrepit, which they are not.
The major issue is land procurement and failure to minimize encroachment.
India, being a democracy, is limited by public demands. As cities became economic growth engines, a lot of people migrated, but were unable to get housing, and then autarkic India had (and in a lot of cases, still has) socialist style "Development Authorities" manage housing construction within the Tier 1 cities.
The development authorities were notorious slow at developing new property, so migrants were forced to encroach land and build slums.
As the first generation of slum dwellers succeeded economically, they began moving out of the slums, but rented out the slum property to newer migrants, and kept a hold on the slum properties waiting for a government to eventually legalize those slum holdings and transfer the land rights to the "basti" owner (this kind of transfer has happened before - most recently in Odisha, Delhi, and Punjab).
Unlike in China, India's democracy (no matter how flawed it is) prevents severely underfunded urban local governments from preventing this encroachment, and politicians actually liked this, as slum dwellers formed voting blocks, and would de facto collateralize their land to grey market financial institutions, which themselves worked under the auspices of those local politicans.
And finally, slum dwellers would organize and place political minefields. There's a reason why tiny temples, mosques, and other religious institutions dot urban India - they aren't just for veneration but also tools to prevent demolitions, as dwellers can rally around protecting the temple or mosque from being demolished (along with the neighborhood), and politicians would have to back down, as Indian elections are won on extremely small margins.
This economics of encroachment occurs in similar developing country like Brazil, Phillipines, and Vietnam as well as former developing economics like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Slum dwellers are not idiots - just poor. They know they land they are on is worth millions, and most governments are not going to use force to kick them out, and if they do, they WILL fight back. The land they encroached is the closest thing they have to a nest egg.
They shouldn't have demolished the historic Akhondji masjid (it is truly ancient), but the slum built around it was built on land that was encroached on.
Delhi is ruled by the opposition AAP.
It's not like Temples don't get demolished either [0], and 4 temples were demolished along with the Akhondji Masjid [1] during the Mehrauli demolishment drive.
If it was truly egregious Islamophobia, Indian allies like the UAE and KSA would have called it out like they did Nupur Sharma's extremely insensitive statement 2 years ago.
[0] - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/city/delhi/delhi-...
[1] - https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/delhi-news/mosque-temp...
NDMC is 80% controlled by Central Government, not Delhi government. (Sorry I should have written NDMC instead of MCD (which is what I meant by DDC above)).
Also it appears you are confusing different cases.
It's going through the court system, as it should.
Hindu temples go through the cycle as well, and as I noted above, 4 Hindu temples neighboring the Akhondji Masjid were demolished as well.
Look, I won't deny that it sucks being Muslim in India, but not every act is explicitly done out of Islamophobia.
If I wanted to, I could say the same thing about Hindu Mandirs being demolished in Karachi's slum redevelopment program as well (not out of Hinduphobia)
Finally, I've never heard of "The Patriot" before. The primary newspapers in Delhi are The Tribune's Delhi Edition and The Hindustan Times, and it's been that way for over a century.
Same story with global warming claiming additional deaths due to increased temperatures without the corresponding statistic on deaths due to cold. I am not claiming the point is invalid - just that a fuller picture can make the conversation richer.
Property contract disputes in India follow the principle of "Jiski lathi, uski bhains" (might makes right // That cow belongs to the guy with the bamboo or iron rod).
The landlord or the tenent can enforce their ideal level of rent based on who can force the other to comply, and civil courts have decades long backlogs so nothing will get done - property disputes make up the majority of cases in India.
Studies on this definitely account for both. Of course, given that cold related deaths are already significantly fewer than heat deaths there isn't much to talk about beyond noting the fact that they're essentially irrelevant.
This of course highlights why if one sees something "obvious" that experts miss the response should be to dig into why they're not accounting for it versus assuming they're idiots or malicious.
For example I hate living in the countryside or small village - I'd always pick the densest/urban/modern area I can afford to live, just because I crave the buzzing energy and constant novelty and stimulating options around. But other people can be the exact opposite.