Indian Urban Development and Public Policy Discussion

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 17 May 2012 02:03

I frankly have no peeves in designing a work campus or educational campus or even a town/ city that is free of cars. No objection at all. A good model is designing newer developing towns with mass transport systems, comfortable and efficient. Every township that is developing, that is going to grow from 100k to 300k in say 5-8 years, must plan for an MRT system and a template for that sort of standardized. It cannot remain an adhoc effort with planners sitting around a table at some late stage of development having completely opposing ideas of urban development. It has to be done at a very early stage. Cities like Chandigarh have some semblance to normalcy because this was planned. While Delhi in the age of hardly few motor cars, had great roads and gardens, the small villages were allowed to grow to million plus populations without any guidance. Then after generations were frustrated a miserly program for MRT, some connecting roads was transplanted with massive errors in calculation. It was too late in the day..That is congestion that will restrict growth and create misery.

Many of us come from an age we read Chandababa/ Ananda Bazaar Patrika type magazines/ n comics..the latter becoming more unacceptable in modern India..after all cartoons cause great ire in many parts of the world..but point is we see that gheto'ization was sort of absent pre-Islamic and Imperial era's in India. Open spaces was norm. Rishi's used to live in simple Vatikas in the midst of a forest clearing.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 17 May 2012 10:58

Harbans,

This should make you happy...er.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatime ... il-project

DLF, Haryana Urban Development Authority to build 16-lane corridor to make life easier for Gurgaon commuters

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 17 May 2012 14:40

Theo a lot of development post industrial era is undesirable. But as long as alternatives don't emerge, we do need to catch up at the minimum. I myself shifted to Gurgaon more than 20 years ago to avoid living in congested, traffic choked neighborhoods of Delhi. Today Gurgaon itself has become like that. I know today in master plans they are giving space to wider roads, even reputed builder projects are giving 60-70% green spaces and allotting essential parking space to residents. Almost all new Office complexes, malls seem to have adequate parking space to cater to the foot falls.

We cannot get back to a pre-industrial and agrarian way today. I don't want the 16 lane highways if there was an option out. But today it is needed. It should have been planned a decade or two ago looking at the fact that Gurgaons master plan was chalked out at that time. For ages now, MG ROad, NH8 flyovers, Metro constructions have made life difficult for residents here. When this 16 lane construction comes about residents can expect another few years of chaotic condition in those areas..Thus last 20 years people have only seen construction activity and the chaos which goes with it. That is a long time. Why a generation has lived through that chaos.

I always asked why did they underestimate the demand..and why go piecemeal increasing the pain due to chaos. The answer does not lie in lack of funding options, it lies in planning. A mindset that didn't want to break up with an pre industrial-agrarian stype of thinking. They just could not imagine that the loads would be up so much. We all could see it here clearly, but people sitting on the planning tables just couldn't. Maybe they lost themselves in some files 9-5 every day.

Ideally i would think it is possible to create mini townships that would have Office, entertainment, residential, shopping districts within cycling distances and simple public feeder systems linking parts of it within it. Each mini townships could be linked up to similar others with both a MRT and adequate road networks. Such integrated networks ideally should have all public roads with landscaping and pedestrian and bicycle pathways integrated. Singapore is actually a good example. That sort of planning would indeed reduce road traffic considerably.

But achieving that is not easy if one allows pockets where 200k people live in a 500 sq meter area. Planning has to move before such congested ghetto's develop. Small villages in the North have populations of 100k plus and growing. MRT systems have to be so internalized that we should be able to put a 20 km line up in less than 6 months time. Processes and technologies for that imbibed. The best time to do it as fast is at a pre emptive stage. Thats where the planning folks mess it up. Once the town is already congested it is almost impossible to build up and create a MRT in less time without creating chaos for years on end.

This process is impeded if planners still rumble about cars being status symbols or we don't need a 'Western' style of development and we need our own model. Sure then show us an alternative. That is missing. The pressure on decision making that that group exerts is enough to damp all voices for pre emptive progress. Generations suffer due to that prevalent and entrenched mindsets.

Urban development is not just about metro cities, it is also about small towns and even villages. Pre emptive planning to reduce congestive chaos is needed. We don't have many choices..atleast not in places that are already congested like Gurgaon. We do have options in more remote and less developed areas to develop better models like in SIngapore or a bicycle friendly, low carbon footprint kind of township.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 17 May 2012 20:19

Harbans,

They very well know what the demand is. Data is one thing planning in India is flooded with. The problem is we go tell politician that we need to build 20 lane highway to upgrade from old 2-lane and acquire 2000 acres of land and his eyes glaze over. The farmers simply won't sell. And in any case the Rs 150 Billion necessary is not available.

Let me tell you a story. Way back when, Velachery in Chennai was 10 kms out of town. Planning approached the city to purchase the entire land for about Rs 80 crore, some thing like 8,000 Acres. The entire urban planning budget that year was about Rs6.5 crore. This was MGR administration and politician came and told us that there was no way the city would grow that far and told us to drop all our plans. The city is now 20 kms beyond. Just last year Chennai increased to ~ 450 sqkm in area. The running theory is reducing population density will solve the traffic problem. The aim is still to funnel all traffic trough our roads.

The problem with India is this. Density.

For Urban design axiality movement systems there is no preference for any particular mode of travel. For the past few decades planners have completely ignored how people get from A to B, and how a city is organized and how people live in cities. Planning is all about abstract theories enforced on a 2D sheet of paper. It is essentially a room and corridor system.

Again the problem in India is... ..Density.

For wide corridors, 80% passenger car travel, sub-urban type living, population density will have to be brought down to 500 persons per sqkm or less. Most parts of Massaland are down in the 250 persons per sqkm range. Unfortunately, even Gurgaon is now in the 15,000 persons per sqkm range. Interior Delhi can exceed 40,000 per sqkm. Even with just 5% of traffic in passenger cars you can see the super dense crush loads. One can imagine what it will be like if even 50% start to drive cars. Even the 16 lane highway is incapable. It can take a maximum of 2000x16 = 32,000 vehicles per hour. Assuming 1.5 persons per car this would be 48,000 per hour. I submit to you that even this will be grossly inadequate.

Lets do some math. Delhi has a population of about 12 million and is heading for 25 million in 20 years. Say we can populate them at 2,000 per sqkm, this would mean we need 12 million /2,000 = 6,000 sqkm. Actual land area of Delhi is ~1,400 sqkm. So already it is 8,000 person per sqkm. In 20 years it will be 16,000 persons per sqkm, entire state of Delhi. To keep it at 2,000/sqkm we would need an area of ~15,000 to 20,000 sqkm. This is 1/2 the state of Haryana.

In places like Singapore 60% to 80% ++ of all passenger trips happen by public transport. To make this happen Singapore taxes private cars extortionately and has a fixed quota of cars allowed. That is why those streets are nice and open. Else they too would have grid lock. Also keep in mind Singapore does not do Agriculture or Animal husbandry.

Paris core which has a population density of 20,000-30,000 per sqkm funnels 70%+ of its population through its metro transit systems. It does this by banning car parking. No area to park hence no cars. Every super dense city has had to take draconian action against cars. Most of Rome bans cars. Naples has a car police that hauls them away.

The difference in India is ALL our towns are like this. In fact our entire country is like this congested ghetto. We are merely ignoring the inevitable so far.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 17 May 2012 22:43

major infrastructure needs to be a "federal" responsibility

ASPuar · Post by **ASPuar** » 18 May 2012 00:50

You bet.

And infrastructure development should be turned into a strategic weapon.

Build a massive new town Union Territory in, say, the most undeveloped reaches of Nagaland. Plan for it to hold 10-12 million souls from all over India. Make it an urban paradise in an area which has never seen development. Wide roads. Big plot sizes for homes. Uninterrupted power supply. Flat skyline.

Attract, with superb infrastructure, companies from all over India. TCS, Infosys, WNS, Wipro. Good power availability, and installing an IIT, along with lots of tech training institutes (ITI's etc) could attract heavy engineering and manufacturing also.

Make a central park type urban forest of a thousand acres in the center of the city.

Throw in a thousand acres for a cantonment that holds a new Himalayan strike corps, and air bases.

Imagine the change it would bring to the region. In a flash, the naga insurgency would be finished.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 18 May 2012 01:07

The problem is that development in India is only anti-X, without going wholeheartedly in the opposite direction either. The result is that we get neither the benefits of X, nor of its opposite.

We don't want to plan for cars, because cars are inefficient. But we will not build adequate bus and train lines, refuse to modernize taxi fleets, and let autorickshaws charge outrageous amounts. So we get neither the benefits of good roads like the US, nor good public transport like East Asian cities (and to be honest, every half-decent city in the world has both good roads and good public transport).

We don't like China flooding the Indian market with cheap goods, but we won't allow our own manufacturing sector to develop. So most manufactured products in India cost as much as or more than in the US, because we can't make them cheaply here, and we slap customs duties on them when they come in from abroad.

Opportunity costs are everywhere. While we dither and do nothing for decades, we lose time that isn't coming back.

If planners want to not build for cars, they should equally quickly move in the direction of building good public transport. But that isn't happening either.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 21 May 2012 02:50

I have yet to hear how exactly we get 16 lane freeways through say Triplicane or Paharganj. I'm all ears.

Theo Ji, i have been saying this for quite some time here now. We don't allow any more Paharganj's, Mahipalpurs, Bahadurgarhs to develop. Anytime a congested place developing with more than a 100k population in a ghetto size of half a sq km..we need to be on red alert.

You on the other hand have gone on record blaming a dozen vehicles on a single street that on either side is populated like the Paharganj's or Mahipalpurs. By blaming it on vehicles, you perpetuate the problem. Not eliminate it in any way. By saying that cars are a status symbol, you show clearly that your ideals have no congruence with the aspirations and problems of people at large. These are your ideas. Your claims and posts. Why blame me for pointing it out? Why don't you just go to google and check mahipalpur or bahdurgarh or any myriad villages.

There is pain indeed in bulldozing ghetto's for inroads. And i never recommended it. You posted a pic as if i recommended it. I did not. I recommended not allowing such ghetto's to develop in the first place. Hamlet'izing developing ghetto's that we call villages at an initial stage itself. It simply is not happening as long as we consider congestion is due to cars/ status symbols whatever you like to call them..or plans being made to develop cities with just 8-10% roads ear marked. You are in that case not asking for development..you are asking people to be condemned.

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 21 May 2012 09:29

there are 2 problems here

1) Suraj pointed out before. Our city politicians are insignificant .. So our cities don't have TFTA infra .intra city politics is often trivial. My neighbor in A'bad is a corporator. He had wide TFTA concrete toads built in our locality ..His rival in the neighboring constituency was not allowed to do the same..Fundings were blocked. The rivals H&D was hurt and he alleged corruption on the corporator at my place. The charges were not entirely false. But the committee decided that those roads must be demolished ... Why on earth would anyone order demolition of perfectly built roads of TFTA quality even when corruption is proven ? Thankfully they made peace and the roads were not demolished. Even the rival got the budget to build roads for the constituency .. Narendra Modi arrived in Guj an year after this incident. And the pace of modernization is breath taking since then...

this is the Sabarmati riverfront now..It you look at photographs on the same site 5 years ago , you would find it slum infested with people washing clothes...This shows that proper efforts can yield results...

View of Sabarmati Riverfront, Ahmedabad

2) People in India often resign to there fate.. Why do corporators build bad roads ? Because if they breakdown early they can make money giving repair contracts... If solid tfta roads are built , than they ll not need much maintenance .. And people take this atyachar lying down..

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 21 May 2012 09:53

The problem with India is this. Density.

For Urban design axiality movement systems there is no preference for any particular mode of travel. For the past few decades planners have completely ignored how people get from A to B, and how a city is organized and how people live in cities. Planning is all about abstract theories enforced on a 2D sheet of paper. It is essentially a room and corridor system.

Lets imagine a hypothetical scenario ... Imagine a time in future when..Entire Indian population is urbanized ...the population density of the urban centers matches those of the American cities ..(imagine cities being as spread out as those in amreeka ,with as many wide empty spaces) .. How much land areas would it occupy ? about 15-20% of India would house all its population ,even if Indian cities become as spread out as those of the US. Now we don't want cities as spread out as those in the US. European levels of density are perfectly acceptable to me.

Even though paris has greater population density than say , allahabad or patna,yet patna feels more crowded than paris ,because it is haphazard.. netherlands has greater population density than India . But no city from netherlands figures in the 50 densest cities of the world. the list is filled with Indian cities...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ci ... on_density

the high urban density in India is mainly due to absent planning...

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 21 May 2012 13:25

Just wondering what the ramifications of Bangalore expanding eastward will be. It will eventually spill over into TN territory. Has there even been such a precedent?

ASPuar · Post by **ASPuar** » 21 May 2012 16:50

Delhi spilling into Gurgaon, Noida, etc. The border state will just establish its own satellite city next door.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 21 May 2012 20:38

Harbans,

I have no agenda at all. All I care about is what works. And don't think I'm defending planning in India. It is completely dysfunctional, one reason I only consult from outside now. As people have pointed out cars don't work everywhere. Under no circumstance can we abandon places like Pharganj. Yes we can plan new cities better with more space for traffic. And we are doing this but the gridlock continues because places like Pharganj are not being upgraded. The prohibitive cost of land however is telling us something about what we are doing. By the way I don't consider Paharganj a ghetto at all. I have been to Ghettos and Paharganj is not one. It is poor urban neighborhood but all I see is potential not a Ghetto.

The market is telling us land is a super duper premium component in India. And yes I know regulations distort this signal but even small towns are flashing the same signal. We will have to minimize our use of it. This is a market signal, ignore at your peril.

So far I have avoided technical discussion. Let me bring up a simple one. When a planner allocates say 40% of passenger traffic to cars there are certain things that must be done. Let me point out 2 in a highly simplified striped down version. Say we allocate a level of service of E, the absolute lowest without complete fail. Massaland is typically LOS C/D or better. At E clearance requirements around a car is ~1M with a buffer of 2.5m in city traffic. Volume to capacity V/C permitted is 22% meaning 78% of road is buffer, open, turn lanes, etc to prevent grid lock even though 78% is technically classified as grid lock. Pedestrian space requirement is roughly 6 sqft per person.

So lets do a quick calculation on how much traffic space we need for a 10 sqkm area of Paharganj or about 10x250 = 2500 acres. Assume density of 25,000 per sqkm, though Paharganj is actually 40,000 and higher. So I will assume half the population has already been dispatched elsewhere.

So total population in that area is 250,000. Since 40% must possess cars, say 100,000 cars in that area. So just for parking say a small compact car we need, 2+1mx2.5+1m = 10.5 sqm. Per car. For 100,000 cars we need 10.5x100,000 ~ 1 million sqm. ~ 1,000,000/4,000 = 250 acres. So 10% of land must be set aside for car parking or traffic will gridlock. Now keep in mind that typically you ned 2 to 2.5 times per car as you need to be able to drive somewhere to park the car and then drive back to park the car. But I'll ignore that. And multilevel car parks don't help because they displace habitation making densities even higher.

Let take two - traffic space needed for LOS E with V/C of 22/78. so 10.5x78/22= 37 sqm. So 37x100,000 = 3.7million sqm. So far we are up to 10%+37% = 47%. Or 47% of space in Paharganj will have to be demolished to accommodate cars for just 40% of the folks.

So lets take pedestrian needs, since people walk too. So 0.5x250,000 = 125,000 sqm. So a total of 40 acres! If we increase LOS to say pedestrian B we get 2.5x250,000=325,000 sqm. Or roughly 100, acres. About 4% of the land for LOS B, with parks, benches, streams, trees, fountains, etc.

With LOS B Public transport system. Typically 100,000 PPHPD, 2 metro lines on the diagonal could make sure everyone was within a km of a station. Cost is roughly 10 kmx2.5 Billion=Rs25 Billion. This would require 0 area if underground or say 1% if above.

This I think is doable.

You may not have said it but by calling Paharganj a ghetto and calling for demolition and car traffic that is the impact of your statement. You should not hide from it, nothing to be ashamed of as it is an arm of urban up gradation. Many many people advocate it. Undoubtedly some areas are beyond redemption and demolition will be required. Most buildings will in any case have to be demolished and rebuilt over 20-30 years.

Finally let me take up the picture. Those 20 cars occupy 10.5x20= 210 sqm of space. In a dense market like that with typically 3-4 persons per sqm that means 210x3 = 630 persons. Because of those 20 cars 630 persons were displaced. I would call that fat cat behavior, No.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 May 2012 20:42

The border state will just establish its own satellite city next door.

-> blr is nearly merged with Hosur now, which is the satellite city in south. hosur is the GHQ of ashok leyland.
-> sarjapur road has some ways to got before hitting TN border
-> old madras road -> the proposed expway will facilitate this merger when it happens. for now the NH is being 4 laned I hear.

the sabarmati riverfront does not look like anywhere in india - looks like something in dubai or israel. how did he manage to get the slums moved? were they resettled somewhere? how far from the original place since I gather the dharavi type plans run into problems when the people having jobs in nearby high income areas do not want to move 50km away.

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 21 May 2012 21:42

Singha wrote:
the sabarmati riverfront does not look like anywhere in india - looks like something in dubai or israel. how did he manage to get the slums moved? were they resettled somewhere?

Indeed.. large portions of Ahmedabad and Surat look very TFTA ... Other cities are massively improving too.. 7000 slum dwelling families were provided flats under either JNURM or state schemes.. They readily vacated their slums..

There was some talk of public transport...you can look at how Modi managed it in Guj..The middle lane is for the BRTS buses only...the system is present through most of Ahmedabad.. A metro rail construction is about to begin...

Surat and ahmedabad flyovers are TFTA quality...

Guj is in safe hands...

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 21 May 2012 21:45

I thought I would take this from the other direction.

Say we want a LOS of D, really should NOT be less than this, and compute the density permissible. Assume 40% of people are in car at peak times per LOS. Take the same 10 sqkm area. V/C ratio is now down to 16. or 16/84. Say we allocate 40% of land to car traffic & pedestrian access, so roughly 400,000 sqm ~ 1000 acres.

10.5(X)+(10.5*84/16)*0.4(X)+1.5(X)= 400,000
34.85X=400,000. (Meaning you need roughly 25-35 linear meters of road parking & highway per car. BTW the actual LOS V/C is 50 linear meters but I'll ignore that)

X=11,477 ~ 12,000 cars. Yes really. This is what planning tells us. You can see why a politician would take a look and laugh. BTW in USA densities are usually less than 250 per sqkm in car traffic areas. Say 3 persons per car, In USA it is 1.2 persons per car. Total is 36,000.

So we demolish a 10 sqkm chunk Paharganj and allow 36,000 people back in, so essentially 12-15 persons per acre. Delhi with roughly 300,000 acres can have a maximum population of ~ 3-4 million.

So lets project out to the country. If 80% live in Cities. We need to plan for 1 Billion. Though note it should really be 1.5 Billion as our population is projected to hit 1.8 Billion by 2050.

So we need 1500 million/15 = 100 Million acres. In a country that has ~ 600 Million acres this means 1/4 of land goes to Urban area. Since about 1/3 of our land is lakes, rivers, mountain, forest, desert, etc. really it should be about 25%-30% of our usable area.

Of course we could go the other way and build up high rise and wide roads but note the formula only cares about cars in an area. So it is independent of traffic engineering. Others have tried this high rise design with predictable consequence of permanent grid lock.
-------------------------------------------------

Let take it another direction since 36,000 people occupy 2,500 acres. If an acre of land in Delhi costs say Rs 5 Crore (Anyone clarify?), Each person in Delhi needs to have 5/15 or ~ Rs 35 lakh just to pay for the land they are going to use, another signal from the market that we are being horribly inefficient & unrealistic.

------------------------------------

When you have less than 1/2 acre of land per person we will have to be hyper efficient with land usage.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 21 May 2012 21:51

G,

Those pictures of Guj warm my heart. That is exactly what I'm talking about. Good design with density not endless car parks. It is good that BRTS systems are being put in right from the beginning. That way majority of traffic can be kept off cars. Delhi has trouble retrofitting BRTS.

Do you know what is being done for old Ahmedabad areas like the Gandhi road area?

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 21 May 2012 22:37

>>Do you know what is being done for old Ahmedabad areas like the Gandhi road area?

likely to become car free .. congested older city regions like asarwa /maskati market region are difficult to change.. From what my dad tells me , older city regions in ahmedabad and baroda are becoming restricted for cars.. If you park anywhere , havaldars will lock the tires...And you pay 100 INR fine to get them unlocked..so people prefer going to these regions by rickshaw...i ll make a point to visit these places this December ..

>>Good design with density not endless car parks.

true...A friend of mine is from Stanford madarssa.. he is involved in coding for some oiropean cities traffic management software... On my visit to california the guy introduced me to a european town planner.. urban planning has always interested him..so we had a nice conversation ..For densely populated places like Europe , Japan and India having most transport by cars is unsustainable ... he was particularly impressed by Indian rickshaws for short distance transport ...If he were to design an Indian city there would be a separate lane for rickshaws and 2 wheelers ...A mass rapid transport system like a metro rail would be the cornerstone of urban transport ...Rickshaws would be for short distance transport...they form a menace presently because of their slow speed. they tend to obstruct cars ...but if they are given separate lanes that problem will be solved... If these changes are properly implemented , the requirement of cars would reduce drastically which would cause roads to de congest..

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 21 May 2012 22:40

A US style urbanization is not going to work in India as you have 1.6-1.8 billion people (2050) in one-third the area. We should look at a model of high rise construction coupled with good public transportation systems so that private vehicles are used only occasionally or when needed.

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 21 May 2012 22:43

I somehow feel that a separate lane for autos can have a problem of their own. These vehicles are stop and go and tend to do it anytime any place, they just stop when they see a potential customer. that could lock the lane out if the lane is bifurcated from the other parts of the road by medians. If there are no physical barriers to the other lanes then the auto folks wont respect the lanes and move on to the other lanes freely to overtake.

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 21 May 2012 22:49

Supratik wrote:A US style urbanization is not going to work in India as you have 1.6-1.8 billion people (2050) in one-third the area. We should look at a model of high rise construction coupled with good public transportation systems so that private vehicles are used only occasionally or when needed.

it ll be more like 1.4-1.5 billion.. The population figures in 2011 census were actually below expectations...In fact below the lowest expectations...Indian population may peak lot earlier than previously expected...

Only 2% of the American land area is occupied by people ...even if we have american style urbanization ,only 20% of the Indian land area will be occupied ..even after having 1/3rd the area and 4 times the population...but we don't need american style urbanization...it has its own problems...no one wants to travel 20 miles to buy kids diapers..

If we have european level urban density (most of europe is fairly densely populated) than 10% of Indian land area can house 1.5 billion Indians ...(average urban population density of 4500/sq km , 1/3rd of present new york , 1/8th of present Mumbai) ...

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 22 May 2012 00:29

gakakkad wrote:
it ll be more like 1.4-1.5 billion.. The population figures in 2011 census were actually below expectations...In fact below the lowest expectations...Indian population may peak lot earlier than previously expected...

Only 2% of the American land area is occupied by people ...even if we have american style urbanization ,only 20% of the Indian land area will be occupied ..even after having 1/3rd the area and 4 times the population...but we don't need american style urbanization...it has its own problems...no one wants to travel 20 miles to buy kids diapers..

If we have european level urban density (most of europe is fairly densely populated) than 10% of Indian land area can house 1.5 billion Indians ...(average urban population density of 4500/sq km , 1/3rd of present new york , 1/8th of present Mumbai) ...

At current rate of deceleration it is likely to cross 1.6 billion unless the rate of deceleration itself increases. Besides IMO US style urbanization is energy usage-wise inefficient.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 04 Apr 2013 23:19

Revisiting the 74th Constitutional Amendment for Better Metropolitan Governance

I feel some of the Metros need a fourth tier of governance, but we are still stuck in an incomplete mandate for 73/74.

Indian policymakers have been slow in responding to changing metropolitan forms and have largely visualised urbanisation as city expansion. As a result, metropolitan regions, which are complex entities with multiple municipal and non-municipal institutional arrangements, have become mere creatures of state governments with neither the necessary strategic flexibility nor political legitimacy. In part, this is because the 74th constitutional amendment of 1993 has failed to visualise the dynamics of large complex urban formations. This paper suggests both a need to confront this blind spot in the 74th constitutional amendment for long-term durable solutions and to creatively work through available legislative and institutional arrangements in the short to medium term.

In comparison with international experience, there is hardly any thinking about these issues in India. Yet, as stated before, India’s MRs with a large proportion of its urban population will continue to be major engines of the country’s economy. It is futile to think that the union-state-municipal framework in- herited from British India will give us adequate answers. Thinking out of the box is needed.
Given the problems to do with the composition of MPCs as well as their unclear mandate, setting up these as presently envisaged will not help us much. The experience of the last two decades clearly indicates that it is necessary to revisit the provisions related to MRs in the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act. Such revisiting will entail amendments to the Constitu- tion in the best interests of translating the constitutional ob- jective into reality, rather than unrealistic and mere adherence to its present language. However, constitutional amendments cannot be rushed through and will require long-drawn debates. In the meantime, however, it is necessary to work with extend- ing the provisions of the existing legislations or slightly modi- fying them. In that regard, both the Kasturirangan Committee report and the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority Act are good starting points.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 04 Apr 2013 23:19

Revisiting the 74th Constitutional Amendment for Better Metropolitan Governance

I feel some of the Metros need a fourth tier of governance, but we are still stuck in an incomplete mandate for 73/74.

Indian policymakers have been slow in responding to changing metropolitan forms and have largely visualised urbanisation as city expansion. As a result, metropolitan regions, which are complex entities with multiple municipal and non-municipal institutional arrangements, have become mere creatures of state governments with neither the necessary strategic flexibility nor political legitimacy. In part, this is because the 74th constitutional amendment of 1993 has failed to visualise the dynamics of large complex urban formations. This paper suggests both a need to confront this blind spot in the 74th constitutional amendment for long-term durable solutions and to creatively work through available legislative and institutional arrangements in the short to medium term.

In comparison with international experience, there is hardly any thinking about these issues in India. Yet, as stated before, India’s MRs with a large proportion of its urban population will continue to be major engines of the country’s economy. It is futile to think that the union-state-municipal framework in- herited from British India will give us adequate answers. Thinking out of the box is needed.
Given the problems to do with the composition of MPCs as well as their unclear mandate, setting up these as presently envisaged will not help us much. The experience of the last two decades clearly indicates that it is necessary to revisit the provisions related to MRs in the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act. Such revisiting will entail amendments to the Constitu- tion in the best interests of translating the constitutional ob- jective into reality, rather than unrealistic and mere adherence to its present language. However, constitutional amendments cannot be rushed through and will require long-drawn debates. In the meantime, however, it is necessary to work with extend- ing the provisions of the existing legislations or slightly modi- fying them. In that regard, both the Kasturirangan Committee report and the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority Act are good starting points.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 30 Aug 2013 12:40

27 crore people live below poverty line in India

Minister of State for Planning and Parliamentary Affairs Rajeev Shukla in a written statement to Rajya Sabha has stated that 27 crore people live below the poverty line in the country. Shukla also informed the house that population on March 1, 2012 was estimated at 123 crore.

As per the population census of 2011 conducted by the Office of Registrar General of India, the population was estimated at 121 crore on March 1, 2011. India added 2 crore babies in the intervening period.

Centre also informed the House that as per Tendulkar Committee's methodology for 2012-13 percentage of people living below poverty line in the country has been estimated at 21.9 per cent. As per the population census of 1951, India's population in that decade was 36 crore. Today 27 crore people live below poverty line.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/27-c ... 04392.html

svenkat · Post by **svenkat** » 01 Jan 2014 21:10

I dont think the Nature Conservation Thread is appropriate to the following article which is by an economist who is Member of the Planning Commission.It addresses the problem of water availability,usage,costs,distance of cities from water sources,problems of sewerage treatment.Standard fare,but something which is critical to India.Also has some thoughts on fajriwaals water pricing.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/water-priorities-for-urban-india/article5524766.ece

The Twelfth Five Year Plan has proposed a paradigm shift in water management in India. One of our key proposals relates to urban water. In many ways, it could be said that the crisis of water and sanitation in urban India is even graver than in our rural areas.

The Twelfth Plan focusses on a strategy that is both affordable and sustainable. We believe that Indian cities and industries need to find ways to grow with minimal water and minimal waste. As important as the quantum of water is the problem of its management and equitable supply. In most cities, water supply is sourced from long distances and the length of the pipeline determines the costs, including costs of pumping. In the current water supply system, there are enormous losses in the distribution system because of leakages and bad management. And equally important are the huge challenges posed by the fact that water is divided very unequally within cities.

Even as cities worry about water, they need to focus on the waste this water will generate. Sewage invariably goes into streams, ponds, lakes and rivers of a town, polluting waterworks, and health is compromised. Alternatively, it goes into the ground, contaminating the same water used by people for drinking. It is no surprise then that surveys of groundwater are finding higher and higher levels of microbiological contamination — a sign of sewage contamination. This compounds the deadly and costly spiral. As surface water or groundwater gets contaminated, a city has no option but to hunt for newer sources of its supply. Its search becomes more extensive and as the distance increases, the cost of pumping and supply increases.

The 2011 Census reveals that only 32.7 per cent of urban Indians are connected to a piped sewerage system and 12.6 per cent — roughly 50 million urban Indians — still defecate in the open. Large parts of our cities remain unconnected to the sewerage system as they live in unauthorised or illegal areas or slums, where the state services do not reach. In this situation, it is important we invest in sewerage systems, but it is even more critical that we invest in building affordable and scalable sewerage networks, which requires a fresh look at the current technology for sewage and its treatment. If sewerage systems are not comprehensively spread across a city to collect, convey and intercept waste of all its inhabitants, then pollution will not be under control. Currently, according to estimates of the Central Pollution Control Board, the country has an installed capacity to treat only about 30 per cent of the excreta it generates. Just two cities, Delhi and Mumbai, which generate around 17 per cent of the country’s sewage, have nearly 40 per cent of the country’s installed capacity. What is worse, some of these plants do not function because of high recurring costs (electricity and chemicals) and others because they do not have enough sewage to treat. In most cities, only a small (unestimated) proportion of sewage is transported for treatment. And if the treated sewage — transported in official drains — is allowed to be mixed with the untreated sewage — transported in unofficial and open drains — then the net result is pollution.

The added problem is that the location of the hardware — the sewage treatment plant — is not designed to dispose of the treated effluent so that it actually cleans the waterbody. Most cities don’t seem to think of this factor when they build their infrastructure for sewage. They build a sewage treatment plant where there is land. The treated sewage is then disposed of, as conveniently as possible, invariably into a drain.

In the light of this massive reform proposed in the Twelfth Plan, it is somewhat disappointing to see the zeal being shown by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to rush into the 666 litres free water agenda. Indeed, this raises the alarming prospect of further disadvantaging the already deprived sections of Delhi who get no piped water at all. The AAP manifesto itself has a much more nuanced understanding of water issues in Delhi. The manifesto clearly acknowledges that over 30 per cent of Delhi’s residents do not get tap water in their homes. It also recognises that 17 lakh households do not have access to safe sanitation. The loss of revenue from freebies to those already getting water could end up pushing the unconnected even further down the deprivation ladder. It is to be hoped that the AAP will reconsider its water priorities, taking both the Twelfth Plan and its own manifesto more seriously.

For instance, cities would then consider treatment of sewage in open drains and treatment using alternative biological methods of wastewater treatment. Biological methods of wastewater treatment introduce contact with bacteria, which feed on the organic materials in the wastewater, thereby reducing its Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) content. Through their metabolism, the organic material is transformed into cellular mass, which is no longer in solution but can be precipitated at the bottom of a settling tank or retained as slime on solid surfaces or vegetation in the system. (Is this hot air nonsense by JNU/planning commission e-con-omists or such open drains have any feasibility at all,given that big metros have underground networks)The water exiting the system is much clearer than the one that entered it. The principle has to be to cut the cost of building the sewerage system, cut the length of the sewerage network and then to treat the waste as a resource — turn sewage into water for irrigation or use in industry. Indian cities have the opportunity to leapfrog into new ways of dealing with excreta, which are affordable and sustainable, simply because they have not yet built the infrastructure.

Vriksh · Post by **Vriksh** » 02 Jan 2014 00:44

In the context of Urban Development there is a huge problem in the design and implementation of Sewers and Sewage Treatment Plants.

The problem is that most government Sewers and Sewage Treatment projects are designed with massive overcapacity apparently to cater for for 25 years of population increase. So we have the situation where sewage treatment plants are working at 10% capacity for 10+ years due to various reasons and vendors who have implemented such systems have made a killing by designing at far lower capacity say at 50% of tender load and making a massive profit by getting monies for full capacity.

Babus are making an assumption that they will confidently get the sewage to the treatment plant and the population projections are correct. So far the data seems to indicate that this is not the case. An audit of STPs in India will indicate that very few are working at more than 20%-30% of design capacity and that too they are working quite poorly. Most of the problems occurs due to the inflated per capita water consumption numbers being peddled which authorities claim is 125 lpd but really is 50-60 lpd per person.

The worst is that the sewage generated is unable to be routed to a treatment facility without pumping. Need to rethink such projects since the design of various STP technologies and sizing are not open source.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 29 Jun 2014 17:31

There is an excellent website on yahoo I found to compare the urban development of cities. It compares them in a side by side sweep that at a glance tells you what is going wrong. You can compare any city around the world that you want.

Doing these comparisons tells me right away that the property prices in India are out of whack. These apartments are not worth as much when there is so much open land available. Forget super dense crush, folks are piling in one on top of another and creating slums out of entire cities.

Also the only decent sized city in India with a plan, such as it is, is delhi.

http://www.cockeyed.com/citysize/yahoomap_asker.html

Here is Chennai-Hamburg. 9-10 million vs 1.7 million. Looks like the entire Chennai city could comfortably fit into a suburb of Hamburg. Airport and all!

Look at all the open land around Chennai.

Here is Bangalore-Bay area. All of Bangalore could comfortably fit into Sanjose.

less than 1/20th of the bay area development. Population of Bangalore 9-10 million vs Sanjose 1 million.

Delhi Bangalore. Bangalore would easily fit into Gurgaon with space to spare!

Bangalore Chicago. No Kamment.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 29 Jun 2014 19:14

70% of India is yet to be built - an article on India's coming urbanization, and a big problem - how to pay for it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/internationa ... lt/373656/

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 30 Jun 2014 01:36

The danger of not anticipating future traffic/commute needs
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... mesofindia

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 08 Aug 2014 00:22

X-Post...

vsunder wrote:There is a serious crisis brewing for the last three months. Bangalore Metro has been prevaricating and lying to the public. Their tunnel boring machines TBM's are broken as they hit hard rock and have not moved forward an inch in the last two months though they have presented all sorts of rosy reports to the public and Venkaaiah Naidu. Only the cognoscenti knew. Now it is all in the open. What a right royal mess. The TBM Kaveri boring North from KR market towards Chickpet has a damaged cutter head and is stopped 50 metres short of Chickpet station under the meat market of Bangalore in an area you know where. BMRCL now is thinking of Plan B, whatever that is. The TBM cannot back out as the tunnel is lined behind and the cutter diameter is larger than the tunnel diameter as the concrete lining has been installed. The only way is forward or to dig a big 60 feet pit and a large one at that in the meat market and haul out the 2 crore cutter assembly and then repair it, re-install and move forward. Or start a tunnel form Chickpet station and move forward and meet the stalled TBM and then what? In any case it is a mess, and now BMRCL will have to deal with faithfuls. Krishna the companion TBM is about 50 metres behind and will presumably hit the same tough rock strata that damaged Kaveri.

http://www.bangaloremirror.com/bangalor ... 636130.cms?

To the North, TBM Godavari tunneling south towards Majestic has also stalled and not moved forward for months as the newsletters attest and with no reason given by BMRCL, what a bunch of losers. BMRCL has not let on but likely a damaged machine. Kharola the bureaucrat that looks after BMRCL is a political appointee is just all at sea, has provided poor leadership, has been less than candid and has only come across as pliable and unctuous. I fear that BMRCL is totally screwed
and the project is set back by about 3 years for full implementation of Phase I.

Damaged TBM cutter heads are not uncommon even in India and one such damaged cutter for a TBM was repaired for the gigantic Veligonda irrigation project in AP.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a ... 546486.ece

Unfortunately BMRCL seems to have not heeded geologic survey reports, in fact there are journal articles conducted by Indian scientists at IISc and NGRI that indicate that the N-S axis in Bangalore is pitted with zones of tough rock. At the very least BMRCL and the contractor executing the North South tunnels have made a poor choice of using Earth Pressure Balancing Machines. Maybe this choice was dictated by the dense concentration of human habitation along the southern part of the North South route and the possibility of subsidence of old structures, nevertheless poor planning and execution has lead to the situation that BMRCL will be forced to negotiate with unscrupulous individuals who will blackmail the organizations involved for all sorts of gain. Interesting times ahead and also a ripe time for faithfuls to go on a rampage.

panduranghari · Post by **panduranghari** » 08 Aug 2014 02:35

Theo_Fidel wrote:There is an excellent website on yahoo I found to compare the urban development of cities. It compares them in a side by side sweep that at a glance tells you what is going wrong. You can compare any city around the world that you want.

Doing these comparisons tells me right away that the property prices in India are out of whack. These apartments are not worth as much when there is so much open land available. Forget super dense crush, folks are piling in one on top of another and creating slums out of entire cities.

Also the only decent sized city in India with a plan, such as it is, is delhi.

Here is Chennai-Hamburg. 9-10 million vs 1.7 million. Looks like the entire Chennai city could comfortably fit into a suburb of Hamburg. Airport and all! Look at all the open land around Chennai.
Here is Bangalore-Bay area. All of Bangalore could comfortably fit into Sanjose. less than 1/20th of the bay area development. Population of Bangalore 9-10 million vs Sanjose 1 million.
Delhi Bangalore. Bangalore would easily fit into Gurgaon with space to spare!
Bangalore Chicago. No Kamment.
]

Wont petrol bills be prohibitive for Indians to live in suburbs and commute to the central business district? Only if we had more monorails, metro trains, buses, waterways etc. integrated into every city with minimal or no reliance on petroleum, there can be a hope for Indian cities to resemble European or American ones. It will surely improve the quality of life of everyone.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 08 Aug 2014 03:08

The development of public transport infrastructure is central to urban development . Other than Mumbai, there's probably no other Indian city where an effective and wide-ranging public transport system has been in operation for a long time. And Mumbai's infrastructure is badly overloaded due to decades of lack of further investment.

Vriksh · Post by **Vriksh** » 13 Aug 2014 10:27

I am happy to say that in a small way technology developed by Vision Earthcare from SINE IIT Bombay is helping create the smart green cities of the future. This technology is ideal for cleaning up sewage water in a decentralized manner has been deployed in Bangalore and is showcased in the article below

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp ... 297122.ece

As you drive west out of Bangalore on Magadi Road, a little after Sunkadakatte Cross you see a tank on your right. This is Herohalli tank, with a water-spread of about 14.50 hectares. The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has been working to restore it.

The tank has been fenced to protect it from encroachment; a bund has been created to enable walkers to go around it. A major stormwater drain brings in water mixed with sewage as well as debris including plastic. An underground sewage line runs across the periphery of the tank too.

This sewage line carries about 6 to 8 million litres of waste-water daily. The water from the storm drains is not enough to fill the tank.

A quite but dedicated team of engineers from the BBMP and a competent and young team of designers are working to resuscitate this water body.

A new technology called Soil Bio-technology or SBT is being applied for the first time in Karnataka at a scale of 1.50 million litres per day treatment.

Use of strainers

Using the concept of sewage mining, the SBT system taps into the sewage line and draws 1.50 MLD into a small wet well. From here the water is strained using 20 mm and possibly 10 mm strainers to remove solids, plastics, grit and large sediments. This will be collected and removed separately. The remaining waste-water is then allowed to percolate gradually through a specially prepared bed of soil and stones which harbour million of good bacteria. These bacteria eat away at the carbon in the sewage and also change the composition of nitrates and adsorb phosphates to clean up the water.

As the water trickles down the special medium, it is collected at the bottom. If necessary it can be re-circulated to allow the bacteria to have another go at cleaning it up.

The treated sewage that comes out of the system is crystal clear and meets the requirement necessary to be led into the tank.

From the top the SBT plant looks like a garden, beautifully landscaped and full of colourful flowers and grass.

There is no smell and no unsightly scenes. The SBT plant occupies 2,000 square metres as a foot-print, a really small component of the tank. Eventually Herohalli tank will receive treated waste-water and will be full. This water, cleaned by nature, will in turn recharge the surrounding aquifers and be available as additional supply to the local residents. Bangalore will have converted sewage water into usable water using the SBT and the tank as nature’s kidneys.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 28 Aug 2014 19:28

Theo_Fidel wrote:There is an excellent website on yahoo I found to compare the urban development of cities. It compares them in a side by side sweep that at a glance tells you what is going wrong. You can compare any city around the world that you want.

Doing these comparisons tells me right away that the property prices in India are out of whack. These apartments are not worth as much when there is so much open land available. Forget super dense crush, folks are piling in one on top of another and creating slums out of entire cities.

Also the only decent sized city in India with a plan, such as it is, is delhi.

http://www.cockeyed.com/citysize/yahoomap_asker.html

Here is Chennai-Hamburg. 9-10 million vs 1.7 million. Looks like the entire Chennai city could comfortably fit into a suburb of Hamburg. Airport and all! Look at all the open land around Chennai.

Fact 1: India is not West. West has smaller population, larger territory.

Fact 2: It is waste of natural/human resources to build humongous cities in India just so we can be like West. Especially when built to scale.

Fact 3: This proves that Delhi is most inefficient city in India. Thats not a plan.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 29 Aug 2014 01:49

The point is not about 'west' but best case implementations of civilized urban areas elsewhere. There's not a single Indian city - even New Delhi - that has basic urban infrastructure that's been built to scale out.

It is better to look at populations of the cities themselves, and their relative population densities, as well as road/rail coverage, green cover and other infrastructural support, including water, waste and sewage management. If you want to use some cities with greater crush density populations, use Tokyo, Osaka or Seoul. All have way more area and infrastructure to support their respective populations too.

There's no substitute for enough roads/rail, piped water supply, waste and sewage management. If it can't be implemented within the existing crush density urban areas because of opposition to the eminent domain issues involved in such construction, then the solution is to expand out.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 02 Dec 2014 01:04

A bit late but the Moullivakam collapse has uncovered some items that one needs to grapple with. Columns were removed from parking to allow more cars! Axial loads were 200% over allowable. Inexperienced site engineers. Company had apparently fired the qualified engineers and hired inexperienced ‘cheap’ types.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/ ... 403601.ece

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 06 Dec 2014 06:46

Economist has a good write up about the coming suburbanization of India with a focus on that is happening near Chennai. Cor Chennai population growth is low while suburbs are exploding. Chengelpet in particular.

http://www.economist.com/suburbs

THE city is old,” says Dhakshinamoorthy Dhinakaran, a property developer who has built a gated development of two-storey houses 35km south-west of Chennai and 15km from Lakewood Enclave. He has a point. Chennai is a scruffy place. The British, who called it Madras, left it with few grand buildings, and some of those it once boasted were subsequently razed in favour of shopping centres or new digs for Tamil Nadu’s politicians. Many buildings look older than they are, and not in a good way—they have been corroded by hot sun and humid air. The sewers overflow when it rains. But outside Chennai, a new India is rising.

The roads out of the city are lined with half-finished four- and five-storey apartment blocks, most with man-sized figurines lashed to concrete pillars to ward off superstitious trespassers. Behind them, tidy family houses and high-rise apartment buildings are going up. Every other billboard seems to advertise new homes.

Chennai is spreading less because its inhabitants are desperate to leave the old city than because their jobs have moved. Carmakers have built factories outside the city, and workers have followed. Information technology has grown to the south. The World Bank calculates that, between 1998 and 2005, the number of IT jobs within 25km of the centre of Chennai increased by 27%. In the same period, 47% more IT jobs were added in an outer ring between 25km and 50km from Chennai. In high-tech manufacturing, the urban core lost about a quarter of its workers, while the outer ring gained 23% more jobs.

The biggest and most spectacular IT campus in Tamil Nadu belongs to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). It looks like Optimus Prime taking a nap. The 60,000 people inside the Transformer lookalike do back-office tasks for Western firms and governments. One of them, taking a lunch break, is Karbagam Chandrasekaran. She lives at home with her parents in Chennai, and takes a bus to the campus each day—a journey of about an hour and a half. She likes city living for its convenience, but has heard that the schools are better in the suburbs, and would prefer to live closer to work. When she marries (young Indians almost always say “when”, not “if”) she expects to move out, particularly if her husband also works in the IT corridor.

More than 225 TCS buses run to and from campus every day, many of them carrying workers to and from homes in the old city. Other IT firms do the same, with the result that traffic jams towards Chennai in the evening are often worse than the jams in the opposite direction. But this is changing. Ravi Viswanathan, TCS’s president for growth markets, says that new employees are more likely to live in the suburbs. Buildings are newer, rents are lower and well-regarded private schools have appeared, along with new hospitals and restaurants. At the weekend, Mr Viswanathan says, the main roads around TCS’s campus used to be almost deserted except for cattle. Now they are thick with cars and motorbikes.
Video: "To be able to do it gracefully..."
Officials have periodically tried to rein in this sprawl. But, in common with many other Indian cities, the government is weak and indecisive, and the city is spreading so quickly that any plan is soon out of date.

The boldest attempt to restrain sprawl can be found 45km south of Chennai. In 2002 Mahindra, a conglomerate, began building a large industrial park known as Mahindra World City. The idea—pushed by the Tamil Nadu government, which provided tax breaks—was to create a new city to take pressure off the old one. It has not quite worked out that way. Mahindra World City is successful: its 63 business tenants already employ 30,000 people. But as other businesses and homes sprout nearby, it feels less and less separate from Chennai’s suburban sprawl. Mahindra World City has extended Chennai’s suburbs rather than creating an alternative to the metropolis.

To Chennai’s rather conservative inhabitants, this barely controlled spread seems evidence of official failure, and perhaps of official corruption. But it is not unusual. Other big Indian cities are losing jobs and people to the suburbs, too: the population of central Mumbai is actually falling. Chinese cities are sprawling even more extravagantly. Under the Maoist regime, they were mostly dense and organised into danwei—socialist production machines composed of factories, apartments and basic services. The introduction of market reforms severed the link between urban jobs and homes, priming a suburban explosion.

Just how powerful and widespread this centrifugal trend will be is suggested by the work of Shlomo Angel, a geographer at New York University. By using satellite images, old maps and population data, Mr Angel has run a ruler over some 3,600 metropolitan areas. He finds that, with few exceptions, they are less dense in wealthier countries (see map). Paris is less than one-third as densely populated as Cairo and barely one-seventh as dense as Mumbai. Even rich cities that seem packed are sparsely populated compared with poorer ones. Tokyo is only one-fifth as densely populated as Dhaka, for example.

Mr Angel also finds that almost every city is becoming less dense. In 1920 Chicago squeezed 59 people into each hectare of land; now, by his reckoning, it manages just 16. The urbanised area of Mexico City is about half as densely populated as it was in 1940. Beijing’s population density has collapsed from 425 people per hectare in 1970 to just 65 people per hectare, or about the same as Chicago at its most crowded. Few metropolises are becoming more crowded, and most of those that are were exceptionally spread out to begin with, such as Los Angeles and Johannesburg.

The simple truth is that as people become richer they consume more space, just as they consume more energy, more goods and more services. Even if they live in towers, those towers are likely to be widely spaced, and the households that live in them will be small—wealth also being associated with small families. Mr Angel finds that population densities tend to drop when Chinese cities knock down cheaply built walk-up apartments and replace them with high towers. And many people will opt not to live in towers but in even less dense detached or semi-detached houses.

Wealth fuels sprawl. The process is happening apace in the developing parts of the world. In the developed parts, where cities and suburbs combined expect only 160m more people by 2050, it is largely over. There the question is whether it can be reversed.

WRT the lakewood place, the sell for Rs 1.5 crore right now. ~$250,000. But looking at the construction there are very easy ways to chop the price in half. The brick a& cement type construction is too expensive IMHO. Buildings need to move to stud framed hollow walls.

disha · Post by **disha** » 07 Dec 2014 11:55

Stumbled upon this thread ...

Theo_Fidel wrote: WRT the lakewood place, the sell for Rs 1.5 crore right now. ~$250,000. But looking at the construction there are very easy ways to chop the price in half. The brick a& cement type construction is too expensive IMHO. Buildings need to move to stud framed hollow walls.

^^^ The double gable design style above looks absurd!!! During rains, the water will collect right inside the valley of the double gable "M" and leak into the walls. Looks good on paper, but a disaster.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 17 Jan 2015 23:00

Narendra Modi Influencer
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/transiti ... endra-modi
Prime Minister of India

The Transition of New Age India has Begun

On 16th January 2015, I got the opportunity to address the Global Business Summit organized by The Economic Times. In the speech, I elaborated how the New Age India has begun its transition from an environment of subdued achievement, to a new age of development that beckons.

The country had fallen into deep despair with low growth and governance at rock bottom. A series of scams, from telecom to coal had paralysed the economy. We deviated from the dream of India as a land of opportunity. No longer can we afford the flight of capital and labour, for lack of opportunity.

Mahatma Gandhi said that we should not rest until we “wipe every tear from every eye”. Elimination of poverty is at the core of my understanding of cohesive growth. To translate this vision into the reality of a New Age India, we must be clear about our economic goals and objectives.

The government must nurture an eco-system:

where the economy is primed for growth; and growth promotes all-round development;
where development is employment-generating; and employment is enabled by skills;
where skills are synced with production; and production is benchmarked to quality;
where quality meets global standards; and meeting global standards drives prosperity. Most importantly, this prosperity is for the welfare of all.
Our government is moving fast in designing policies and laws to promote growth.

First, we are committed to achieving the fiscal deficit target announced in the budget. We have worked systematically in this direction. We have the Expenditure Management Commission to suggest cuts in wasteful expenditure.

Second, the petroleum sector has seen major reforms. Diesel prices have been deregulated. Gas prices have been linked to international prices. This will bring a new wave of investment, increase supplies & will resolve problems in the key power sector.

Today, India’s cooking gas subsidy is the world’s largest Cash Transfer Programme. Over 80 million households receive subsidy directly as cash into their bank accounts. This will completely eliminate leakage.

Third, inflation has been controlled through firm measures. While falling oil prices helped, even non-oil inflation is at a very low level. Food inflation has come down from over 15% a year ago to 3.1% last month. This set the stage for RBI to reduce interest rates, and push growth in a stable manner.

Fourth, the consensus we arrived with States for amending the Constitution to implement GST is a major breakthrough.

Fifth, the poor have been included in the financial system with the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. We are today a nearly 100% banked country. Financial unity - bringing everyone into the financial system – is one cause which both capitalists and socialists agree on. What, my friends, can be a bigger reform?

Sixth, the energy sector has been reformed. Coal blocks are now allocated transparently through auctions. Mining laws have been changed to facilitate efficient mining. Similar reforms are on the way in the Power sector. We have revived long pending projects in Nepal and Bhutan, with the cooperation of their governments. Steps are being taken to deliver 24 x 7 Power for All, using every possible source, including renewable energy.

Seventh, India is being made an attractive destination for investment. FDI caps have been raised in Insurance and Real Estate. FDI and private investment are being promoted in Defense and Railways. The Land Acquisition Act has been amended to smoothen the process and speed up matters. This will give a thrust to infrastructure and manufacturing, while protecting the compensation to farmers.

Eighth, infrastructure is being given a boost. Greater investment is planned in railways and roads.

Ninth, transparency and efficiency in governance, and institutional reforms are essential elements for rapid growth. These, along with a positive regulatory framework, tax stability, and ease of doing business, are being pushed ahead at top speed. I also recently assured Public Sector Banks they will have total autonomy in taking business decisions.

A major institutional reform is the move away from merely planning, to transforming India. The setting up of the National Institution for Transforming India, NITI Aayog, is a step in this direction. The NITI Aayog is our Mantra for creating trust and partnership between the Centre and States.

Friends, reforms must have a concrete objective. The objective must be to improve the welfare of the people. Reforms may not be apparent to one and all at first sight. But small acts can drive reforms. What appears minor can actually be vital and fundamental.

Further, there is no contradiction between doing big tickets items and doing small things. We need to follow both paths. For example: Generating 20,000 MW of power attracts a lot of attention. At the same time, 20,000 MW of power can be saved through a people’s movement for energy efficiency. The second is more difficult but is as important as the first. Small indeed, is beautiful.

In agriculture too, our main goal is to raise productivity. This will require using technology, increasing soil fertility, producing more crop per drop, and bringing the latest from Lab to Land. On the output side, the entire value chain in agriculture will be addressed through better storage, transport and food processing linkages. We will link farmers to global markets. We will give the world the Taste of India.

India is a 2 trillion dollar economy today. Can we not dream of an India with a 20 trillion dollar economy? Quick and easy reforms will not be enough for creating a fast growing economy. That is our challenge and that is what we aim to do.

Digital India and Skill India are attempts in this direction. Digital India will reform government systems, eliminate waste, increase access and empower citizens. It will drive a knowledge-driven growth. Broadband in every village, with a wide range of online services, will transform India in a manner we cannot foresee. Skill India will harness the demographic dividend which everyone talks of.

Economic development cannot take a nation forward on its own. We need a society and economy which complement each other. We need to take care of the poor, deprived and left behind sections of society with a well-targeted system of subsidy delivery. We need to cut subsidy leakages, not subsidies themselves. The ultimate objective of subsidies should be to empower the poor, to break the cycle of poverty, and become foot-soldiers in our war on poverty.

Development also has to result in jobs. Reforms, economic growth, progress – all are empty words if they do not translate into jobs. What we need is not just more production, but mass production and production by masses.

Further, development seems to have become the agenda only of government. It is seen as a scheme. That should not be the case. Development should be a people`s movement.

Today, everyone is looking towards Asia for inspiration and growth. And within Asia, India is important. Not just for its size, but for its democracy, and its values. India’s core philosophy is सर्व मंगल मांगल्यम् (Sarva Mangala Maangalyam) and सर्व भवन्तु सुखिनः (Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah). This is a call for global welfare, global cooperation and balanced living. India can be a role model of growth and cohesiveness for the rest of the world.

Swami Vivekananda had said “Arise, awake, do not stop until the goal has been attained”. This should inspire us all to achieve the vision of a New Age India.
Together, we can!

Here is the link of the e-book that will take you through my complete speech at the Global Business Summit..

Thank you.