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Archived Articles  Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian descent, and former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with the hot political and economic topics, both Bulgarian and international. ("A Royal Solution." World Press Review. June 1997, provides English versions). He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in the country, and in 1996-1997 participated in the international monitors' teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria. In 1999 he was among the few Bulgarian journalists that supported NATO military operation against Yugoslavia. In 2002 Simeon and his family emigrated from Bulgaria to Canada where they now live in Montreal, Quebec.
Global Real Estate Project
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India: Building private citiesIndia undergoes a fast process of economic modernization. One of its key features is urbanization. Millions of peasants leave their villages, seasonally or permanently, and move to the towns. Public authorities seem incapable of meeting the task of providing decent housing for these new city dwellers. Which, in part, explains the boom of shantytowns around the country. The standard western way of solving this problem, dividing the task between public and private interests, doesn't work well in many parts of India. A new approach, building whole cities with entire infrastructures by private developers, seems under way. Is it the 'silver bullet' that will propel India into modernity?
FactsThe statistics coming from India look really staggering for those accustomed to western 'mini' societies. The only parallel may come only when putting India in one group with another Asian giant, China. With a population of almost 1.1 billion, more than North America, the European Union, and Japan combined, India has approximately 60 percent rural population, occupied in predominantly subsistence agriculture. For the last 15 years, since the country started liberal economic reforms, approximately 100 million people, more than the population of Germany, have moved from the villages to the cities. Some of those remaining almost 700 million peasants may try their luck within the next generation or two. Indian cities, built through the centuries mainly as political and military centers, aren't capable of providing enough housing for these masses. No more capable of doing this are many local authorities that are politically responsible to constituencies with far from friendly attitudes toward new economic openness. Something should be done, however, if the country wants to escape from the incoming social crisis.
Possible solutionsWorld history shows that different countries applied a combination of different tools for coping with these imperatives of modernization. Basically the two main strategies are to look for help to the public authorities, or to the private interests, or to a combination of both. Up to the World War II, private developers did most new residential developments in industrialized countries. Even in Paris, during the Second Empire, and in Vienna, during the late glorious days of Franz Joseph I, the public authorities helped the private developers at best, by expropriating old housing and providing some general directions as to the style of new housing, and its heights. On the other side of the Atlantic, the private interests were also dominant. After the World War II, different governments in Europe started ambitious programs of social housing. In France, for example, up to a quarter of all housing was built under such programs. In former communist countries, these public programs were even more ambitious. In America and Canada, however, the public authorities took less ambitious approach, by mainly building new infrastructures, and allowing the private interests to do the rest. This is how the suburban phenomenon in America was born.
Why they don't work in India?Up to the end of the 1980s, India tried to stay away from the mainstream market economies. Official economic policy was a mixture of socialism and protectionism. The predominant economic actor was the small peasant and the civil servant. The governments since the independence willingly renounced high taxation of peasants and forced industrialization as a tool of capital accumulation. The move from the villages to the cities was moderate. The public authorities applied a mixture of public housing and 'laissez-faire' approaches for dealing with this moderate urbanization. Economic openness changed all this very fast. The demographic pressure on the cities became enormous. The traditional peasant constituencies became poorer. The politicians, always looking for public support, can't find enough funds for accommodating new city dwellers. As a result, the shantytowns boom, and the infrastructures crumble. At some point this leads to intolerably high business costs for foreign investors that can't be compensated with the low cost of labor. Public authorities become part of the problem instead of being part of the solution.
A light in the tunnelA new approach, tailored to match the Indian needs and Indian realities, may be to give enough power to private interests in solving the entire problem, instead of dividing the tasks with a largely ineffective public sector. A recent deal of almost $30 billion that will allow foreign private interests from Dubai to build two whole cities with their entire infrastructures is only the first tentative step in what some day may be called the 'Indian way of urbanization'. The projects will be in the Indian states of Haryana and Maharastra, and they should be completed by 2010 and 2013. Other projects worth of $20 billion were announced shortly after. They all, in one way or in another, target booming residential, retail and office market.
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See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of India.
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