[Repost of a July 2003 article.]
A head’s up from Rajesh Jain on an article Asia Times Online titled Why India’s Economy Lags Behind China’s got me thinking once again about popular misconceptions about development matters. Journalists are particularly susceptible to some of these. An example appears in the article. Continue reading “The Importance of Agriculture in GDP”
Sramana Mitra looks beyond Bangalore. She writes:
Continue reading “Beyond Bangalore”
Every now and then, suddenly things make a lot of sense when one gets to know the background story. Keith Hudson’s latest dispatch on the Iran situation is one such succinctly described brief. Here it is for the record.
Continue reading “Background Brief: Iran”
Cities are engines of growth because they “manufacture” wealth. That is why rich economies are predominantly urban, and those economies that are largely rural are poor. Therefore the transition from a poor economy to a rich one depends on the transition of the majority of the population from being rural to urban. The scale and quality of the basic habitation unit determines the success of an economy. A large number of small villages is sufficient for poverty; a number of large cities is necessary for prosperity. Economic growth is both a cause and consequence of urbanization, as can be seen anywhere around the world.
Continue reading “Coordination of the Factors”
The basic law of economics, of supply and demand, is a bitch. Like gravity, it is all-pervasive and you would have as much success overturning it as overturning the law of gravitational attraction or inventing the much sought after perpetual motion machine. It is primarily ignorance of basic physical conservation laws that makes designers of perpetual motion machines attempt the impossible. A similar lamentable ignorance of economics also impels people to act as if the iron law of supply and demand can be ignored.
Continue reading “Of Buffaloes and Children”
“If you believe that the money exists for building amazing futuristic cities in India, you must be certifiably insane.” That is the standard reaction to my scheme for building 600 cities for the 700 million Indians currently trapped in 600,000 villages. Where will the money come from? My answer is simple: out of thin air. That’s when they suddenly remember that they have an urgent appointment with their hair dresser or chiropractor.
Continue reading “Financing Designer Cities”
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Continue reading “Abolishing Unjust Governments”
Planning is uniquely human. Planning shapes not just human institutions and artifacts but indeed creates the future that is unknown and unknowable. Granted, the best laid schemes of mice and men, often go awry, as the poet lamented. When it comes to central planning, or planning by an all-powerful government bureaucracy, you can say that those schemes are guaranteed to go awry. Continue reading “The Best Laid Schemes”
I am going to be in Singapore next week for a few days on work. Arrive Singapore Monday 9th early morning and leave on the evening of 12th.
I have given instructions to the monkeys with typewriters in the basement to carry on with their random typing as always. Sufficient bananas and peanuts has also been stocked. So I don’t think there will be any disruption in the output of this blog. You may have noticed that of late, the output of the monkeys has gone up. That is because better management techniques have been instituted in the basement. Think more frequent whipping.
Creating a compelling vision which has the power to inspire is the first step to economic growth and therefore towards development. We have to imagine the future state first before we can make it a reality. Imagine that instead of 600,000 tiny villages, the same 700 million people were living and working in cities. Imagine that we had 600 cities with around a million people each on average. Let’s call these “Designer Cities” or DeCi (pronounced “desi.”)
Continue reading “Designer Cities”
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 