April 16, 2007
Can mega projects promote development?
By Dr Mahnaz Fatima
THE Third World governments tend to take pride in huge infrastructure projects even if the general state of infrastructure is dilapidated and a century or two behind times. In Pakistan, it derives additionally from historical reasons. The rulers consider it to be a good way of staying in history as Sher Shah Suri is known to all from the G.T. Road and Mughal Emperors are known the world over from the world class pieces of architecture that came up during their rule. This tendency to have the biggest or the finest infrastructure projects is, however, called âgigantomaniaâ in the parlance of development economics. To have the biggest dam or to have the tallest building may not help a third world country for more than one reason.
One of the worldâs tallest buildings is being planned for Karachi and a skyline is being contemplated for the coast. Two islands near Karachi are being planned for âdevelopmentâ on commercial lines. How will this help the city of Karachi or national economic development for that matter?
Does Karachi need the worldâs tallest building more or do Karachiites need infrastructure to make this city fit for living? There is no dearth of tall enough buildings in Karachi. Most of those who live in Karachi already remain pigeon-holed in tall âapartmentâ blocks that lack water, electricity, sewerage, and waste disposal facilities. In the city of Karachi, running water availability is a major problem that no government has on the agenda to solve in a meaningful way. Some years ago a pilot project to convert sea water was shelved even before it was seriously contemplated. Lack of availability of water, waste disposal facilities, and ineffective sewerage systems take their toll in terms of human health and productivity at work. Those who are not âluckyâ enough to find residence in âapartmentâ complexes live in even more pathetic conditions, suffer from non-availability of basic facilities, and add to the health and environmental problems in the city. The city can, therefore, not maintain a healthy agile workforce that may contribute what it should at work. Productivity suffers and so does output and growth.
What wealthy managements call a recalcitrant workforce is actually an underclass that plods along with great difficulty. Labour-management relations remain sour and adversarial and no one digs deeper into the reasons that feed into the unhappiness of our labour classes. Not all of this unhappiness can be addressed by managements directly as it is a function of urban management or national economic management. None of this unhappiness can be addressed by giving the city one of the worldâs tallest building as the city dwellers desire a habitable city more than the city appearing on the world map for the height of just one building.
A lot of city workers are also rural-urban migrants with no solid roof over their heads. They live in shanties in such miserable conditions that the affluent would have difficulty tolerating for more than a few seconds. They also live in highly uncertain conditions as they occupy vacant land that the government authorities can have vacated in no time ironically for the construction of parks or some other similar project. It is ironic because while precious land is to be converted to playgrounds for the children of the affluent, the poor have no place to live in this country that is also supposed to be theirs.
First, they cannot live in their home towns and villages as they have no means of livelihood there. Second, to search for a living, they come to big cities especially Karachi and are called âencroachersâ when the entire population of haves is actually encroaching on so many of their rights which is why they do not even have a source of decent income in their native towns. They then add to the dualism that the city of Karachi is characterised by and is likely to become more so if high-rises and skylines materialise that are a fancy of a handful richest.
It is important to determine the opportunity cost of fancy infrastructure projects as the entire city is also in dire need of durable roads. There has been a great deal of emphasis on expressways, flyovers, and underpasses that are being built with speed that the myopic self-serving affluent are much too pleased with. This policy, however, smacks of an elite bias for two reasons. First, it is designed to speed up life for the smug car owners who drive past a whole bunch of pedestrians who can no longer cross roads easily because, with the signals gone, the traffic flow just does not stop for them to cross over.
Pedestrians are now supposed to take a long-winded route via high bridges to get to the other side of the road that is simply cruel for the old, infirm, unwell, and for those working against time. Second, to facilitate traffic flow of only car owners to the neglect of an efficient mass transit system is a definite bias against the deprived majority whose concerns do not get factored into policy making. Third, the entire city road network needs to be overhauled for efficient commuting that is nowhere in sight.
Some roads that broke down during the last downpour might still remain that away until and past the next rains. This is mighty inefficient and neglectful to say the least. It gets translated into loss of time, energy, and work effort that neither helps the economic growth dreams nor development. So, a fancy skyline and one of the tallest buildings will not even serve as a facade for as long as the cityâs dilapidated infrastructure continues to speak volumes about government apathy and neglect of the requirements of the people of this city of Karachi that is the countryâs major industrial and trading centre.
The outlook of bringing in the new to the neglect of the dilapidated old also sounds very much like what was happening in PIA in the recent past. New fancy Boeings were being added to the neglect of the maintenance and upgradation of the existing fleet until such time that the EU slammed shut their doors on them. The problem in city management is that the disaffected clientele cannot give any such shock therapy to have the situation turned around for the better in authoritarian environments. The citizens can at best plead if the climate is not democratic enough.
We plead for good urban management and good national economic management. The problems of the city of Karachi require both of the above approaches in tandem. Part of the problem is poor urban management that requires deployment of good public administration and organisation skills. The other part emanates from rural-urban migration due to the continued underdevelopment of Pakistanâs rural areas for which an integrated strategy is required to create employment for people where they live. Population will thus remain dispersed and population concentration will be avoided that creates a strain difficult for already inept city managements to cope with.
Integrated agricultural-rural development strategy with land reforms at the centre are a must for broad-based even-handed development failing which only some will grow at the expense of others even if the growth rates are impressive as they distribute disproportionately in favour of few wealthy asset owners. In the absence of such a policy, economic growth rates may increase but so will disparity and dualism that spills over into many facets of urban life and back into economic underdevelopment as discussed above.
And, an infrastructure-poor urban centre cannot attract foreign investment so desperately sought by us. Solution does not lie in creating an oasis at a distance from the troubled urban node in the hope that it will be insulated enough from the traditional urban issues and will therefore not deter but will attract investment. For, some urban ills that grow out of maladministration know no geographical boundaries.
These include drugs, crime, disease, and now terror too that are likely to travel to whatever neat investment centre is envisaged in the vicinity of the old one that may have been given up on even before trying earnestly. So, our economic issues require holistic solutions and not adhoc patchwork with limited life and an opportunity cost discussed above that could be done without.
http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/16/ebr12.htm
Can mega projects promote development?
By Dr Mahnaz Fatima
THE Third World governments tend to take pride in huge infrastructure projects even if the general state of infrastructure is dilapidated and a century or two behind times. In Pakistan, it derives additionally from historical reasons. The rulers consider it to be a good way of staying in history as Sher Shah Suri is known to all from the G.T. Road and Mughal Emperors are known the world over from the world class pieces of architecture that came up during their rule. This tendency to have the biggest or the finest infrastructure projects is, however, called âgigantomaniaâ in the parlance of development economics. To have the biggest dam or to have the tallest building may not help a third world country for more than one reason.
One of the worldâs tallest buildings is being planned for Karachi and a skyline is being contemplated for the coast. Two islands near Karachi are being planned for âdevelopmentâ on commercial lines. How will this help the city of Karachi or national economic development for that matter?
Does Karachi need the worldâs tallest building more or do Karachiites need infrastructure to make this city fit for living? There is no dearth of tall enough buildings in Karachi. Most of those who live in Karachi already remain pigeon-holed in tall âapartmentâ blocks that lack water, electricity, sewerage, and waste disposal facilities. In the city of Karachi, running water availability is a major problem that no government has on the agenda to solve in a meaningful way. Some years ago a pilot project to convert sea water was shelved even before it was seriously contemplated. Lack of availability of water, waste disposal facilities, and ineffective sewerage systems take their toll in terms of human health and productivity at work. Those who are not âluckyâ enough to find residence in âapartmentâ complexes live in even more pathetic conditions, suffer from non-availability of basic facilities, and add to the health and environmental problems in the city. The city can, therefore, not maintain a healthy agile workforce that may contribute what it should at work. Productivity suffers and so does output and growth.
What wealthy managements call a recalcitrant workforce is actually an underclass that plods along with great difficulty. Labour-management relations remain sour and adversarial and no one digs deeper into the reasons that feed into the unhappiness of our labour classes. Not all of this unhappiness can be addressed by managements directly as it is a function of urban management or national economic management. None of this unhappiness can be addressed by giving the city one of the worldâs tallest building as the city dwellers desire a habitable city more than the city appearing on the world map for the height of just one building.
A lot of city workers are also rural-urban migrants with no solid roof over their heads. They live in shanties in such miserable conditions that the affluent would have difficulty tolerating for more than a few seconds. They also live in highly uncertain conditions as they occupy vacant land that the government authorities can have vacated in no time ironically for the construction of parks or some other similar project. It is ironic because while precious land is to be converted to playgrounds for the children of the affluent, the poor have no place to live in this country that is also supposed to be theirs.
First, they cannot live in their home towns and villages as they have no means of livelihood there. Second, to search for a living, they come to big cities especially Karachi and are called âencroachersâ when the entire population of haves is actually encroaching on so many of their rights which is why they do not even have a source of decent income in their native towns. They then add to the dualism that the city of Karachi is characterised by and is likely to become more so if high-rises and skylines materialise that are a fancy of a handful richest.
It is important to determine the opportunity cost of fancy infrastructure projects as the entire city is also in dire need of durable roads. There has been a great deal of emphasis on expressways, flyovers, and underpasses that are being built with speed that the myopic self-serving affluent are much too pleased with. This policy, however, smacks of an elite bias for two reasons. First, it is designed to speed up life for the smug car owners who drive past a whole bunch of pedestrians who can no longer cross roads easily because, with the signals gone, the traffic flow just does not stop for them to cross over.
Pedestrians are now supposed to take a long-winded route via high bridges to get to the other side of the road that is simply cruel for the old, infirm, unwell, and for those working against time. Second, to facilitate traffic flow of only car owners to the neglect of an efficient mass transit system is a definite bias against the deprived majority whose concerns do not get factored into policy making. Third, the entire city road network needs to be overhauled for efficient commuting that is nowhere in sight.
Some roads that broke down during the last downpour might still remain that away until and past the next rains. This is mighty inefficient and neglectful to say the least. It gets translated into loss of time, energy, and work effort that neither helps the economic growth dreams nor development. So, a fancy skyline and one of the tallest buildings will not even serve as a facade for as long as the cityâs dilapidated infrastructure continues to speak volumes about government apathy and neglect of the requirements of the people of this city of Karachi that is the countryâs major industrial and trading centre.
The outlook of bringing in the new to the neglect of the dilapidated old also sounds very much like what was happening in PIA in the recent past. New fancy Boeings were being added to the neglect of the maintenance and upgradation of the existing fleet until such time that the EU slammed shut their doors on them. The problem in city management is that the disaffected clientele cannot give any such shock therapy to have the situation turned around for the better in authoritarian environments. The citizens can at best plead if the climate is not democratic enough.
We plead for good urban management and good national economic management. The problems of the city of Karachi require both of the above approaches in tandem. Part of the problem is poor urban management that requires deployment of good public administration and organisation skills. The other part emanates from rural-urban migration due to the continued underdevelopment of Pakistanâs rural areas for which an integrated strategy is required to create employment for people where they live. Population will thus remain dispersed and population concentration will be avoided that creates a strain difficult for already inept city managements to cope with.
Integrated agricultural-rural development strategy with land reforms at the centre are a must for broad-based even-handed development failing which only some will grow at the expense of others even if the growth rates are impressive as they distribute disproportionately in favour of few wealthy asset owners. In the absence of such a policy, economic growth rates may increase but so will disparity and dualism that spills over into many facets of urban life and back into economic underdevelopment as discussed above.
And, an infrastructure-poor urban centre cannot attract foreign investment so desperately sought by us. Solution does not lie in creating an oasis at a distance from the troubled urban node in the hope that it will be insulated enough from the traditional urban issues and will therefore not deter but will attract investment. For, some urban ills that grow out of maladministration know no geographical boundaries.
These include drugs, crime, disease, and now terror too that are likely to travel to whatever neat investment centre is envisaged in the vicinity of the old one that may have been given up on even before trying earnestly. So, our economic issues require holistic solutions and not adhoc patchwork with limited life and an opportunity cost discussed above that could be done without.
http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/16/ebr12.htm
