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> China today is so different from India today? In terms of cleanliness Urban Goverment in China versus India is VERY different. In China, cities are given si

> China today is so different from India today? In terms of cleanliness Urban Goverment in China versus India is VERY different. In China, cities are given significant autonomy and a bigger pot of cash compared to prefecture they are in. Furthermore, the Chinese cities that most foreigners visit (Beijing, Shanghai) are under direct control of the Central Government. In India, urban government is subservient to state government - with zoning, planning, and budgets coming from the state bureaucracy, especially in cities that HNers tend to visit in India (Bangalore, Gurgaon, Hyderabad). Let's use Bangalore as an example. Bangalore is India's tech hub and the economic engine for Karnataka, but urban Bangalore only has around 20 seats in Karnataka's Legislative Assembly out of 224 total. This means that state governments have little to no incentive to care about providing urban services and goods, when they can better invest in other constituencies that actually can flip the tide in elections. The other aspect is that slums residents can swing elections, so any attempt to demolish a slum can destroy the incumbent party's shot at local elections. Slums/encroached land have significantly monetary value - the first generation who lived in a slum and built the residence often tend to move out and rent out the original building to a new resident while also having the option to mortgage the building to a local lender. If you are an unskilled migrant laborer, you are making around $100-150/mo in Urban India, but if you have a slum residence, if litigation happens for redevelopment, you might end up with around $10-20k and a free apartment (which you can rent out). The same thing happened in China all the time until the mid-2010s, and it's just the general cycle of urbanization. That said, Indian cities are getting better and cleaner, but funding for urban infrastructure only really began in the last 2-3 years. Indian cities today aren't that much different than their Chinese peers in the 2000s, and the exact same kinds of problems (toxic smog in Delhi like in Beijing in the 2000s) but also development are happening (the Delhi redevelopment for G20 similar to Beijing's redevelopment for the 2008 Olympics). Also, one thing I noticed is the 2nd most populous of each state tends to be much cleaner than the 1st. So Mysore is miles cleaner than Bangalore, Coimbatore compared to Chennai, Panchkula to Gurgaon, and Pune to Mumbai, which I assume is because there are fewer outsiders, so the electoral impact is higher, as most migrants (both from the same state or outside) continue to use their home town/village as their primary constituency in order to continue to maintain rural/town landholdings.

kamaal 2y ago
>>urban Bangalore only has around 20 seats in Karnataka's Legislative Assembly out of 224 total. This means that state governments have little to no incentive to care about providing urban services and goods, when they can better invest in other constituencies that actually can flip the tide in elections. That is because citizens themselves don't care. Single biggest motivation of the Indian voter base is using the process of elections and then elected politician like attack dogs to hurt the people they hate(Often minorities). This is through and through. This manifests along the lines of religion and caste, mostly. But regionalism and language politics has played its part in the past. But in the past few decades its mostly religion. Every time a political party does something good, anything good. Especially uniformly for the masses, they are voted out. This is because in a country like India, people don't want things to uniformly improve for everyone. The goal is always for your(community) to have an edge, while everybody else must be made to suffer. Any other arrangement and the masses feel their favorite politicians didn't hurt the people they hate enough. >>That said, Indian cities are getting better and cleaner, but funding for urban infrastructure only really began in the last 2-3 years. Quite the opposite, every city in Karnataka, has gotten significantly dirtier, garbage littered and both dusty and polluted in the past decades. >>Also, one thing I noticed is the 2nd most populous of each state tends to be much cleaner than the 1st. So Mysore is miles cleaner than Bangalore Thats mostly because fewer the people, lesser hands there are to throw garbage and pollute, its just that scale of grotesque is reduced not the phenomenon itself.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > That is because citizens themselves don't care. This isn't about citizens. Fundamentally, residents in a mega-city like Bangalore simply do not matter in a parliamentary democracy like Karnataka. Bangalore doesn't make you CM, so there's no incentive for Karnataka's politicians to invest in it. > Every time a political party Urban management is not about political party - it's about bureaucracy. INC, BJP, JDS, etc can win elections, but local government such as public works are apolitical. The issue is states in India do NOT devolve planning commissions to local government - just about every function that a city would have (Zoning, Permitting, Land Acquisition) are managed by state level planning commissions. India is unique in the level of centralization that state level governments have. > Quite the opposite, every city in Karnataka Karnataka is not the rest of India. Bangalore is notoriously bad at urban planning and management. The fact that much poorer Indore can outcompete Bangalore in cleanliness and urban management is a testament to the fact that it's about local government. Also, ime, Delhi NCR (not just Delhi and Noida but also ancillary towns like Kurkushetra and Karnal), Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Coimbatore have all steadily gotten much better over the past 10 years. Bangalore on the other hand has remained underdeveloped due to land mafias. > Thats mostly because fewer the people, lesser hands there are to throw garbage and pollute, its just that scale of grotesque is reduced not the phenomenon itself. These are multi-million person cities with populations similar to Bangalore barely 10-15 years ago, yet they are still cleaner and better managed than Bangalore circa 2010. While population does play a role, Karnataka is unique in that the JDS admin in the 1990s removed almost all urban governance responsibilities from Bangalore and moved it to either the State Commission (eg. zoning) or privatized (eg. garbage collection - but this was because of the World Bank).

kamaal 2y ago

>>urban Bangalore only has around 20 seats in Karnataka's Legislative Assembly out of 224 total. This means that state governments have little to no incentive to care about providing urban services and goods, when they can better invest in other constituencies that actually can flip the tide in elections. That is because citizens themselves don't care. Single biggest motivation of the Indian voter base is using the process of elections and then elected politician like attack dogs to hurt the people they hate(Often minorities). This is through and through. This manifests along the lines of religion and caste, mostly. But regionalism and language politics has played its part in the past. But in the past few decades its mostly religion. Every time a political party does something good, anything good. Especially uniformly for the masses, they are voted out. This is because in a country like India, people don't want things to uniformly improve for everyone. The goal is always for your(community) to have an edge, while everybody else must be made to suffer. Any other arrangement and the masses feel their favorite politicians didn't hurt the people they hate enough. >>That said, Indian cities are getting better and cleaner, but funding for urban infrastructure only really began in the last 2-3 years. Quite the opposite, every city in Karnataka, has gotten significantly dirtier, garbage littered and both dusty and polluted in the past decades. >>Also, one thing I noticed is the 2nd most populous of each state tends to be much cleaner than the 1st. So Mysore is miles cleaner than Bangalore Thats mostly because fewer the people, lesser hands there are to throw garbage and pollute, its just that scale of grotesque is reduced not the phenomenon itself.

alephnerd 2y ago
> That is because citizens themselves don't care. This isn't about citizens. Fundamentally, residents in a mega-city like Bangalore simply do not matter in a parliamentary democracy like Karnataka. Bangalore doesn't make you CM, so there's no incentive for Karnataka's politicians to invest in it. > Every time a political party Urban management is not about political party - it's about bureaucracy. INC, BJP, JDS, etc can win elections, but local government such as public works are apolitical. The issue is states in India do NOT devolve planning commissions to local government - just about every function that a city would have (Zoning, Permitting, Land Acquisition) are managed by state level planning commissions. India is unique in the level of centralization that state level governments have. > Quite the opposite, every city in Karnataka Karnataka is not the rest of India. Bangalore is notoriously bad at urban planning and management. The fact that much poorer Indore can outcompete Bangalore in cleanliness and urban management is a testament to the fact that it's about local government. Also, ime, Delhi NCR (not just Delhi and Noida but also ancillary towns like Kurkushetra and Karnal), Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Coimbatore have all steadily gotten much better over the past 10 years. Bangalore on the other hand has remained underdeveloped due to land mafias. > Thats mostly because fewer the people, lesser hands there are to throw garbage and pollute, its just that scale of grotesque is reduced not the phenomenon itself. These are multi-million person cities with populations similar to Bangalore barely 10-15 years ago, yet they are still cleaner and better managed than Bangalore circa 2010. While population does play a role, Karnataka is unique in that the JDS admin in the 1990s removed almost all urban governance responsibilities from Bangalore and moved it to either the State Commission (eg. zoning) or privatized (eg. garbage collection - but this was because of the World Bank).