Monday, November 25, 2013

Different Indian cities as hubs

There is no clear communication why cities in our country India are planned or lack planning the way they are being shaped right now. Why is it that the finance and movie industry are both in Mumbai. And now IT companies are also jostling for space and importing engineers in this already crowded city. Already the infrastructure was insufficient in the city. Most people still travel in packed trains. Instead of trying to make things better, lack of planning and letting things pan out by default is only putting more strain on scarce resources. This in turn is only making life more difficult for the ordinary population.
Due to lack of government planning and enablers, businesses will continue to invest in locations where at least there is some infrastructure. Plus what is more ideal for profit making than a packed market, both in terms of per-capita and head-count. So the businesses really don't care. They too have to bear the brunt of initial high-cost of capital investment but profits are huge to the ready market in close quarters.
Those who really pay the price are their consumers, us the general population. Not just in terms of a difficult, hectic lifestyle but also in terms of health. These include pollution and the increased stresses that crowded areas beget, not only in terms of civic facilities (space, water, air quality, crime, infrastructure) but also in economic terms (cost of living) and in terms of general well being (lack of time, quality of relationships, increased  competition, loss of balance with nature).
For a well populated country like India, ad-hoc city development is neither binding nor appealing. Planned city model is the model to go for. Firstly, in order to ease the strain on the city, the capital of the state Maharashtra should be moved into an interior location. Moving government, especially politicians is economically the path of least resistance, because legislature if it wishes to, can make money readily available. Political will as usual is another story. The incentive for politicians is improvement of government and their personal security, always difficult in a hub like Mumbai. The good for people is economic development of the area chosen including more jobs with direct government investment. The good for Mumbai is reduction of the concerned population and easing up on infrastructure.
The next industry to be targeted is the film industry. With a single sop of developing a twice as grand film-city in the interior of the country, say Madhya Pradesh, we should be able to attract gradual relocation. Having enough money and known to enjoy luxurious lifestyles, film celebrities and the industry as a whole are a manageable bunch for relocation, given the right carrots.
Mumbai is currently the financial hub and I think should continue to be so. Among other reasons the financial vein of any country needs to be given the it's easy-flowing path. If we were to put it in an idealistic sense though, every coastal region should have been exclusively made industrial hubs if anything, and not the interior parts of the country. Manufacturing invariably causes pollution, which instead of kept circulating in the interiors of the country, is best driven off by the wide expanses of the oceans. Of course, this holds true as long as fossil fuels and harmful industrial wastage aren't well taken care of.
While Mumbai is closest to heart as I was born and raised there, I'm sure every city likewise has it's strengths which we must balance for a good quality of life for the rest of the country. Bangalore, for example, like Mumbai has captured the brand imagination across the world of being the Silicon Valley of India, its IT hub. So we should focus IT out here and in adjoining cities. Every metro needs to carve its unique identity in the eyes of the world, and focus its strengths in those specific directions, than arbitrary, evidently chaotic development that we see today, which is crushing infrastructure and quality of life. For example Chennai can be the country's port city, Hyderabad the Biotech city, and Chandigarh Pharma.
This level of focus will also reduce the necessity of having each location marked as a city. We will be able to maintain the rural, agro-community once it is spared by these demands of urbanisation. Any migration, if necessary to an urban location, need not be the long-dreary life writh with sacrifices as it is today.
I believe it is this focus or balanced development for all areas of the country that can make it reachable for the ordinary Indian to get out of the clutches of poverty.

No comments:

I've switched to artoac1.wordpress.com

Dear reader, I've switched to WordPress upon getting the pop-up that the current Blogger app is not configured to the upgraded version ...