If cities are engines of economic growth, what are the rest of train and coaches?

We need to move beyond romanticising either cities or villages & develop more nuanced understanding about their economic and social roles. In the last two decades, everybody from senior bureaucrats to World Bank officials and academic scholars keep reminding us that cities are the engines of economic growth. They complain that cities have not been given enough attention since independence and we need proper policy and increasing financial support for our cities. To some extent, the slogan ‘cities are engines of economic growth’ is posited against ‘India lives in her villages’. This contributes to a misplaced contest between cities and villages and vice versa.  This is a rather old debate in India. Some political ideologies have demonised cities as sites of criminal activities, greed and pollution. Besides, romanticising village life, which is believed to be closer to our traditions and nature. Both demonising cities or hailing their growth potential presents a one-sided picture. We need to move beyond romanticising either cities or villages and develop more nuanced understanding about economic and social roles of different settlements.  Cities are not islands. Each city becomes a city because of its hinterland, which is rural and agrarian in nature. There is a symbiotic relationship between cities and villages of economic, social and cultural exchanges. It is very difficult to draw a physical boundary around economic production or cultural imports. In fact, cities are quite diverse themselves and so are villages. To say that cities are the engines of economic growth is a misinformed analogy. Would engines have any meaning if they were running without the rest of the train? Would the rest of the train move if there were no engines? We need both the engines and the other bogeys of the train. And one should not claim that I am more important than the other.  In the urbanisation story of India, thousands of small and medium towns play an equally important role as the big metropolis. As per the 2011 census, we have about 50 cities with one million plus population and about 7,900 towns in the range of five thousand to one million populations with great diversity in their geography and economy. Lot of urban growth is taking place in these small and medium towns. According to the latest National Sample Survey, the small and medium towns across the country have witnessed more growth in jobs. Unfortunately, these towns are hardly supported by efficient municipal administration with adequate financial health. In Gujarat, we have about 150 municipalities, which do not receive as much financial support as the big municipal corporations.  Before embarking on the urban policies and programs, we need the right kind of imagination and conception about our cities. An urban discourse or urban policies should not necessarily hamper the focus on rural development and vice versa. Cities are not only engines or industrial production houses or labour markets. As the great urbanist Jane Jacobs would put it - “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” We need cities created by everybody and for everybody. Imagining cities as ‘engines’ is so limiting and boring. (8th June, 2015: DNA Ahmedabad edition, Cities Supplement, Page 5)

'Make in India' in sync with 'Think in India' will lead to real progress!

Diagram by Jessica Hagy URL: http://thisisindexed.com/2014/09/quiet-pondering-sadly-underrated/

Jessica Hagy has made an interesting diagram showing the relationship between making and thinking. When we spend a lot of effort in making but little effort in thinking then we create the usual ‘stuff’.  When we spend a lot of effort in thinking and relatively little in making then we create ‘art’ objects. Progress of human society requires both – the usual stuff and the art objects. Making and thinking goes hand in hand. We make what we could think about and we should constantly think about what we are making. Balancing between making and thinking takes us to the progress.

The government of India has launched the mission of ‘Make in India’ which has captured the imagination of many. But how are we progressing in the area of ‘Think in India’? Like business houses taking lead in ‘Make in India’, the higher education institutions will have to take lead in ‘Think in India’. Do we have an ‘enabling environment’ in the country to pursue higher education system which promotes critical thinking rather than curtailing it? Do we have enough ‘investments’ in original research and is our young generation ready to take up career paths of being researchers? Do we have any vision of having a world class university or ‘smart’ university system yet?

Traditionally we have believed in ‘Education That Liberates’ (sa vidhyaha ya vimuktaye).  In 1947, many newly established modern institutions vouched to be progressive, liberal and innovative. But unfortunately, there are only few institutions in India which continue these traditions. Most universities spend their time dealing with government regulations and managing to work within their meagre budgets. When are they going to ‘invest’ in critical thinking, original research or innovative pedagogy? For example, most universities in India do not have access to international journals, then how are they going to publish anything in them and get a ranking amongst the top universities in the world? Our students need to be given more choices in their curriculums and they should be allowed choose their own multi-disciplinary pathways. The teachers needs to be more accountable, approachable and rigourous in their approach to teaching. Our universities need to embrace diversities, new ideas and new technologies. Sending an SMS to parents when their adult daughter or son does not attend a class is not the best use of technology and neither is it the right approach to education.

We are in a strange situation now. The government has pulled out of higher education more or less but it still wants to dictate what to teach, whom to admit, whom to hire, what to pay them and how much fees to charge. The big business houses start their own universities (probably to diversify their business) rather than supporting the well-established universities. And then there many individuals which would donate their money to religious charities rather than investing in higher education institutes. Probably, we haven't we realized the need of making good, stable institutions in this country yet.

In short, 'Think in India' will need some attention, some policy support, and some money with more autonomy! We will have to work towards supporting innovative thinking in this country. Otherwise, we will flood the job market with 'stuff' without substance. 

(25th May, 2015: DNA Ahmedabad edition, Cities Supplement, Page 5)

Govt & land owners are partners in development for well-planned towns

This is the centenary year of the first modern town planning legislation in Gujarat State. Bombay Town Planning Act was first legislated in the year 1915 and the first town planning scheme was prepared in the Jamalpur area of Ahmedabad in the year 1917. We have a hundred years of history of developing common infrastructure by land pooling and converting agricultural land into urbanised land in peri-urban area of a city. When the whole country including the parliament is debating the land acquisition act, Gujarat has shown a collaborative and practical way of getting land for common purpose nearly hundred years back.

In a typical town planning scheme, all land parcels of an area are pooled together irrespective of their revenue boundaries. A town planning officer then plans the area for roads, basic services provision and reserved land parcels and returns about 60-50% of land to the land owners in the close vicinity of their original area. Laying down infrastructure in the area brings dynamics of land market and even after losing nearly half the land, the owner rips immense benefits out of well-adjusted, well-shaped land parcel in return. The government gets the benefit of planning the area properly with a land bank for common infrastructure. In well-planned town planning schemes, both the government and the land owners are partners in development – not adversaries like the land acquisition process. 

The success of town planning schemes in Gujarat almost sounds like a fairy tale but we should not kill a hen laying golden eggs. On one side, we have a real challenge of making the town planning schemes more widespread, more effective and quicker in implementation. On the other side, the town planning scheme mechanism should not be used where it abuses the very spirit of it - seeing the land owners as partners in development. When town planning scheme mechanism is used in green-field sites like the Special Investment Regions (SIRs), the land owners will tend to lose instead of gaining out of the promised development. The government can only promise urbanisation in the SIRs but cannot jump start it. In absence of urban land market rural lands, the rural land owners or the farmers are exposed to huge risks and the government has a little liability. It is unfair to use the town planning scheme mechanism in such situations. 

So how should we celebrate the centenary year of modern town planning in Gujarat? First of all, by documenting the good practices of town planning so that this can be emulated in other states and in other cities. Secondly, by introspecting – city planning has a lot of scope beyond mere land re-adjustment. We need better designed streets, more open-green spaces, and better municipal services. A city is all about her people not only its land. So we need better mechanism of planning beyond land pooling. And finally, we must celebrate by future proofing – how do we improve the town planning scheme mechanism so that it is more sustainable mechanism and is abused less. Let’s celebrate 100 years of mutual benefits and equitable profits of development. 

(18th May, 2015: DNA Ahmedabad edition, Cities Supplement, Page 5)