Mumbai vs Shanghai: how can India catch up?

[ashok mourya]

VILLAGE IN THE CITY – NEW SLUMS? -CHINA’S AND INDIA’S APPROACH
December 5, 2012 · by terraurban · in Dynamics of Urban Poverty · 2 Comments
By Nidhi Batra, PRIA

Urbanisation is a continuous process which involves expansion of the urban areas and also rural-urban migration. It is often assumed that the cause of urban poverty in Indian cities is the rural to urban migration. Instead as proved my many reports and studies, it is the growth of urban areas and engulfing of villages in the city boundaries – urbanising the villages that are more a reality in Indian situations.

These urban villages are not new to India. Most newly planned cities ignored these urban villages while planning for new cities. This can be seen right from the beginning in Delhi Master Plan 1962 where it did not have any clue on how to address urban villages that now lie in the boundary of the city. They just got left behind as ‘Lal Dora Areas’, hubs of no –regulation and close to slum situations. Gurgaon’s laissez faire development saw many of these urban villages being left as ugly eye sores with no addressal of growth and development of the existing villages. Naya Raipur plan of the city is no different, in the city limits are existing villages but wonder if there is an effective policy to regulate that these villages would not end up being the urban slums of this city. Raipur intense urbanisation over last few years has seen the boundary of municipal limit being revised again and again and villages on the outskirts now being officially ‘urban’. Though these villages maybe declared now part of the municipal limits, the City Development Plan was quick to term them as slums!

There is often a massive resistance to cling to the tag of rural areas, which attract a much larger share of welfare funds from the centre and escape higher taxation. This results in poor infrastructure development and administrative chaos, partly explaining why a large majority of urban poor continues to be concentrated in newly-developed small towns.

China’s Approach – Seal the village!

Recently I read about unfortunate policy that China has adopted for these urban villages – ‘ a sealed management’ policy for Chengzhongcun that are areas classified as rural villages which have been absorbed into China’s growing cities and are becoming thriving unregulated rental markets for rural migrants in the process (Ref: Shutting the poor by Constance Brehaut)



The main street of Laosanyu, where Beijing’s “sealed management” policy was first trialled during the Olympic Games in 2008, and remains in force. Photo: Constance Bréhaut

The formation of these villages-in-the-city is characteristic of the Chinese dual land tenure system which distinguishes between rural and urban land, and separates land use rights from land ownership: urban land is generally state-owned, while rural land is owned by the rural collective, and cannot be transferred, sold or leased for non-agricultural use. During the urbanisation process, local authorities could buy agricultural land, but the ownership of the village remained collective, and villagers could still dispose of their land use rights on their housing plots. The villages maintained their status as “rural” areas, as the government did not want to deal with the potential relocation and compensation cost of the villagers.

But this administrative status does not match the reality anymore. To compensate for the loss of their agricultural land, a major source of revenue, many villagers redevelop their housing at high densities, creating an informal rental market, which matches the needs of rural migrants in search of cheap housing opportunities close to work. As the majority of migrants cannot afford to rent private accommodation in the centre of Beijing, they have to rely on alternative housing opportunities. Often, urban villages are the only affordable option available.

The physical environment of the village is characterised by narrow roads, face-to-face buildings, streets packed with shops, grocery stores and service outlets. Highly dense and unregulated, they are considered by Chinese authorities and media as a source of social disorder and neglected urban planning.

This policy of “sealed management” (封闭管理 or fengbiguanli in Chinese) first appeared in Laosanyu during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Under the policy, selected chengzhongcun inhabited by migrant workers were fenced in and security stepped up: gates, walls, police boxes, 24-hour patrols and permits necessary for outsiders to enter the village. It is a pilot policy, first directed towards 16 urban villages in Daxing District in the spring of 2010, and then extended to other districts in Beijing. It has attracted much media attention, where it has been described as creating “gated communities for the poor”.

These measures, supporting the sealed management policy, are characteristic of the official will to eradicate any sign of informality and “neglected urban planning” in these villages. They also have a symbolic dimension: a clear sign to outsiders that they are entering a regulated, controlled and “protected” environment.

How does India treat its village in the city?

India does not stop its citizens from internal migration .People are free to move across states to escape destitution or in search of better opportunities, economic or otherwise. However, local governments and India’s middle class largely view economically poor migrants as outsiders making illegitimate claims to life in cities. Recently, scholars have started pointing out the growing hostility of urban governments, as well as middle class citizens, towards urban poor, especially migrants to the cities. The 2010 Common Wealth Games held in Delhi saw the forced eviction of large numbers of urban poor, mostly rural-urban migrants.(Ref:Urban migration and exclusion by Preeti Mann)https://terraurban.wordpress.com/WORK/PRIA/village in the city.docx#_ftn2

While most migrants would qualify as lawful citizens of the land, in urban India, the rights of citizens get operationalized through a host of official documents such as property lease or ownership papers, PAN cards, bank statements, bills, and voter IDs. Bereft of these, the paperless migrant accesses basic goods and services at a premium in the black market economy. Ironically, the most marginalized and poor also have to pay the most dearly. The underground economy is also indicative of the state’s absence in service delivery and lack of institutional support. From a migrant’s perspective it is the opportunity to enable a better life, economically or otherwise, that draws them to urban spaces. However, for a rural-urban migrant to move, there are additional costs that result from functioning in the informal economy. Opportunities cannot be readily undertaken if that means having to enable an entire environment that mostly depends on the back market economy and social networks.

Urban development, if done in an inclusive manner, can enable social mobility and integration of migrants in the real sense of the word by providing a renewed opportunity to challenge or change some of the traps or processes of impoverishment. This involves planning for services like access to safe housing, water, electricity, schools, and healthcare. Just as important, it requires a concerted effort by governments and civil society to identify and reduce structures and processes of exclusion in urban spaces. This, in turn, would be incumbent upon integrative planning, political will, and capability-enhancing policies that propagate access.

The Chinese policy of gated urban poor settlement is not a solution, but that does not ignore the fact that India needs a policy to address these transition areas. Prevention is still a possibility in small and medium towns which are undergoing fast pace urbanisation, while a cure needs to be recommended for the larger cities.

 

[AndrewJin]

That is why we need HSR.
@AndrewJin can tell you all the benefits of HSR in this case of reducing population pressure.

I strongly recommend a report
OKR: Regional Economic Impact Analysis of High Speed Rail in China : Main Report

 

[RisingShiningSuperpower]

VILLAGE IN THE CITY – NEW SLUMS? -CHINA’S AND INDIA’S APPROACH
December 5, 2012 · by terraurban · in Dynamics of Urban Poverty · 2 Comments
By Nidhi Batra, PRIA

Urbanisation is a continuous process which involves expansion of the urban areas and also rural-urban migration. It is often assumed that the cause of urban poverty in Indian cities is the rural to urban migration. Instead as proved my many reports and studies, it is the growth of urban areas and engulfing of villages in the city boundaries – urbanising the villages that are more a reality in Indian situations.

These urban villages are not new to India. Most newly planned cities ignored these urban villages while planning for new cities. This can be seen right from the beginning in Delhi Master Plan 1962 where it did not have any clue on how to address urban villages that now lie in the boundary of the city. They just got left behind as ‘Lal Dora Areas’, hubs of no –regulation and close to slum situations. Gurgaon’s laissez faire development saw many of these urban villages being left as ugly eye sores with no addressal of growth and development of the existing villages. Naya Raipur plan of the city is no different, in the city limits are existing villages but wonder if there is an effective policy to regulate that these villages would not end up being the urban slums of this city. Raipur intense urbanisation over last few years has seen the boundary of municipal limit being revised again and again and villages on the outskirts now being officially ‘urban’. Though these villages maybe declared now part of the municipal limits, the City Development Plan was quick to term them as slums!

There is often a massive resistance to cling to the tag of rural areas, which attract a much larger share of welfare funds from the centre and escape higher taxation. This results in poor infrastructure development and administrative chaos, partly explaining why a large majority of urban poor continues to be concentrated in newly-developed small towns.

China’s Approach – Seal the village!

Recently I read about unfortunate policy that China has adopted for these urban villages – ‘ a sealed management’ policy for Chengzhongcun that are areas classified as rural villages which have been absorbed into China’s growing cities and are becoming thriving unregulated rental markets for rural migrants in the process (Ref: Shutting the poor by Constance Brehaut)



The main street of Laosanyu, where Beijing’s “sealed management” policy was first trialled during the Olympic Games in 2008, and remains in force. Photo: Constance Bréhaut

The formation of these villages-in-the-city is characteristic of the Chinese dual land tenure system which distinguishes between rural and urban land, and separates land use rights from land ownership: urban land is generally state-owned, while rural land is owned by the rural collective, and cannot be transferred, sold or leased for non-agricultural use. During the urbanisation process, local authorities could buy agricultural land, but the ownership of the village remained collective, and villagers could still dispose of their land use rights on their housing plots. The villages maintained their status as “rural” areas, as the government did not want to deal with the potential relocation and compensation cost of the villagers.

But this administrative status does not match the reality anymore. To compensate for the loss of their agricultural land, a major source of revenue, many villagers redevelop their housing at high densities, creating an informal rental market, which matches the needs of rural migrants in search of cheap housing opportunities close to work. As the majority of migrants cannot afford to rent private accommodation in the centre of Beijing, they have to rely on alternative housing opportunities. Often, urban villages are the only affordable option available.

The physical environment of the village is characterised by narrow roads, face-to-face buildings, streets packed with shops, grocery stores and service outlets. Highly dense and unregulated, they are considered by Chinese authorities and media as a source of social disorder and neglected urban planning.

This policy of “sealed management” (封闭管理 or fengbiguanli in Chinese) first appeared in Laosanyu during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Under the policy, selected chengzhongcun inhabited by migrant workers were fenced in and security stepped up: gates, walls, police boxes, 24-hour patrols and permits necessary for outsiders to enter the village. It is a pilot policy, first directed towards 16 urban villages in Daxing District in the spring of 2010, and then extended to other districts in Beijing. It has attracted much media attention, where it has been described as creating “gated communities for the poor”.

These measures, supporting the sealed management policy, are characteristic of the official will to eradicate any sign of informality and “neglected urban planning” in these villages. They also have a symbolic dimension: a clear sign to outsiders that they are entering a regulated, controlled and “protected” environment.

How does India treat its village in the city?

India does not stop its citizens from internal migration .People are free to move across states to escape destitution or in search of better opportunities, economic or otherwise. However, local governments and India’s middle class largely view economically poor migrants as outsiders making illegitimate claims to life in cities. Recently, scholars have started pointing out the growing hostility of urban governments, as well as middle class citizens, towards urban poor, especially migrants to the cities. The 2010 Common Wealth Games held in Delhi saw the forced eviction of large numbers of urban poor, mostly rural-urban migrants.(Ref:Urban migration and exclusion by Preeti Mann)

While most migrants would qualify as lawful citizens of the land, in urban India, the rights of citizens get operationalized through a host of official documents such as property lease or ownership papers, PAN cards, bank statements, bills, and voter IDs. Bereft of these, the paperless migrant accesses basic goods and services at a premium in the black market economy. Ironically, the most marginalized and poor also have to pay the most dearly. The underground economy is also indicative of the state’s absence in service delivery and lack of institutional support. From a migrant’s perspective it is the opportunity to enable a better life, economically or otherwise, that draws them to urban spaces. However, for a rural-urban migrant to move, there are additional costs that result from functioning in the informal economy. Opportunities cannot be readily undertaken if that means having to enable an entire environment that mostly depends on the back market economy and social networks.

Urban development, if done in an inclusive manner, can enable social mobility and integration of migrants in the real sense of the word by providing a renewed opportunity to challenge or change some of the traps or processes of impoverishment. This involves planning for services like access to safe housing, water, electricity, schools, and healthcare. Just as important, it requires a concerted effort by governments and civil society to identify and reduce structures and processes of exclusion in urban spaces. This, in turn, would be incumbent upon integrative planning, political will, and capability-enhancing policies that propagate access.

The Chinese policy of gated urban poor settlement is not a solution, but that does not ignore the fact that India needs a policy to address these transition areas. Prevention is still a possibility in small and medium towns which are undergoing fast pace urbanisation, while a cure needs to be recommended for the larger cities.

No to social apartheid! JNU students protest today against CWG ‘view cutters’ | Kafila

No to social apartheid! JNU students protest today against CWG ‘view cutters’

AP photo by Manish Swarup

Latest Indian addition to the English language: View cutter.The government and civic agencies in association with the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC) had identified several sites central to hosting the Games where view cutters were put up to conceal the eyesores as well as for security reasons.A government official said one of the purposes to put up the view cutters was to screen the beggars who crowd major religious and historical landmarks.
The plan is to relocate the destitute to parks and surround the place with slick banners and paraphernalia sporting Games mascot Shera and other logos, the official said.

Protest March today, 13th of October, 4 p.m. from Ganga Dhabha to the slum dwellings at the Priya crossway.

Leaflet issued by the joint protest committee, JNU

Friends, CWG 2010 is now almost coming to an end. The whole country has been in a celebratory frenzy for the last two weeks. The government has made the successful completion of these games an issue of “National pride”. They have left no stones unturned to impress the whole world. The same government which claims to have no money when it comes to the issues of drought, health and education has wasted thousands of crores on just the opening ceremony. It is distressing to see that while we are counting medals won by India, we have completely forgotten that there is a vast section of people who instead of benefitting are adversely affected during our blind celebration of this “colonial hangover”.

To impress visitors, Delhi Government has taken many steps to ‘beautify’ the city. One of the most ‘innovative’ steps taken by them is to erect view-cutters to hide city’s slums from the view of the general public, and other people who are going to visit the city during this 15- day jamboree. Friends, these slums are inhabited by the very same people who constructed the stadiums and the roads required for CWG. Further, when not working in CWG these people perform many other important jobs without which this city would come to a standstill. But, instead of recognizing their contribution to the city’s economy the government is treating them like ‘dirt’.

This abominable act of the government reminds us of social apartheid in South Africa, racial discrimination and Ghettos in United States where the Blacks are forced to live in inhuman conditions because they do not fit to the ‘Global Standard’ of these cities. Similarly, here the government has been hiding the slum dwellers and their slums behind fancy CWG hoardings in its bid to project the city as a ‘world class’ one. They are being treated like 3rdclass citizens in their own country. There cannot be a more blatant example of the class bias that the state holds.This move needsto be condemned and challenged in strongest possible terms. Further, it will be a big disgrace on the radical tradition of this campus if we accept it silently just 100metres away from JNU.

We appeal to all of you to come out in large numbers and express your anger against such an abominable act which most of us seem to have taken for granted.

Join the UNITED PROTEST on 13th of October, 4 p.m. for a march from Ganga Dhabha to the slum dwellings at the Priya crossway.

 

[metronome]

it's true, I have some family over in Hong Kong/Macau right now and they were saying how good everything is compared to India, I was not surprised.

I've traveled to the far east and Europe myself so I've seen it too, everyone from here who's been out of India knows how bad things here are overall.

big Indian cities are a mess, mumbai, delhi, kolkatta.. all shitty places for the most part but there are big pockets of planned urban development and some very nice areas there too.

OP is an obvious troll.

 

[Dr. Sen]

Is this 3rd pic a Parsi cemetery ? If im not mistaken that looks like a Tower of silence.. Nice

I think its an abandoned factory.

 

[AndrewJin]

VILLAGE IN THE CITY – NEW SLUMS? -CHINA’S AND INDIA’S APPROACH
December 5, 2012 · by terraurban · in Dynamics of Urban Poverty · 2 Comments
By Nidhi Batra, PRIA

Urbanisation is a continuous process which involves expansion of the urban areas and also rural-urban migration. It is often assumed that the cause of urban poverty in Indian cities is the rural to urban migration. Instead as proved my many reports and studies, it is the growth of urban areas and engulfing of villages in the city boundaries – urbanising the villages that are more a reality in Indian situations.

These urban villages are not new to India. Most newly planned cities ignored these urban villages while planning for new cities. This can be seen right from the beginning in Delhi Master Plan 1962 where it did not have any clue on how to address urban villages that now lie in the boundary of the city. They just got left behind as ‘Lal Dora Areas’, hubs of no –regulation and close to slum situations. Gurgaon’s laissez faire development saw many of these urban villages being left as ugly eye sores with no addressal of growth and development of the existing villages. Naya Raipur plan of the city is no different, in the city limits are existing villages but wonder if there is an effective policy to regulate that these villages would not end up being the urban slums of this city. Raipur intense urbanisation over last few years has seen the boundary of municipal limit being revised again and again and villages on the outskirts now being officially ‘urban’. Though these villages maybe declared now part of the municipal limits, the City Development Plan was quick to term them as slums!

There is often a massive resistance to cling to the tag of rural areas, which attract a much larger share of welfare funds from the centre and escape higher taxation. This results in poor infrastructure development and administrative chaos, partly explaining why a large majority of urban poor continues to be concentrated in newly-developed small towns.

China’s Approach – Seal the village!

Recently I read about unfortunate policy that China has adopted for these urban villages – ‘ a sealed management’ policy for Chengzhongcun that are areas classified as rural villages which have been absorbed into China’s growing cities and are becoming thriving unregulated rental markets for rural migrants in the process (Ref: Shutting the poor by Constance Brehaut)



The main street of Laosanyu, where Beijing’s “sealed management” policy was first trialled during the Olympic Games in 2008, and remains in force. Photo: Constance Bréhaut

The formation of these villages-in-the-city is characteristic of the Chinese dual land tenure system which distinguishes between rural and urban land, and separates land use rights from land ownership: urban land is generally state-owned, while rural land is owned by the rural collective, and cannot be transferred, sold or leased for non-agricultural use. During the urbanisation process, local authorities could buy agricultural land, but the ownership of the village remained collective, and villagers could still dispose of their land use rights on their housing plots. The villages maintained their status as “rural” areas, as the government did not want to deal with the potential relocation and compensation cost of the villagers.

But this administrative status does not match the reality anymore. To compensate for the loss of their agricultural land, a major source of revenue, many villagers redevelop their housing at high densities, creating an informal rental market, which matches the needs of rural migrants in search of cheap housing opportunities close to work. As the majority of migrants cannot afford to rent private accommodation in the centre of Beijing, they have to rely on alternative housing opportunities. Often, urban villages are the only affordable option available.

The physical environment of the village is characterised by narrow roads, face-to-face buildings, streets packed with shops, grocery stores and service outlets. Highly dense and unregulated, they are considered by Chinese authorities and media as a source of social disorder and neglected urban planning.

This policy of “sealed management” (封闭管理 or fengbiguanli in Chinese) first appeared in Laosanyu during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Under the policy, selected chengzhongcun inhabited by migrant workers were fenced in and security stepped up: gates, walls, police boxes, 24-hour patrols and permits necessary for outsiders to enter the village. It is a pilot policy, first directed towards 16 urban villages in Daxing District in the spring of 2010, and then extended to other districts in Beijing. It has attracted much media attention, where it has been described as creating “gated communities for the poor”.

These measures, supporting the sealed management policy, are characteristic of the official will to eradicate any sign of informality and “neglected urban planning” in these villages. They also have a symbolic dimension: a clear sign to outsiders that they are entering a regulated, controlled and “protected” environment.

How does India treat its village in the city?

India does not stop its citizens from internal migration .People are free to move across states to escape destitution or in search of better opportunities, economic or otherwise. However, local governments and India’s middle class largely view economically poor migrants as outsiders making illegitimate claims to life in cities. Recently, scholars have started pointing out the growing hostility of urban governments, as well as middle class citizens, towards urban poor, especially migrants to the cities. The 2010 Common Wealth Games held in Delhi saw the forced eviction of large numbers of urban poor, mostly rural-urban migrants.(Ref:Urban migration and exclusion by Preeti Mann)

While most migrants would qualify as lawful citizens of the land, in urban India, the rights of citizens get operationalized through a host of official documents such as property lease or ownership papers, PAN cards, bank statements, bills, and voter IDs. Bereft of these, the paperless migrant accesses basic goods and services at a premium in the black market economy. Ironically, the most marginalized and poor also have to pay the most dearly. The underground economy is also indicative of the state’s absence in service delivery and lack of institutional support. From a migrant’s perspective it is the opportunity to enable a better life, economically or otherwise, that draws them to urban spaces. However, for a rural-urban migrant to move, there are additional costs that result from functioning in the informal economy. Opportunities cannot be readily undertaken if that means having to enable an entire environment that mostly depends on the back market economy and social networks.

Urban development, if done in an inclusive manner, can enable social mobility and integration of migrants in the real sense of the word by providing a renewed opportunity to challenge or change some of the traps or processes of impoverishment. This involves planning for services like access to safe housing, water, electricity, schools, and healthcare. Just as important, it requires a concerted effort by governments and civil society to identify and reduce structures and processes of exclusion in urban spaces. This, in turn, would be incumbent upon integrative planning, political will, and capability-enhancing policies that propagate access.

The Chinese policy of gated urban poor settlement is not a solution, but that does not ignore the fact that India needs a policy to address these transition areas. Prevention is still a possibility in small and medium towns which are undergoing fast pace urbanisation, while a cure needs to be recommended for the larger cities.

China's approach is to redevelop poor regions to world-class streets and provide former "slum dwellers" free apartment.
You can troll as much as you like, but spreading nonsense and fabricating articles is disgraceful.
My CRH trip from Shanghai back to Wuhan | Page 14

10 years ago, "slums"

now

 

[Echo_419]

I have read a WHO report about ambient air pollution some weeks ago and the result shocked me...
I think it's really alarming that air pollution is already very serious in India even before major industrialisation. Mind that China is already undergoing massive industrialisation and urbanisation, and the tempo is already slowing down.

@Echo_419 I have read some related threads here that India is pushing forward more renewable energy. I think China and India should collaborate on this issue, and exchange experiences and expertise. One lesson in China and in all other industrious countries without exception is that all industrilisation comes along with terrible pollution, no matter in Germany, Japan or China. If India escapes this phase in the future, that'll be a marvel.

Exactly the new govt has set a ambitious target of achieving 100GW of solar energy alone & our 2 nations are already cooperating on this matter
Government’s target to set up 100 GW of solar plants drives local, foreign companies - The Economic Times

 

[metronome]

No to social apartheid! JNU students protest today against CWG ‘view cutters’ | Kafila

No to social apartheid! JNU students protest today against CWG ‘view cutters’

AP photo by Manish Swarup

Latest Indian addition to the English language: View cutter.The government and civic agencies in association with the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC) had identified several sites central to hosting the Games where view cutters were put up to conceal the eyesores as well as for security reasons.A government official said one of the purposes to put up the view cutters was to screen the beggars who crowd major religious and historical landmarks.
The plan is to relocate the destitute to parks and surround the place with slick banners and paraphernalia sporting Games mascot Shera and other logos, the official said.

Protest March today, 13th of October, 4 p.m. from Ganga Dhabha to the slum dwellings at the Priya crossway.

Leaflet issued by the joint protest committee, JNU

Friends, CWG 2010 is now almost coming to an end. The whole country has been in a celebratory frenzy for the last two weeks. The government has made the successful completion of these games an issue of “National pride”. They have left no stones unturned to impress the whole world. The same government which claims to have no money when it comes to the issues of drought, health and education has wasted thousands of crores on just the opening ceremony. It is distressing to see that while we are counting medals won by India, we have completely forgotten that there is a vast section of people who instead of benefitting are adversely affected during our blind celebration of this “colonial hangover”.

To impress visitors, Delhi Government has taken many steps to ‘beautify’ the city. One of the most ‘innovative’ steps taken by them is to erect view-cutters to hide city’s slums from the view of the general public, and other people who are going to visit the city during this 15- day jamboree. Friends, these slums are inhabited by the very same people who constructed the stadiums and the roads required for CWG. Further, when not working in CWG these people perform many other important jobs without which this city would come to a standstill. But, instead of recognizing their contribution to the city’s economy the government is treating them like ‘dirt’.

This abominable act of the government reminds us of social apartheid in South Africa, racial discrimination and Ghettos in United States where the Blacks are forced to live in inhuman conditions because they do not fit to the ‘Global Standard’ of these cities. Similarly, here the government has been hiding the slum dwellers and their slums behind fancy CWG hoardings in its bid to project the city as a ‘world class’ one. They are being treated like 3rdclass citizens in their own country. There cannot be a more blatant example of the class bias that the state holds.This move needsto be condemned and challenged in strongest possible terms. Further, it will be a big disgrace on the radical tradition of this campus if we accept it silently just 100metres away from JNU.

We appeal to all of you to come out in large numbers and express your anger against such an abominable act which most of us seem to have taken for granted.

Join the UNITED PROTEST on 13th of October, 4 p.m. for a march from Ganga Dhabha to the slum dwellings at the Priya crossway.

Colourful walls built to hide rural poverty

'Cultural corridor' in Gansu county screens off dilapidated houses


Local officials have been criticised for using central government resources aimed at 'building a socialist new countryside' to dress up their jurisdictions with 'image projects'.


In one case, funds to alleviate poverty in Gansu's Yongjing county have been spent on building colourful walls to hide dilapidated houses to show success in 'improving the living standards of farmers'.


The brick walls are more than 2 metres high, stretch for at least 2km on both sides of a highway connecting Yongjing to the provincial capital Lanzhou, and are painted blue, villagers said. The project started last year.


Local officials described the walls as a cultural corridor to beautify Yongjing rural areas, while villagers called them 'walls for covering shames'.


Kong Lihua, 42, from Renhe village in Santiaoxian township, said it was a county government project.

'The government provides all building materials, including bricks, cement and other things,' Ms Kong said. 'Villagers who live along the highway need to build walls by themselves if they cannot afford to hire bricklayers.'

Yongjing is one of the poorest counties on the mainland, with 70 per cent of farmers' annual per capita income in some townships below 1,000 yuan, Xinhua said.


Ms Kong said most villagers had welcomed the project because officials also provided them with materials to build tall pens for livestock.


'The pens can keep the rural areas clean and tidy,' she said. 'Our officials said it's one of the measures to alleviate poverty here.'


Another villager, Su Farong, 37, said some villagers called the building works 'an image project'.


'Many villagers think it is an impractical plan,' Mr Su said. 'We would rather see the money spent on improving our irrigation system.'


Mr Su said a 2km-long water channel in his town had been broken since 1999 and much land had been abandoned because of drought.


'The walls are just for looking good, but have no real function,' Mr Su said.


It is unclear how much the county has spent on the project, but Xinhua said in Chenjing township alone, more than 40,000 yuan had been spent on building a 400-metre wall.


A county official who oversees poverty alleviation works told Xinhua that the idea of constructing the walls 'was thrashed out from their studies of 'building a socialist new countryside'.'


Beijing spent 339.7 billion yuan on the programme last year. The expenditure is expected to increase this year as Premier Wen Jiabao has promised to pour more funds into improving rural medical and education welfare.


An earlier Xinhua report said in Heilongjiang, rural officials overspent by building ornate streetlights, vast plazas and reading rooms for farmers. But lamps were never lit, weeds overran squares, while there were no books or newspapers in rooms because of a lack of funds.


Image projects


The central government is carrying out a programme of building 'a new socialist countryside'


The amount, in yuan, spent on this programme last year by Beijing: 339.7b


In some of the mainland's poorest counties, the per capita income, in yuan, is under 1,000

Colourful walls built to hide rural poverty | South China Morning Post

hindi chini bhai bhai

 

[Echo_419]

Something close, say how about industrialization scale, infrastructure, financial reserves, trade clout, or even Olympics? Just kidding, let's be realistic, nothing even close. Say you remember the recent machine tool thread right? Check the the gap, It was 1/37, but I didn't bother to post it. The gaps are not marginal but in order of magnitude, comparisons are meaningless.

Mumbai 2050 plan sounds good, it's on topic, share the plan here.

Actually more like Thorium sector,IT & Space(we are behind you but not that much in space)

 

[+4vsgorillas-Apebane]

I hate the cities. Good for visiting but cant imagine living in one.

The provincial life or suburbia is best.

 

[AndrewJin]

Not just India, south Asia in general(your Sri Lanka included )should learn from their east Asian/chinese counterparts . Visting both regions (East Asian to South Asia) for a foreigner like even me it's like leaving Europe and venturing into some of the poorest subsharan African countries. the difference is just to Stark, South Asia has a very longgggggg way to go to match it's East Asian neighbours. But I believe with determination, planning, integration, project implementation hard work, they can do it.
So no need to make fun at one country. Afterall, none LG these east Asian countries were developed from the beginning of times, they also developed with time (as they were once a developing countries as well, China still is ) . Though i know the OP is a troll, but he's a funny one though i must confess, and I like having a good laugh.

Do you think they will learn? Some of them rather have some quality time finding some sad stories of China which make they content...In our own Chinese forums, we put more effort into posting pictures from developed countries as opposed to wasting time in laughing up neighbours. Like in railway forums, the everlasting main theme is praising developed countries' railway system, like Japan and Germany. Posting photos of Indian railway will be looked down upon.

 

[RisingShiningSuperpower]

Colourful walls built to hide rural poverty

'Cultural corridor' in Gansu county screens off dilapidated houses


Local officials have been criticised for using central government resources aimed at 'building a socialist new countryside' to dress up their jurisdictions with 'image projects'.


In one case, funds to alleviate poverty in Gansu's Yongjing county have been spent on building colourful walls to hide dilapidated houses to show success in 'improving the living standards of farmers'.


The brick walls are more than 2 metres high, stretch for at least 2km on both sides of a highway connecting Yongjing to the provincial capital Lanzhou, and are painted blue, villagers said. The project started last year.


Local officials described the walls as a cultural corridor to beautify Yongjing rural areas, while villagers called them 'walls for covering shames'.


Kong Lihua, 42, from Renhe village in Santiaoxian township, said it was a county government project.

'The government provides all building materials, including bricks, cement and other things,' Ms Kong said. 'Villagers who live along the highway need to build walls by themselves if they cannot afford to hire bricklayers.'

Yongjing is one of the poorest counties on the mainland, with 70 per cent of farmers' annual per capita income in some townships below 1,000 yuan, Xinhua said.


Ms Kong said most villagers had welcomed the project because officials also provided them with materials to build tall pens for livestock.


'The pens can keep the rural areas clean and tidy,' she said. 'Our officials said it's one of the measures to alleviate poverty here.'


Another villager, Su Farong, 37, said some villagers called the building works 'an image project'.


'Many villagers think it is an impractical plan,' Mr Su said. 'We would rather see the money spent on improving our irrigation system.'


Mr Su said a 2km-long water channel in his town had been broken since 1999 and much land had been abandoned because of drought.


'The walls are just for looking good, but have no real function,' Mr Su said.


It is unclear how much the county has spent on the project, but Xinhua said in Chenjing township alone, more than 40,000 yuan had been spent on building a 400-metre wall.


A county official who oversees poverty alleviation works told Xinhua that the idea of constructing the walls 'was thrashed out from their studies of 'building a socialist new countryside'.'


Beijing spent 339.7 billion yuan on the programme last year. The expenditure is expected to increase this year as Premier Wen Jiabao has promised to pour more funds into improving rural medical and education welfare.


An earlier Xinhua report said in Heilongjiang, rural officials overspent by building ornate streetlights, vast plazas and reading rooms for farmers. But lamps were never lit, weeds overran squares, while there were no books or newspapers in rooms because of a lack of funds.


Image projects


The central government is carrying out a programme of building 'a new socialist countryside'


The amount, in yuan, spent on this programme last year by Beijing: 339.7b


In some of the mainland's poorest counties, the per capita income, in yuan, is under 1,000

Colourful walls built to hide rural poverty | South China Morning Post

hindi chini bhai bhai

India Tries To Hide Its Slums For Meeting Of Global Investors
India Tries To Hide Its Slums For Meeting Of Global Investors
The Gujarat state tried to conceal extreme poverty to impress guests at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2015

Dozens of high-profile international leaders—U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry among them—have flocked to Gujarat, India, for the three-day Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit. In an effort to impress the elite guests, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to have given the state a bit of a face-lift by hiding slums in anticipation of the event. While social media and news coverage depict a vibrant atmosphere around the global trade show, the reality of life in the western state is much less pristine. The Daily Bhaskar, a local media outlet, reported that the government built a massive wall to block a slum (located barely 100 yards away from the main area where the summit is held in Gujarat’s capital city) from the view of the road, thus hiding the homes of the nearly 700 destitute families living there.

Prior to the summit, a team from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporations, the Indian municipality responsible for the civic infrastructure, was asked to identify the roads that prestigious summit guests were likely to use and note the ones that are lined with slums (similar to the one in Gandhinagar). The group was told to decorate the slum exteriors with advertisements for the state government, according to The Times of India. These so called “curtains” will remain in place during Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas (non-resident Indian Day) and the Vibrant Gujarat Summit.

This is not the first time that the Indian government has hidden slums for visitors. Back in September, when Chinese President XI Jinping visited Ahmedabad, the largest city in and former capital of Gujarat, the government also blocked off some of the most poverty-stricken areas.

The efforts to hide the slums have sparked social media conversation. On one Reddit thread titled “Slum in Ahmedabad being covered up for Vibrant Gujarat Summit,” a Redditor shared photos of what appears to be a recently hidden slum in near the summit’s location. Comments on Reddit vary from “Gujarat does not have slums” to “That looks like a few shanties, not a slum” to “Good Job.”



How Google Earth in India Can Fight Apathy Against Slums - TIME
With Google Earth, India Can No Longer Hide Its Shantytowns and 'Slumdogs'

Google Earth
Worldcrunch, a new global-news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in Le Monde.


SANGLI — Before Google Earth existed, the slums of Sangli, a city of 550,000 in southwestern India, was acknowledged on government maps by nothing more than some clumsily outlined, empty spaces. But then, from high in the sky, the eye of a satellite saw what no municipal geometer had taken the trouble to show: small islands of huts with dilapidated roofs spread throughout the city.

Thanks to the satellite images available on Google Earth, a full picture of these forgotten slums has emerged. They now have borders; they are mapped; they have an identity. And using these images, Shelter Associates, a Pune-based NGO, has begun rehabilitating the slums. For the first time in their lives, 3,900 families in Sangli are going to be moving into apartments.

"Google Earth's maps are true to reality. They help us reshape and rehabilitate the slums in a way that makes sense within the overall city plan of Sangli," says Pratima Joshi, director of Shelter Associates. The families don't just need a leak-free roof or proper toilets; they need to be relocated to a place nearby so they don't lose their jobs — the salary of a domestic worker, a chauffeur or a security guard won't stretch to pay for two bus tickets a day. In Delhi, families who were relocated in comfortable houses in the suburbs returned to the city within a few weeks.

So Shelter Associates teams examine the satellite maps carefully and calculate distances to come up with the best places to relocate families from the slums. Added to the information provided by the maps themselves are precious details gathered by field research teams about each existing family dwelling, such as whether it has electricity and running water and the size of the family living in it and their caste.

(MORE: Man Uses Google Earth to Find Long-Lost Family in India)
In the center of Sangli, the slum where Sanjay Nagar Miraj has long lived was destroyed six months ago so that three-story homes could be built. While waiting for construction work to be completed, slum residents are housed temporarily between two cemeteries — one Muslim, one Christian — in bamboo and sheet-metal huts with tiny gardens.

Fatima Mate lives in one of the huts with her husband and three children. She doesn't dream of having a beautiful living room; what she wants are toilets and a faucet. "Living in the kind of house rich people live in isn't going to make me rich — but at least I won't feel ashamed of saying where I live anymore," she says.

Blind eyes and apathy
Mate and other inhabitants are calling their soon-to-be rehabilitated slum Sunder Nagar (Beautiful Village). Its residents will also be able to live in security, without fear of being chased out by authorities. They will soon be forming an association that will rent the land from the city for 99 years.

Still, there are other residents who are reluctant to leave their slum. Some want to protect their hidden (and illegal) distilleries. Others own huts that they rent out, and local politicians don't want to lose an electoral base.

In cases like this, Shelter Associates staffers, carrying a laptop and a cardboard mock-up of the planned new housing, go door to door to try and get slum dwellers to change their minds. Pulling up Google Earth onscreen, they make the earth turn with a simple movement and zoom in on India, Maharashtra state and finally Sangli. The images show residents that their new house is located near the hospital, a school and a market. The houses were designed with their help. There's a little enclosure on the ground floor where a few goats can be kept. The are no kitchen plans, as women prefer to sit tailor-style on the ground to cook. All the apartments open out onto the same courtyard.

(MORE: Google Earth Uncovers Mysterious White Lines in Chinese Desert)
"That way, families who are used to living together won't find themselves feeling isolated," says Shelter Associates' Joshi.

The Indian government has allocated nearly 15 million euros for the rehabilitation and relocation of Sangli's slums. But the local government wasn't happy to see the arrival of the NGO. In early March, the district commissioner skipped the weekly Monday project meeting. The engineer in charge of building and public works in Sangli arrives 90 minutes late. "Everything would be so much simpler if we just relocated them well outside the city," says this functionary in charge of slums.

This kind of apathy and incomprehension from local government officials is as much an obstacle as the reluctance of some inhabitants. Still, thanks to the satellite images, authorities no longer have excuses to delay projects or ignore the presence of the slums.

Could this slum-rehabilitation model be used elsewhere? "It would be possible but more difficult in big cities because of high cost and the rarity of available land," Joshi admits. But her NGO has already mapped a slum in Indonesia and is scheduled to rehabilitate five slums in Pune, India's seventh largest city.




India hurries to hide its poor - latimes
India hurries to hide its poor

Officials want slums and beggars out of sight for the Commonwealth Games. Critics say they expected more from a nation that has long prided itself on its humanitarian policies.

October 01, 2010|By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times | Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Reporting from New Delhi — The government people came one night in late September and built a partition covered with bright blue plastic sheeting and adorned with cartoonish tiger mascots and "Come Out and Play" slogans. It hid the slum known as Coolie Camp on the airport road where the foreigners pass.

Irfana Begum, 40, who collects garbage, must now lug her three-wheeled bicycle over about 300 feet of rocky ground to get to the road and make her living.

Begum, a 15-year resident of the slum, squatted in the dirt in a dusty sari, her bare feet adorned with toe rings. "They're trying to pretend that poor people don't exist in India, for their image," she said near a pile of plastic and glass bottles, cardboard and used vinyl sheeting.

"It really makes us angry," she said.

By hosting the Commonwealth Games, a mini- Olympics that begins Sunday and is to be attended by 71 nations, India hoped to propel New Delhi into the ranks of world-class cities such as London and New York and mirror Beijing's hosting of the 2008 Olympics.

But amid bad planning, alleged corruption and shoddy workmanship, crews have barely finished the main sports venues, let alone various urban renewal projects. The result, residents and experts say, is an effort to hide the impoverished, including those in this slum near an athlete training center.

"I'm so appalled and angry at this," said Harsh Mander, a member of the ruling party's National Advisory Council after passing the cheerily camouflaged Coolie Camp. "Poverty is nothing to be ashamed of, but government and middle-class elements want to hide it."

The government has tried to rid the capital of beggars, and has used two "mobile court" trailers, with police and judges in tow, that grab and sentence panhandlers. Many receive one-year detentions in "beggar homes" or are temporarily exiled to neighboring states, leading to bureaucratic squabbles over who they "belong to."

Authorities have also cracked down on an estimated 300,000 street vendors, a significant burden on families who live hand to mouth. Daulat Ram, 50, a handicapped barber who lives in Coolie Camp, has seen his business decline precipitously since he was forced off the main road.

Most cities that host such mega-events resort to window dressing. Seoul expelled 720,000 people from their homes before the 1988 Olympics and shuttered dog-meat restaurants. Eight years later, Atlanta issued 9,000 arrest citations for the homeless. Athens removed hundreds of Roma, also known as Gypsies, before the 2004 Games.

China went even further before the 2008 Olympics, forcibly relocating about 1.25 million people, removing political "troublemakers" from the capital and tearing down traditional hutong neighborhoods.

Although India's efforts for the Oct. 3-14 games pale by comparison, activists say they expected more from a nation that has long prided itself on its humanitarian policies. Civic groups said New Delhi's anti-begging law, modeled on 1920s British colonial-era statutes, has been applied indiscriminately.

"It's been used to catch anyone: a dirty man, a person without skills, someone who's just hungry," said Sanjay Kumar, an activist with a civic group working with the homeless. "These aren't offenders. They're victims."

The municipal social welfare minister, Mangat Ram Singhal, told local reporters: "When we make Delhi a world-class city, it will be compared with other world capitals. One does not come across beggars in other countries. Why should there be beggars in Delhi?"

Poverty and begging in India traditionally were nothing to be ashamed of, but the push to hide them reflects the changing values of the members of an emerging middle class, said the advisory council's Mander.

"It should be more important what we're doing than how we're seen," Mander said.

The blue Commonwealth Games partitions, made of vinyl, wood and steel, follow earlier plans to shield "unsightly" areas with bamboo screens. One legislator even proposed screening off the entire fetid Yamuna River. The suggestions produced an outcry in parliament and were eventually dropped, only to see the idea revived in its present form.

The move to hide parts of the city underscores why India should change its approach to urbanization, said Jeb Brugmann, a Toronto-based urban planning consultant and author of a book on Mumbai's slums.

Rather than view shantytowns as embarrassments to be bulldozed or hidden, the government should support them with sanitation and basic services, knowing that — as happened in London and New York a century ago — these areas could eventually become middle-class communities.

"Slum residents are investing billions of dollars in small increments," Brugmann said. "The Indian government needs to harness that."

Back at the Coolie Camp slum, Begum's neighbor, Lakshmi, a maid who uses one name, bemoaned the growing social divide.

"The rich are getting richer and nothing's left for the poor," she said. "We're treated like garbage."

Begum looked over at the barricade, which has forced her children to walk farther to collect refuse and means they miss their lunch.

"We'll just put up with it for the next several days," she said. "If they don't take the barrier away afterward, maybe we can recycle the wood and the plastic and make a little money."

mark.magnier@latimes.com

Anshul Rana in The Times' New Delhi Bureau contributed to this report.





New Delhi to hide slums with bamboo 'curtains' during 2010 Commonwealth Games - Telegraph
New Delhi to hide slums with bamboo 'curtains' during 2010 Commonwealth Games

The Games was supposed to be India's moment to show off its rapidly rising wealth and banish memories of a country once synonymous with chronic poverty.

But with barely a year to go officials have conceded defeat. Vast supplies of bamboo poles have been ordered from the jungle states of Mizoram and Assam to keep the poor out of sight during the games.

New Delhi is littered with makeshift slums which house the millions of migrants who pour into the city searching for work to escape the poverty of rural life in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Their inhabitants are often seen naked at the roadsides washing at standpipes or defecating astride open sewers.

Officials had planned to shift their settlements to the outskirts of the city so the city that television viewers and visitors see is restricted to the capital's gleaming new Metro system and world-class airport, and its smart new roads, pavements and streetlights.

But yesterday they revealed they simply could not resettle enough slum-dwellers or street-sleepers, and that they had opted to hide the problem instead.

Rakesh Mehta, the city government's chief secretary, insisted the measure would be limited to areas where the locals could not be relocated in time.

"This is happening at very few locations close to Games venues - particularly east Delhi," he said.

Officials are desperate to relocate a large stable which houses 65 old horses and is renowned for its stench, and to conceal a colony of scrap dealers.

One official said the government was so desperate to clean up the city it is preparing to offer free rickshaws and retraining courses to those whose jobs clutter the pavements.

 

[Azizam]

Not just India, south Asia in general(your Sri Lanka included )should learn from their east Asian/chinese counterparts . Visting both regions (East Asian to South Asia) for a foreigner like even me it's like leaving Europe and venturing into some of the poorest subsharan African countries. the difference is just to Stark, South Asia has a very longgggggg way to go to match it's East Asian neighbours. But I believe with determination, planning, integration, project implementation hard work, they can do it.
So no need to make fun at one country. Afterall, none LG these east Asian countries were developed from the beginning of times, they also developed with time (as they were once a developing countries as well, China still is ) . Though i know the OP is a troll, but he's a funny one though i must confess, and I like having a good laugh.

Of course I know that. I put "India" in my post because the topic was about India. I was saying this for a long time and I even posted a thread few months ago about what South Asia can learn from East Asia but not many here want to admit the failures and they want to live in a self-made reality. I've been saying this for few of my Sri Lankan friends too but there seem to be no point because for them, development seems to be the last thing they need. They think development means a bunch of buildings in the city. I am sick to death with this attitude.

What can South Asia learn from East Asia?

 

[Dr. Sen]

Do you think they will learn? Some of them rather have some quality time finding some sad stories of China which make they content...In our own Chinese forums, we put more effort into posting pictures from developed countries as opposed to wasting time in laughing up neighbours. Like in railway forums, the everlasting main theme is praising developed countries' railway system, like Japan and Germany. Posting photos of Indian railway will be looked down upon.

You are comparing your forums witha generally anti Indian site like this. Come to sites where only Indians are using. Its different because there are no trolls.

 

[AndrewJin]

Of course I know that. I put "India" in my post because the topic was about India. I was saying this for a long time and I even posted a thread few months ago about what South Asia can learn from East Asia but not many here want to admit the failures and they want to live in a self-made reality. I've been saying this for few of my Sri Lankan friends too but there seem to be no point because for them, development seems to be the last thing they need. They think development means a bunch of buildings in the city. I am sick to death with this attitude.

What can South Asia learn from East Asia?

Your altitude is the main theme in our own Chinese forums. To spend more time in learning what we can learn from Japan, SK and Taiwan, these already successful East Asia models.

You are comparing your forums witha generally anti Indian site like this. Come to sites where only Indians are using. Its different because there are no trolls.

Sadly, my Indians friends have posted some of his own experiences in China, I guess you know what kind of comments you can expect.....There is a website where comments from Indian forums are translated into Chinese, we know how you think.