[Urbanstudy] Is India's 100 smart cities project a recipe for social apartheid?

[Karthik Rao-Cavale]

Surveys can help establish social facts. But they need interpretation just
as any other observations. There is no neutral vantage point for
interpretation.
Do you mean to say statistics and research methodology are inferior to
opinions.Then why did you study and teach statistics.

TMV

On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 8:28 AM, Karthik Rao-Cavale <krc12353 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Prof. Kumar,
>
> Despite having studied and taught statistics for six years now, I really
> don't understand how a mere sample survey is sufficient to prove or
> disprove the arguments made in the article you find so offensive.
> The intention of this write up is well documented by Rajiv.
>
> I worked with CSDS for two years long long time back. CSDS always uphold
> research methodology and survey research.  and I feel ashamed CSDS  is
> associated with Urban study.which churns out gossips in urban study
> newsletter which have no connection with truth.Unscientific work only
> promote vested interest.
>
> At preset I am coordinating a project :Smart Economy in Smart Cities" by a
> network of top most universities in 12 countries through one year research
> in 16 cities from Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia.which is expected to
> prove otherwise than the gossip given in the write up. .. Springer will
> publish it in 2016. We have a monthly Bulletin which introduces authors who
> are ow more than 50 and city profiles.  I can share that with with
> interested party.
>
> You can also read my edited books on Smart Cities "Geographic Information
> System for Smart Cities" (Copal:2014) and "E-Governance for Smart Cities"
> (Springer:2015) where we have already proved opposite of what is written in
> the write up through well researched documentation.
>
> T.M.Vinod Kumar
>
> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 10:09 PM, Rajeev Yerneni <rajeevy at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I think the article was a great opinion piece, don't think the author is
>> aiming for scientific integrity.
>>
>> Folks who reject ideas and thoughts based on scientific grounds probably
>> do the most 'disservice to science'.
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 9:18 AM, T M Vinod Kumar <tmvinod at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I totally disagree with Bhuvsnreswari and Henrick. What is written there
>>> has no data base to prove. It is just like ones opinion with no basis. . It
>>> is great disservice to science
>>>
>>> T.M.Vinod Kumar.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 6:32 PM, Bhuvaneswari Raman <
>>> raman.bhuvaneswari at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Agreed with Henrik- it is a well researched and timely article.
>>>> A positivist, quantitative sample survey does not reveal the reality on
>>>> the ground. Pushed under the rhetoric of "scientificity" of social science
>>>> research, positivist research serve as a comfortable vehicle to reinforce
>>>> the Indian fiction of "Smart Cities" denying the invisible violence of
>>>> constituting such cities in the name of growth and wealth for a few at the
>>>> expense of a majority.
>>>> Bhuvana
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 11 June 2015 at 13:03, Henrik Valeur <hv at uid.dk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Seems like a well-researched article covering many angles of the
>>>>> topic - important and informative.
>>>>> Henrik Valeur
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Jun 11, 2015, at 5:25 AM, T M Vinod Kumar wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Such write up sounds unscientific for me. A social scientist takes a
>>>>> systematic sample, make hypothesis  and conduct surveys and tabulate it
>>>>> before making conclusions drawn on smart cities. Of course India do not
>>>>> have many smart cities but Jaipur, Hyderabad and Bangalore have potential
>>>>> for smart cities. The author shall conduct sample surveys there and make
>>>>> responsible conclusions.
>>>>>
>>>>> The write up looks like fiction.for me and degrade social scientists.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> T.M.Vinod Kumar
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:12 PM, Vinay Baindur <yanivbin at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/07/india-100-smart-cities-project-social-apartheid?CMP=share_btn_tw
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> *Is India's 100 smart cities project a recipe for social apartheid?*
>>>>>> The emergence of hi-tech prototype cities is raising concerns that
>>>>>> India’s new urban enclaves will override local laws and use surveillance to
>>>>>> keep out the poor
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  A labourer pulls a cable in front of office buildings in Gujarat
>>>>>> International Finance Tec-City (Gift City). Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Shruti Ravindran
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thursday 7 May 2015 07.00 BSTLast modified on Friday 8 May 201513.09
>>>>>> BST
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In architectural renderings, Gujarat International Financial Tec-City
>>>>>> resembles a thicket of glassy blue skyscrapers soaring above the Sabarmati
>>>>>> River in Gandhinagar, capital of the western Indian state of Gujarat. Its
>>>>>> “signature towers” include the Diamond, a 410-metre spire resembling an icy
>>>>>> stalagmite, and the 362m Gateway Towers, a bendy, sinuous version of Rem
>>>>>> Koolhaas’s CCTV headquarters in Beijing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> By 2021, the creators of Gift City, as it is commonly known, promise
>>>>>> to surround these towers with world-class infrastructure which will provide
>>>>>> residents with round-the-clock power and water, a “district-cooling system”
>>>>>> that sluices chilled water through buildings, and an automatic garbage
>>>>>> disposal system sending excrement hurtling through sewage pipes at 90kph –
>>>>>> “faster than most Indian trains”, as the journalist Manu Joseph dryly
>>>>>> observed.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The beating heart – or rather, robot brain – of Gift City is its
>>>>>> “Command and Control Centre”, which keeps traffic moving smoothly and
>>>>>> monitors every building through a network of CCTVs. In a country where more
>>>>>> than 300 million people live without electricity, and twice as many don’t
>>>>>> have access to toilets, Gift City’s towers sound like hypertrophic castles
>>>>>> in the sky. But they are an essential part of the Indian government’s urban
>>>>>> vision, one that it wants to see replicated a hundred times across the
>>>>>> country. Recently, the Indian cabinetgreen-lit a £10 billion scheme that
>>>>>> will be divided equally between building 100 smart cities, and rejuvenating
>>>>>> another 500 cities and towns over the next five years.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In a country where 300 million people live without electricity, Gift
>>>>>> City’s towers sound like castles in the sky
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yet many experts and planners fear that such “insta-cities”, if they
>>>>>> are made, will prove dystopic and inequitable. Some even hint that smart
>>>>>> cities may turn into social apartheid cities, governed by powerful
>>>>>> corporate entities that could override local laws and governments to “keep
>>>>>> out” the poor.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In a monograph for a conference on smart cities in Mumbai in January,
>>>>>> the economist and consultant Laveesh Bhandari described smart cities as
>>>>>> “special enclaves” that would use prohibitive prices and harsh policing to
>>>>>> prevent “millions of poor Indians” from “enjoying the privileges of such
>>>>>> great infrastructure”. “This is the natural way of things,” he noted, “for
>>>>>> if we do not keep them out, they will override our ability to maintain such
>>>>>> infrastructure.”
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Bhandari’s bald statements sparked social-media pandemonium, and the
>>>>>> economist is now at pains to assert he is far from uncritical of such
>>>>>> plans. “I am describing the unfeasibility and undesirability of a
>>>>>> thoughtless smart-city vision,” he says. “When you invest so much without
>>>>>> thinking about services and low-cost housing and governance, then you will
>>>>>> end up creating enclaves that keep out the poor.”
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In their present form, Bhandari adds, smart cities are essentially
>>>>>> rechristened Special Economic Zones (SEZs); neo-liberal business-friendly
>>>>>> zones exempt from taxes, duties and stringent labour laws. They are also
>>>>>> subject to what urban scholars say is a form of “privatised governance”,
>>>>>> due to a constitutional amendment that renders local governments powerless.
>>>>>> All of which, according to Bhandari, makes them inherently and unreservedly
>>>>>> exclusionary. “The current template for smart cities only mandates
>>>>>> infrastructure creation. What we need is democracy and rule of law, not
>>>>>> governance by fiat that holds in SEZs and smart cities created in China.”
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Last July, Narendra Modi’s newly elected government allocated 70.6
>>>>>> billion rupees (£762m) to its “100 Smart Cities” plan. This year’s
>>>>>> allocation shrank to 1.4bn rupees, yet smart cities remain a key
>>>>>> justification for a controversial land-acquisition ordinance the government
>>>>>> is aiming to enact, which does away with mandatory consent and social
>>>>>> safeguards for those whose lands are forcibly acquired. Over the past few
>>>>>> months, smart city-themed conferences have been taking place every week in
>>>>>> Delhi and Mumbai, culminating in the urban development minister Venkaiah
>>>>>> Naidu’s announcement that the scheme would be “rolled out” imminently.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yet no one is quite sure of what these cities might look like, or who
>>>>>> they’re for. Naidu, with not a little wistfulness, said that smart cities
>>>>>> “would have clean water, assured power supply, efficient public transport
>>>>>> and would not be polluted or congested”. A concept note from his ministry,
>>>>>> last revised in December, explains that they will “have smart (intelligent)
>>>>>> physical, social, institutional and economic infrastructure”, guaranteeing
>>>>>> their residents employment opportunities and “a very high quality of life,
>>>>>> comparable with any developed European city”.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This repeated emphasis on high-end infrastructure and superlative
>>>>>> quality of life hints at a discomfiting answer to the second question: who
>>>>>> the intended inhabitants of smart cities are likely to be.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  A visualisation of Palava City’s lakefront, designed to be the heart
>>>>>> of this new city’s cultural and social life.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The current template might have given us Palava City. This
>>>>>> self-described smart city across 3,000 acres of Mumbai’s northeastern
>>>>>> exurbs is being built by a city-based developer best known for treating
>>>>>> skyscraper-erecting as a competitive sport. As its promotional video
>>>>>> announces in a smug baritone, Palava City was inspired by the futuristic
>>>>>> vision that brought Singapore, Dubai “and even Mumbai” into being.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What this translates into is “essential public infrastructure” such
>>>>>> as 24x7 electricity, immaculate wide roads, public transport, malls,
>>>>>> multiplexes and luxury housing, including “Mumbai’s first and only
>>>>>> golf-course-equipped residential township”. To make sure that no one
>>>>>> trespasses on its immaculate privatopia, Palava plans to issue its
>>>>>> residents with “smart identity cards”, and will watch over them through a
>>>>>> system of “smart surveillance”.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The emphasis on surveillance underlines the stratified, elitist
>>>>>> nature of smart cities, according to the academic and author Pramod Nayar.
>>>>>> “Smart cities will be heavily policed spaces,” he says, “where only
>>>>>> eligible people – economically productive consumers (shoppers) and
>>>>>> producers (employees) – will be allowed freedom of walking and travel,
>>>>>> while ambient and ubiquitous surveillance will be tracked so as to
>>>>>> anticipate the ‘anti-socials’.”
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As such, Nayar adds, smart cities will be “more fortresses than
>>>>>> places of heterogeneous humanity, because they are meant only for specific
>>>>>> classes of people”. One class to be served, the other to be surveilled and
>>>>>> contained.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Palava plans to issue its residents with smart identity cards, and
>>>>>> watch over them via a system of smart surveillance
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  Palava City will feature ‘Mumbai’s first and only
>>>>>> golf-course-equipped residential township’
>>>>>>
>>>>>> “The smart city paradigm comes from mid-scale European cities, and
>>>>>> they’re meant to make existing infrastructure work in a more integrated
>>>>>> way, whether it’s waste, habitation or transport connectivity,” says Gautam
>>>>>> Bhan, a researcher with the Indian Institute for Human Settlements in
>>>>>> Delhi. “But Indian cities struggle with the absence of networks. Just 16%
>>>>>> of Indian cities have underground sewage drainage systems. No technology
>>>>>> can make the system work better if basic services don’t exist.”
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Set against this context, Gift City, which models itself after
>>>>>> financial hubs Canary Wharf in London and Paris’s La Defense, starts to
>>>>>> resemble the Emerald City, a glittering spectacle at the end of a shiny
>>>>>> highway. In India such cities – geared towards high-end services – seem
>>>>>> unlikely to provide many meaningful livelihood opportunities in the rural
>>>>>> hinterlands where they come up.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> “Having islands of well-serviced smart cities amidst a vast sea of
>>>>>> poorly-serviced and impoverished villages leads to what urban scholars have
>>>>>> called the juxtaposition of the citadel and ghetto,” says Sai Balakrishnan,
>>>>>> an urban scholar at Rutgers, who studies land conflicts and urbanisation in
>>>>>> India. “If the government does succeed in building these premium 100 smart
>>>>>> cities, but does nothing to alleviate poverty and poor services in the
>>>>>> surrounding areas, it could well lead to a politically volatile situation.
>>>>>> These visible forms of spatial inequalities engender social mistrust and
>>>>>> even violence.”
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Nowhere is this combination of political volatility and spatial
>>>>>> inequality more striking than in the giant expressway projects snaking
>>>>>> across the country’s hinterland since 2006. These six-to-eight lane
>>>>>> highways, intended to thread together luxury townships and special economic
>>>>>> zones, often come up on fertile farmland that is forcibly acquired under
>>>>>> the pretext of fulfilling a “public purpose”. In May 2011, one such project
>>>>>> just outside Delhi – involving an expressway, private sports-themed city,
>>>>>> and the country’s first Formula 1 racetrack – led to months-long protests
>>>>>> among farmers from 10 villages. The rally descended into violence when
>>>>>> villagers clashed with armed police, leading to the deaths of two farmers
>>>>>> and two policemen.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The truth about smart cities: ‘In the end, they will destroy
>>>>>> democracy'
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Not all manifestations of disquiet end in gunshots and death,
>>>>>> however. Balakrishnan recounts an incident that took place on the outskirts
>>>>>> of Bangalore, where villages are rapidly being replaced with IT parks,
>>>>>> gated communities and wealthy villas. A friend returned to her “visibly
>>>>>> opulent” bungalow one evening to find a young man lounging on her porch,
>>>>>> drinking a cold beer from her fridge. When she took out her phone to call
>>>>>> the police, he brandished a small knife and motioned for her to sit down.
>>>>>> She did, upon which he finished his beer, thanked her politely and left.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> “This incident makes palpable the sense of resentment and alienation
>>>>>> among those excluded from partaking in India’s new urban wealth,”
>>>>>> Balakrishnan says. “The young man wasn’t out to harm anyone, but he felt
>>>>>> justified, entitled almost, to break into an affluent home and to help
>>>>>> himself to a few hours of luxury.”
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Every new smart city, she suggests, signals yet another “temporary
>>>>>> secession, each of them setting in place a new social order that will not
>>>>>> be easy to reverse, and that takes urban planning dangerously away from the
>>>>>> public domain”. A hundred smart cities could spawn a thousand shadow
>>>>>> cities, simmering with resentment and rage.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>> Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group archives, please visit
>>>>>> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> =============================
>>>>> Prof.T.M.Vinod Kumar
>>>>> Besant Nivas, Jayanthi Road, P.O.Kolathara
>>>>> Kozhikode-673655,Kerala,India
>>>>> Phone:0495-2422244
>>>>> Mobile:9946550900
>>>>> Email:tmvinod at gmail.com <mail%3Atmvinod at gmail.com>
>>>>> skype id:tmvinodkumar
>>>>> =============================
>>>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>>> Urbanstudygroup mailing list
>>>>> Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City
>>>>>
>>>>> To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group archives, please visit
>>>>> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Urbanstudygroup mailing list
>>>>> Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City
>>>>>
>>>>> To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group archives, please visit
>>>>> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> =============================
>>> Prof.T.M.Vinod Kumar
>>> Besant Nivas, Jayanthi Road, P.O.Kolathara
>>> Kozhikode-673655,Kerala,India
>>> Phone:0495-2422244
>>> Mobile:9946550900
>>> Email:tmvinod at gmail.com <mail%3Atmvinod at gmail.com>
>>> skype id:tmvinodkumar
>>> =============================
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Urbanstudygroup mailing list
>>> Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City
>>>
>>> To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group archives, please visit
>>> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> =============================
> Prof.T.M.Vinod Kumar
> Besant Nivas, Jayanthi Road, P.O.Kolathara
> Kozhikode-673655,Kerala,India
> Phone:0495-2422244
> Mobile:9946550900
> Email:tmvinod at gmail.com <mail%3Atmvinod at gmail.com>
> skype id:tmvinodkumar
> =============================
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urbanstudygroup mailing list
> Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City
>
> To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group archives, please visit
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup
>
>


-- 
=============================
Prof.T.M.Vinod Kumar
Besant Nivas, Jayanthi Road, P.O.Kolathara
Kozhikode-673655,Kerala,India
Phone:0495-2422244
Mobile:9946550900
Email:tmvinod at gmail.com <mail%3Atmvinod at gmail.com>
skype id:tmvinodkumar
=============================
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