It’s the cities, stupid!
Published by Yazad Jal April 30th, 2005 in GovernanceShekhar Gupta makes an important point
if our major urban centres rot and decay, so will the rest of the country. Like all rapidly developing countries, India is urbanising at a fast pace. Some of its more developed states — Kerala, Gujarat — are already ‘‘reurbanised’’. Big cities are both cradles and magnets for enterprise and creativity. India cannot grow if its major urban centres are allowed to decay and die.Sonia Gandhi, therefore, has a special responsibility. Her party controls not just Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, but also other upcoming modern urban centres, from Hyderabad to Pune, from Chandigarh to Gurgaon. India cannot grow if these urban centres are trapped in assorted crises like power cuts (Pune), political indiscipline (Delhi), an infrastructure freeze (Bangalore), a water shortage (Gurgaon) and that most ridiculous man-made calamity of all, the wave of Talibanesque conservatism in Mumbai, the lure of which cuts across party lines, with one side working full time to fight that menace for national security and family values called bar girls, and the other telling women that if they wear low-waist jeans they should expect to be raped.
You do not compensate the villages for any neglect by letting the cities go to the dogs now. As the history of modern development has shown elsewhere, particularly in China, economic growth is invariably linked to rapid urbanisation. That is already happening in India, and the process will only hasten with the national highway development programme. It is now for our political leadership, particularly Sonia, Manmohan Singh and the Congress, to decide what kind of cities we will leave behind for our future generations, like a modernising Delhi with its improving traffic, air quality, power and water, or a decaying Mumbai that will soon be so choked, so eaten up by slums and with such a decline in the quality of life that, forget becoming the financial capital of Asia, it may indeed see a flight of capital to rival Kolkata’s in its darkest decades.
Pessimistic, but not wholly off the mark. More important than “focussing” on cities, maybe what Sonia, Manmohan and the Congress needs to do is leave us alone. The Voluntary City, an excellent book I’m reading right now provides some great answers.
The Voluntary City assembles a rich history and analysis of private, locally based provision of social services, urban infrastructure, and community governance. Such systems have offered superior education, transportation, housing, crime control, recreation, health care, and employment by being more effective, innovative, and responsive than those provided through special interest politics and bureaucracy.The Voluntary City reveals how the process of providing local public goods through the dynamism of freely competitive, market-based entrepreneurship is unmatched in renewing communities and strengthening the bonds of civil society.
Here’s a detailed summary.
Don’t ask to be left alone! Our politicians will only be too happy to do it :)
I think efforts by the government or citizens cannot be mutually exclusive. That is what organisations like Janaagraha are trying to show in Bangalore, and they are doing well too.
Looking around your blog, and reading the the Indian Express article on bloggers that you had linked to, I realised you might have heard of Janaagraha :)
I feel that we dont need the Babus and their masters the Politicians. We indians also suffer from vested business interests which will not allow free trade and globalisation because they and thier management team suffer from an inferirity complex and they are scared of competation from MNCs.The problem is this business groups and not politicians. The politicians are expendable, nobody likes them and they will not win if they are not supported by vested business class. Well, is Naryan Murthy, Azim Premji, Anil?Mukesh Ambani and thier management team ready to battle with MNC at thier home turf. THis will decide the future of our country and poverty in our land.
Thats is absolutely true - but you need to look at the side effects of mindless urbanisation in terms of western culture - we need to pick and choose only the positives …
Read this article
Just a test
The lessons of Voluntary City are important especially the comparison of city services to hotel services…the possibilities are mind boggling! Can we have private governments vying for tax-paying consumers based on contractual provision of services?
In this modern world the art of Management has become a part and parcel of everyday life, be it at home, in the office or factory and in Government. In all organizations, where a group of human beings assemble for a common purpose irrespective of caste, creed, and religion, management principles come into play through the management of resources, finance and planning, priorities, policies and practice. Management is a systematic way of carrying out activities in any field of human effort.
Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their weaknesses irrelevant, says the Management Guru Peter Drucker. It creates harmony in working together - equilibrium in thoughts and actions, goals and achievements, plans and performance, products and markets. It resolves situations of scarcity, be they in the physical, technical or human fields, through maximum utilization with the minimum available processes to achieve the goal. Lack of management causes disorder, confusion, wastage, delay, destruction and even depression. Managing men, money and materials in the best possible way, according to circumstances and environment, is the most important and essential factor for a successful management.