[HN Gopher] The Ruin of Mumbai
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The Ruin of Mumbai
Author : torts
Score : 74 points
Date : 2024-03-08 10:56 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (asteriskmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (asteriskmag.com)
| alephnerd wrote:
| The height restrictions and rent control are overstated.
|
| If they were a blocker to slum redevelopment, then similar cities
| like Delhi (or even neighboring Thane and Navi Mumbai, or nearby
| Pune) would be equally as decrepit, which they are not.
|
| The major issue is land procurement and failure to minimize
| encroachment.
|
| India, being a democracy, is limited by public demands. As cities
| became economic growth engines, a lot of people migrated, but
| were unable to get housing, and then autarkic India had (and in a
| lot of cases, still has) socialist style "Development
| Authorities" manage housing construction within the Tier 1
| cities.
|
| The development authorities were notorious slow at developing new
| property, so migrants were forced to encroach land and build
| slums.
|
| As the first generation of slum dwellers succeeded economically,
| they began moving out of the slums, but rented out the slum
| property to newer migrants, and kept a hold on the slum
| properties waiting for a government to eventually legalize those
| slum holdings and transfer the land rights to the "basti" owner
| (this kind of transfer has happened before - most recently in
| Odisha, Delhi, and Punjab).
|
| Unlike in China, India's democracy (no matter how flawed it is)
| prevents severely underfunded urban local governments from
| preventing this encroachment, and politicians actually liked
| this, as slum dwellers formed voting blocks, and would de facto
| collateralize their land to grey market financial institutions,
| which themselves worked under the auspices of those local
| politicans.
|
| And finally, slum dwellers would organize and place political
| minefields. There's a reason why tiny temples, mosques, and other
| religious institutions dot urban India - they aren't just for
| veneration but also tools to prevent demolitions, as dwellers can
| rally around protecting the temple or mosque from being
| demolished (along with the neighborhood), and politicians would
| have to back down, as Indian elections are won on extremely small
| margins.
|
| This economics of encroachment occurs in similar developing
| country like Brazil, Phillipines, and Vietnam as well as former
| developing economics like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
|
| Slum dwellers are not idiots - just poor. They know they land
| they are on is worth millions, and most governments are not going
| to use force to kick them out, and if they do, they WILL fight
| back. The land they encroached is the closest thing they have to
| a nest egg.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| What do you make of the DDC trying to demolish the mosque in
| Delhi currently then?
| alephnerd wrote:
| Mixed bag.
|
| They shouldn't have demolished the historic Akhondji masjid
| (it is truly ancient), but the slum built around it was built
| on land that was encroached on.
|
| Delhi is ruled by the opposition AAP.
|
| It's not like Temples don't get demolished either [0], and 4
| temples were demolished along with the Akhondji Masjid [1]
| during the Mehrauli demolishment drive.
|
| If it was truly egregious Islamophobia, Indian allies like
| the UAE and KSA would have called it out like they did Nupur
| Sharma's extremely insensitive statement 2 years ago.
|
| [0] - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/city/delhi/d
| elhi-...
|
| [1] - https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/delhi-
| news/mosque-temp...
| jkic47 wrote:
| In fraught issues like rent control and housing, I often see
| claims like the one in the article that people moving to cities
| can see up to a 30% increase in income, but they never seem to
| factor in the increase in costs, which could be far higher than
| 30%, leading to a net loss.
|
| Same story with global warming claiming additional deaths due to
| increased temperatures without the corresponding statistic on
| deaths due to cold. I am not claiming the point is invalid - just
| that a fuller picture can make the conversation richer.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Rent control and Height restrictions aren't enforced in India.
|
| Property contract disputes in India follow the principle of
| "Jiski lathi, uski bhains" (might makes right // That cow
| belongs to the guy with the bamboo or iron rod).
|
| The landlord or the tenent can enforce their ideal level of
| rent based on who can force the other to comply, and civil
| courts have decades long backlogs so nothing will get done -
| property disputes make up the majority of cases in India.
| marcinzm wrote:
| > Same story with global warming claiming additional deaths due
| to increased temperatures without the corresponding statistic
| on deaths due to cold. I am not claiming the point is invalid -
| just that a fuller picture can make the conversation richer.
|
| Studies on this definitely account for both. Of course, given
| that cold related deaths are already significantly fewer than
| heat deaths there isn't much to talk about beyond noting the
| fact that they're essentially irrelevant.
|
| This of course highlights why if one sees something "obvious"
| that experts miss the response should be to dig into why
| they're not accounting for it versus assuming they're idiots or
| malicious.
| taneq wrote:
| There are some pitfalls in comparing percentages like this. Net
| profit (or disposable income - it's weird how different the
| connotations of these terms are) is a much better measure.
| Consider a farm worker who's paid $10/day, and pays $1/day for
| bread and board. They move to the city where they're paid
| $13/day and pay $3/day in living expenses. That's 30% more pay
| but 300% higher costs. Assuming all else is equal (quality of
| life etc) are they better off?
| anonyfox wrote:
| if finances remain equal-ish, then I'd say it depends on the
| individuum and exact circumstances.
|
| For example I hate living in the countryside or small village
| - I'd always pick the densest/urban/modern area I can afford
| to live, just because I crave the buzzing energy and constant
| novelty and stimulating options around. But other people can
| be the exact opposite.
| bombcar wrote:
| You can also have situations (especially in poor countries)
| where you go from your $10/day _but able to survive if work
| stops_ , because you can just grow some food for yourself,
| survive on very little, etc to being absolutely dependent on
| a salary or social support if work fails.
| phowat wrote:
| I 100% clicked the link expecting an article about how the open
| source PBX software Asterisk was being used in some nefarious
| way.
| user_7832 wrote:
| As a Mumbaiker, I would also like to provide a bit of context
| that may not be obvious (but unfortunately isn't surprising) -
| the BMC (Municipal Corporation) is considered quite
| ineffective/corrupt/lazy by most citizens, despite being the
| richest municipal body in the world (with a budget of [?]59,954
| crore this year, which I tried to convert to USD but I can't keep
| track of all zeros). Every year there are numerous deaths
| especially during heavy rain in monsoon, from potholes flipping
| bikers to the river not being desilted. There are valid arguments
| (eg lots of pollution in the river) but the end result isn't
| pretty.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brihanmumbai_Municipal_Corpora...
| has more info including controversies.
|
| Also, regarding housing specifically, due to a perpetual
| population growth and inflation, many buildings sit empty because
| builders know that people _will_ cave in, even if property is
| temporarily overpriced and no one is buying them in the short
| term. Additionally legal disputes often block up other buildings,
| resulting in large dilapidated buildings sitting in the middle of
| busy /high-value areas but providing no benefit.
| shrikant wrote:
| [?]59,954 crore is roughly USD $7.2 billion.
| donbox wrote:
| INR 59,954 crore is around 7 Billion USD.
| anon291 wrote:
| I was going to say... for a city with a population almost
| that of the entire state of California, this is hardly
| anything. To put that in perspective, California spends
| 200-300 billion each year.
| snapplebobapple wrote:
| How do you figured that? Average salary in california is
| around 10 times that of mumbai and population of greater
| mumbai is slightly more than half california. That adjusts
| the comparison to roughly 140 billion mumvai vs 200 billion
| california. So mumbai is marginally more efficient than one
| of the worst run us states by roughetrics. I suspect it
| should be considered worse because corruption at 8k a year
| average income cuts a lot worse than equivalent percentage
| corruption at 80k income
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| PPP doesn't really translate to municipal budgets, and
| it's also painfully clear from the grandparent that the
| huge budget doesn't translate to much, even after PPP
| comparisons.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Possibly, but things like roads and waterways are much
| fewer/smaller/shorter, as Mumbai is geographically an
| extremely small city for its population. It becomes even
| more obvious statistically once you remove the national
| park in the north from land area calculations.
|
| In any case, there are lots of factors, but I think most
| Mumbaikars would agree that the city could be run much
| better with similar/the same resources.
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| Many people seem to struggle with the difference between
| absolute and proportional values.
|
| Something similar in my country (Nigeria). Many people keep
| pointing out that Lagos, our most crowded and number one
| commercial city, has an annual budget of roughly $1
| billion, meaning there should be world-class
| infrastructure.
|
| Until I point out that $1 billion is roughly $50 annually
| per person. Even accounting for labor and cost of living
| differences, you need at least 20x that before you start
| expecting world-class infrastructure.
|
| Sure, labor is cheaper, but power plants, buses, and trains
| are mostly imported and cost a damn lot. No way you're
| getting first-world infrastructure with third-world budget
| and taxes.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| > Until I point out that $1 billion is roughly $50
| annually per person.
|
| I wanted to make a comparison with New York Metropolitan
| Area and they spend 20 billion only in traffic stuff.
| dilawar wrote:
| By purchase parity, 1 dollar is about 23 rupees while
| exchange rate is around 80. So roughly 4x multiplier is
| needed to .
|
| In purchase parity, it's 27 billions dollar vs 200-300
| billion of California. Still 10x less.
|
| I wanted to complain about bangalore garbage and traffic
| but it will take too much space.
| geodel wrote:
| > the BMC (Municipal Corporation) is considered quite
| ineffective/corrupt/lazy by most citizens, despite being the
| richest municipal body in the world
|
| Well when one divide total budget by population per person
| won't be much. Economist and even politicians mentioned as much
| that Indian tax revenues per person are 1/20th of first world
| but regardless they do think they deserve facilities comparable
| to developed nations.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Municipal Government in India answer to and get funded
| directly by either State Level planning authorities or
| Central Government IAS.
|
| Municipal Corporations all over India have minimal autonomy
| outside of PWD procurement [0].
|
| [0] - https://www.impriindia.com/insights/urban-governance-
| in-indi...
| user_7832 wrote:
| Yep that's a fair point, the tax burden in India in general
| is pretty skewed, however worth noting that Mumbai pays a
| fairly significant amount of it (especially when factoring in
| indirect and non income taxes). Iirc BMC's budget is very
| directly from taxes (very little/no loans or other handouts,
| though I could be wrong about this).
|
| (Edit: quick googling shows property tax to be the biggest
| current revenue stream since octroi has gone away after the
| introduction of a national GST.)
| geodel wrote:
| Well the flip side of spending all tax revenue of city like
| Mumbai locally instead of statewide or nation wide there
| will be even more lopsided development which turns to ever
| more people coming to Mumbai making infrastructure,
| pollution and so many other problems worse.
| anon291 wrote:
| I have never lived in Bombay, but my parents grew up there, and
| our family history there goes back to before it was even a city.
| Indians have an insatiable appetite for centralized economic
| planning that has done nothing but hurt the country. For me, it's
| inexplicable, but it's often like trying to talk at a wall. It
| makes American NIMBY's look like transit advocates.
|
| And for all the fascination with bureaucracy, the bureaucracy is
| never efficient. My aunts and uncles who landlorded there for a
| while had so much trouble evicting tenants for things that would
| be trivial in America, such as failure to pay. Courts, municipal
| officials, just drag their feet. It's a cultural problem, and
| shocks the American conscience.
|
| Such a sad squandering of potential and a good case study in how
| culture absolutely affects outcomes.
| gedy wrote:
| > And for all the fascination with bureaucracy, the bureaucracy
| is never efficient
|
| Isn't that perhaps the point? Corruption allows everyone to get
| their hand in the till for money, power, etc. Maybe this drives
| the "central planning" so that the elites get their graft too.
| addicted wrote:
| This comment is almost entirely ahistorical.
|
| India as a country is about 75 years old. It's ridiculously
| young.
|
| India is the largest democracy in the world despite having half
| as many official languages as American states, and an order of
| magnitude more spoken languages, cultures and religions.
|
| Despite this India has remained a largely integral state, has
| seen authoritarian rule and seen it off in a few years, unlike
| nearly every other democracy formed around the same time has
| never been ruled by the military for even a moment.
|
| The greatest economic miracle in the history of human
| civilization, the growth of China was a product of almost
| complete central planning to the point that the state also
| coercively controlled the number of kids you could have.
| Central planning is clearly no barrier to growth.
|
| India, on the other hand has a highly federal system of
| government. Arguably the last few years have seen a lot more
| top down management but that's a result of the party in federal
| government also being in power in most state governments.
|
| The current debate playing out in the world is the exact
| opposite of what you're claiming. China's success has made
| central planning and authoritarianism appear highly desirable.
| India's slower growth has made it appear that federalism and
| democracy are not popular.
|
| However, as the pandemic is showing, when authoritarians mess
| up they tend to cause irreparable harm whereas democracies are
| able to absorb a lot more hits.
|
| Your vision of India is a mirror house vision of a 50 year old
| India at best.
|
| (Btw, even the court and municipal problems you're referring to
| is clearly not cultural. India's slow legal system is very
| clearly a result of sticking to an antiquated British system
| and not modernizing it to allow, for example, out of court
| settlements, which has led to massive backlogs that are now
| being addressed.
|
| And in terms of municipal actions the Indian state is
| addressing those issues to the point where there are many
| functions where the Indian equivalent are significantly faster
| than the U.S. Try getting a passport in the U.S. today vs
| India.
|
| Try making payments. India is far ahead of the U.S. which is
| frankly shocking considering the massive head start the U.S.
| has here.
|
| Try IDs. While Apple is celebrating something like 4 states
| doing a pilot system of digital IDs which hasn't even grown in
| the 5 years or so, nearly every municipal ID in India today is
| digital.
|
| Most civil functions can now be done online.
|
| India has also drastically improved government distributions.
| While the US government was sending literal checks through the
| mail over COVID Indian monetary benefits are now directly
| deposited in a bank account.
| anon291 wrote:
| > Your vision of India is a mirror house vision of a 50 year
| old India at best.
|
| Well realistically, this is when my family left, but the
| article seems to cite the same pain points today.
|
| Also, I think this comment exemplifies some of the issues
| with Indian society. The moment one levels a criticism,
| suddenly, the rather pointed criticism is taken as a
| criticism of society as a whole.
|
| At no point did I criticise India's democracy or accuse it of
| authoritarianism. There are many centrally planned economies
| without authoritarianism. Nor is central planning associated
| with military juntas / coups. At no point did I say anything
| negative about India's growth story, which as you point out,
| is astronomical, but slower than China.
|
| Overall, I think India's great. I'm just pointing out some
| issues that I see. It would behoove you, and Indians more
| generally, to listen to the criticism without getting
| confused over what's being criticised.
|
| Also, the existence of centralized planning in a more
| concentrated form in China does not mean the centralized
| planning in India cannot be criticized. Again, we must stay
| tuned to exactly the criticisms I've outlined, not strawman.
|
| > India, on the other hand has a highly federal system of
| government. Arguably the last few years have seen a lot more
| top down management but that's a result of the party in
| federal government also being in power in most state
| governments.
|
| The US, Australia, Canada, etc all have federal systems. This
| is hardly an excuse.
|
| > And in terms of municipal actions the Indian state is
| addressing those issues to the point where there are many
| functions where the Indian equivalent are significantly
| faster than the U.S. Try getting a passport in the U.S. today
| vs India.
|
| How long does an Indian passport take?
|
| > India has also drastically improved government
| distributions. While the US government was sending literal
| checks through the mail over COVID Indian monetary benefits
| are now directly deposited in a bank account.
|
| Again, however ahead India is of the US in terms of bank
| deposits, does not detract from the criticism that the Indian
| state and Indian culture as a whole is very into central
| bureaucracy. Actually, I think the check thing is yet another
| good example. Checks are an extremely distributed form of
| payment. Basically anyone can write a check on a piece of
| paper and banks will accept it (within reason). I can have
| anyone print my checks, and as long as my information is
| correct, the bank will cash it. Moreover, check fraud is
| taken very seriously, so that people aren't just doing this
| willy nilly. As a whole, the US is fairly high trust, so this
| distributed model works well, and has certain advantages,
| such as being able to cash checks anywhere, the ability to
| easily transfer a check to another payee (just write a new
| endorsement), etc. I'm not sure what Indian system you're
| referring to, but for me personally, I like being able to
| hand over money without having to give my life's information
| to private brokerages.
| valarauko wrote:
| > How long does an Indian passport take?
|
| I'd applied for a passport in the summer of 2020, during
| the height of the COVID lockdown. I could get an
| appointment at the passport office within a week (socially
| distanced, reduced capacity), and had my passport in hand
| the next week. Prepandemic I'd say the average was about 10
| days, for passport renewal. A fresh passport takes more
| time since it requires 'police verification', where a cop
| from your local police station goes physically to your
| address to verify you actually live there, and gets
| attestations from your neighbors on how long you've lived
| at this address.
| valarauko wrote:
| > our family history there goes back to before it was even a
| city
|
| Same - my Pathareprabhu ancestors have been in the area since
| about the 13th century, when the only other people in the
| region were the Koli fisherfolk.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| > evicting tenants for things that would be trivial in America,
| such as failure to pay
|
| Evicting tenants is a MASSIVE pain in the ass in many American
| states.
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