This Smart - Equitable City Makes More Sense.

The powerful and the political even change the policy

The World Bank said that 'natural' migration from rural areas to urban centres 'should not' be stopped. "Deprivation due to disparity" may have been acknowledged but the various forces at play have not been interpreted correctly in the context of time, place, locale. The powerful and the political class fulfill their nefarious agenda by even 'changing' policy, which is a criminality. All rural schemes seem to be 'mechanisms' of giving away rural land to the builders. Centralisation of basic services is desired.
Refer http://www.indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/city-must-be-equitable-not-smart .
‪Medha Patkar, founding member of Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan says...
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"... Why can’t lakhs of people in a megalopolis afford a house? Urban planners are invariably biased against poor dwellers. Land distribution and allocation is tilted against the masses. With no limits to houses per family and thousands of cars (each requiring space at home, the office and on the road), new infrastructure is created for the rich, usurping large chunks of land.
The majority of the population, including construction workers, who are the real builders, is left without even a small piece of land to erect shelters. Instead of a right to shelter, housing schemes further distort the priority and allocation.
Hiranandani Gardens in Mumbai is the worst example of how concessions under the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976, were misused. The holder of the power of attorney during the purchase of land later taken over by the government at the cheapest rate got it back in the name of a development scheme at the same rate, 40 paise per acre. The condition that it would be used for low-cost housing stands violated and the Bombay High Court’s order to build 3,144 houses for the needy, before any further construction, has not been obeyed either.
The Adarsh Society and Lavasa cases being fought by us are indicative of how the politically influential get hold of the desired land in violation of all laws and regulations, even by changing policy. But the poor struggle against eviction and “illegality” throughout their lives. Legal workers and legal voters they may be, yet they are treated as illegal residents.
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The answer lies in a housing policy that includes low-cost rental and dormitory accommodation for temporary migrants, reserving land for “site and service” schemes for the poor. No free houses, but self-reliant, participatory community or cooperative housing schemes by and for the poor that lease out land on a long-term basis, are a solution. The land in the hands of a few landlords, individual and corporations, should be requisitioned and redistributed.
The goal of minimising uncontrolled migration can be attained not through aggressive and divisive regional politics but through rural development. Ensuring adequate livelihood sources developed in the neighbourhood, based on the natural and human resources available within a local unit, should be the priority. This will not exclude industrialisation; on the contrary, it will promote it.
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Above all, no urbanisation that exploits the working classes within should be acceptable. We have to think of ways to evolve equitable and sustainable alternatives in each sector of urban planning, be it water, energy, waste management or housing. Smart cities are not the answer, as those will only replicate an anti-poor bias. Shanghai, Singapore or even Curitiba, an example of sustainable urban planning, cannot be taken as readymade models. India needs to evolve a new, truly indigenous paradigm based on the constitutional values of equity and justice."

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