"me" wrote in message
news:1192721290.995064.86720@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> On Oct 18, 8:56 am, "William Black"
> wrote:
>> "me" wrote in message
>>
>> news:1192708000.393232.180960@t8g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> > On Oct 17, 5:13 pm, "William Black"
>> > wrote:
>> >> In China you can force infrastructure development. Nobody cares if
>> >> someone
>> >> pushes a bulldozer through a house. Soldiers just shoot anyomne who
>> >> objects. Try it in India and you get a bulldozer shaped bonfire.
>>
>> > Right up until you have a middle class that wants the economic
>> > development that goes with the building of airports, roads,
>> > bridges.....
>>
>> Nope.
>>
>> They've got that now.
>>
>> The major problem with infrastructure development in India is land
>> encroachment by the poor.
>>
>> The poor move to the cities, build a shack on someone else's land and
>> live
>> there.
>>
>> The land is unsalable for development until the slums are removed.
>>
>> So the land owners go to court, where the poor slum dwellers say 'We're
>> very poor, we're being prosecuted because we're poor, this is
>> unconstitutional, India being defined in the constitution as a Socialist
>> state, plus, we get to vote too, and we elect people who'll defend our
>> interests...
>>
>> And the poor people win...
>>
>> Right up to the supreme court, which can take 20 years.
>>
>> Or the land owners can go to the local mafia, who'll get the squatters
>> off
>> their land, for 50% of the value of the land...
>>
>> This is not a minor problem.
>>
>> Four million people live in Daravi in makeshift huts.
>>
>> Bombay airport expantion is planned for an area called Kalina, guess
>> what's
>> built on the area earmarked for expantion...
>>
>> Daravi and Kalina are long established now. The people there are all
>> hard
>> working people who just happen not to pay any rent, but who do play
>> politics...
>
>
> You realize, other than scale, this isn't exactly a new phenomenon
> in world history. San Fran, London, Chicago, and Tokyo to some
> extent all have experienced "urban renewal" through natural
> disasters. They can often be the political basis for wholesale
> shifts in governments and cultures. The economic forces at work
> on India are not new.
>
I'm fully aware of that.
I'm also fully aware that the squatters are fully aware of their rights and
equipped with enough votes and money (four million people can employ as lot
of lawyers and politicians for very little money) to make the process of
getting them off the land they're on, a process that started last year,
last twenty years or so, which brings us back to the A380 and its useful
operational lifespan.
I'd love to see it happen sooner, my dear wife owns some of the property
concerned, but it's going to take a couple of decades...
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.
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