Comments on: Tata Gives India the “World’s Cheapest Home,” But What Does That Mean For Cities?

By: randhir

randhir — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:42:53 +0000

Dear TATA Groups,
Please build some cheap flats in Bihar too, it will help to elevate Bihar.

Warm Regards,
Randhir Kumar

By: Dave Brook

Dave Brook — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:17:54 +0000

It’s dangerous to make assumptions about India. There has been an effort in some cities to bulldoze tracts of (relatively) lower density housing and replace it with high rise housing for low income (while the developer keeps other land and profits from market rate development. From newspaper articles I’ve read this is controversial in its own right, but it means that redevelopment doesn’t necessarily increases vehicle distance.

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:31:04 +0000

Land shortage is a major issue in Mumbai. The government is keen to shift slum dwellers from central Mumbai to land on the rural-urban periphery in order to capitalise on the high land prices downtown. Some have been forced out; some larger more established slums (like Dharavi) remain. How long before these kinds of suburban developments encourage the government to shift the poorest again to make way for wealthier residents? Perhaps even further from the centre and employment.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:15:00 +0000

Didn’t we learn a long time ago that this is the exact way to create a ghetto? Although this *may* be a step up (if you research the analysis on slums)… it’s going from one bad situation to another

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:54:49 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Reddit by arunvr: I hope we get more Planned Cities because of private realtor projects. I am completely disappointed with the kind of urban planning the govt has been doing so far….

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:11:21 +0000

Calling these high dense buildings “suburbanization” is a little far fetched considering the low square footage of the units—the reality is that they are still high dense. The real problem is not the buildings, but creating a market reality where they could be built in place of existing slums—this is probably best accomplished through appropriate transportation pricing as American Suburbs were and are fueled by cheap gas, not cheap housing.