Monday, September 7, 2009

Process of urbanization

I have proposed that out of 300 million people, mostly with little education, who work in farming and related occupations about 280 million must be displaced to urban land. These 280 million will be surplus labor as corporate farming takes over. On the other hand, we have seen that it is impossible to provide city-like infrastructure in 600000 villages. Unless city-like infrastructure is provided, which means access to good schools, colleges, university, good hospital, shopping mall, Movie Theater, cultural centers, paved roads, underground sewage, supermarkets etc, you or I will not move to such a place unless forced. If you and I cannot stay there willingly, why should we expect others to stay there?

Therefore as I have proposed earlier, we need to build towns and cities across India that will accommodate 80% of the population. My estimate is that with 4 to 6 cities in every district, we need around 2000 cities with an average population of 400000 to 600000. Keep in mind that during this process of urbanization which may take a decade and half, the population will be around 1.3 billion. If the process works properly, then perhaps after 15 years, India will have only 50000 villages.

Resources can be much more optimally utilized in cities where people live in close proximity. As I have said in an earlier blog, providing water connection, electricity connection, cable TV, internet etc is much more cost effective in cities compared to villages because of the concentration of population.

With a little planning we can make the two processes complementary. The two processes are urbanization and movement of surplus farm workers to urban area. Urbanization will mean expanding the existing towns in each district massively. A town which currently has a population of 60000 will be expanded to accommodate 500000 people. In order to do that over a decade, we need the following tasks which will be shared by public and private effort:

1. Acquire land
• Bring the villages on the fringe of the town inside the municipality
• Make the farmland suitable for urban construction

2. Plan township infrastructure
• Involve private builders, chain store owners, investors in the planning process
• May make electricity, water supply private
• Plan underground facilities for sewage, water pipeline, electric cable, fiber optic cable for TV, phone and internet

3. Water supply
• Create massive artificial lake near the city
• The lake will hold rain water and will meet the water requirement of the city
• The lakes should be guarded to prevent pollution
• Build pipeline from the lake to processing plant in the city
• There can be two or more competing private providers

4. Electricity
• Select private or public electricity supplier
• Determine source of power and who supplies
• Enable competition as far as possible
• Only licensed builders or electricians should wire a house

5. Sewage
• Build underground sewage system under every new road being constructed
• All sewage should go to a processing plant
• Recycling will be attempted as much as possible
• About 5 Km away from the township , there will be a garbage dump where solid waste should be disposed after reprocessing

6. Mobile phone network
• The mobile service providers will take care of erecting tower etc

7. Cable TV, Satellite TV and internet
• These pipelines, most probably using underground fiber optic cable should be laid when a new road is being built
• Eventually the city should provide free Wi-Fi financed by a city tax

8. Education
• The city will need several schools, colleges and universities
• Both public and private investment should be sought
• Medical and engineering colleges should be built
• Free public school with mid-day meal must be provide to all who want
• States should be able to impose income tax to provide free schooling for all

9. Health care
• Both private and public hospitals should be planned and built
• Routine healthcare should be free
• For catastrophic or long term illnesses, people should be encouraged to buy health insurance

10. Shops, bazaars
• Major grocery store , department store and mall builders should be invited
• As people populate neighborhoods, stores will come up to fulfill demand
• Shopping areas must be planned during initial city planning
• Movie theaters, auditoriums, libraries and cultural centers will be built
• Each shopping area must have ample parking space


11. Housing
• Preferably, housing should be provided by medium and big builders
• They will build apartment complexes having 500 to 1000 flats
• This will provide economy of scale
• Depending on the importance of the city or land value, the flats may be in 4-storied houses or in 10 to 50-storied skyscrapers
• In most small towns, 4-storied houses with 16 flats will be ideal
• Builders will determine flat size and amenities. There can be many types of flats and complexes based on flat owner’s income
• No cross-subsidy should be provided
• Banks and other lending institutions should provide 20 to 30 year mortgage
• Each housing complex must provide ample parking space


12. Dwelling for low-skilled employed workers
• The low-skilled workers that migrate from villages to work as construction laborer, maid, security guard, driver, worker in stores, janitor, cleaner etc. will need housing also. But they cannot afford middle class amenities
• For low income workers, no-frills flats will be constructed. These also will have 24 X 7 water and electric supply like everyone else. But the flats will be between 300 and 500 sq ft each with cement floor, cheap windows and doors which can be mass produced in factories, basic bathroom and kitchen and will have 2 or 3 rooms.
• The workers can either buy a flat using long term loan or rent
• The rent can be subsidized by government if necessary

13. Dwelling for newcomers from villages
• For those who migrate from villages with no job, they will be housed in dormitories. Each family will have a room. Single people will share a room. There will be one bathroom with multiple shower stalls and toilets in each floor. Each floor may have 10 to 20 rooms.
• There will be several shared kitchens with gas stoves in each floor. The gas will be provided by government. The building super will allocate time and kitchen for each family during which the family will have to complete cooking. They will use their own utensils, spices and other implements.
• These dormitory dwellings are free for newcomers for up to one year. Within one year, they will have to learn skills, get a job and move to dwelling described in item 12.
• A person, who gets a job, will be allowed to stay in dormitory for 6 months at most. After that, he/she will have to migrate to dwelling for employed workers.
• If a person loses job and cannot pay rent, he can move back to the dorms with his family.
• A social worker, who will act as a mentor, will work with several families. She will train the family in basic urban skills such as how to open a bank account and use it, how to operate the gas stove etc.
• In many cases, potential employers such as building contractors or owners of maid services or janitorial services can go to villages and collect employees.

14. Office complexes

• Multistoried office buildings can be built to house many offices
• Big corporations will be allotted land to build their office
• There will be ample parking space in every office building
• Factories that create noise or air pollution will have to located few miles outside city limits, providing room for future expansion of the city
• Company or chartered buses can transport workers to and from workplace

15. Transportation

• Public or private buses can be provided for public commuting
• Auto rickshaws and Taxi will be allowed
• Cycle rickshaw can be permitted within a neighborhood
• Many people will have their own mode of transportation such as car or motorbike


It can be clearly seen that from digging lake to building underground sewage and water pipes, laying underground cables for electricity and telecommunication, building houses, schools, hospitals, stores, malls, movie theaters and markets there will be a need for many skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled laborers. The people from nearby villages can be enticed into these jobs because they would pay higher wages and would provide year round work. The government as well as private companies can train them as required. While white collar employees like architects, engineers, accountants as well as highly skilled workers like masons, electricians, plumbers, machine operators have to be recruited from all over India, there are many low skilled and unskilled jobs where local villagers who would otherwise work in farms, can be employed with little training. Some of these jobs are mason’s help, brick carrier, road sweeper, janitor, gardener, garbage collector, security guard, maid and cook.

Mentors

The role of mentors will be vital. Mentors can be hired by the government as individual employee or as a member of a group provided by an NGO or social work organization. They should be uniformly trained across the country in how to provide training and teach basic skills to people migrating from villages and those in search of jobs.

Each mentor will be able to handle, probably 100 families. She will most likely be a college graduate and a local person with knowledge of the town/city. Some newcomers from villages would not know how to live a city life. She will be their support person. She will teach them

• How to use bathroom cleanly
• What kind of opportunities are open to the adults based on their skills
• Where they can learn a skill or two so that they will get job
• Where are job openings
• How to spend within means
• How to open a bank account and use it
• How to receive money from the government during initial unemployment
• How to operate the gas stove safely
• Where to send children for school
• How to get additional help for children’s studies
• How to use public transportation


The central theme of this plan is to urbanize India without coercion. The premise is that most villagers live in abysmal condition in villages because they are not aware of better opportunity elsewhere. If they are provided opportunity, most of them will leave their ancestral land to city. The migration will happen anyway. This has happened in western nations in 19th and 20th century and is happening in China now. But all such migrations have been unplanned, chaotic and cost dearly to the people. With planned migration, the suffering can be reduced greatly.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

wonderful planning...but can we have something implementable at a smaller scale with a proper plan

people migrating to urban for infra is overrated..people migrate to urban lands for better lucrative jobs and better basic facilities. many urbanites are fexed of urban lifestyle and stay just outside the city villages infact.