Go Big, Bold & Disruptive

<p><em>Traditional examples, planning tools, benchmark data and models will not be able to help us solve the housing needs, wtires <strong>Sanjay Verma</strong></em><br><br>Earlier this month, Beijing became the first city ever to host both summer and winter Olympics, after it was awarded the 2022 winter Olympic Games. Beijing, which has little or no snow, will have to rely entirely on manmade snow for the games. By all means, this has been a bold and very ambitious move by China and going by its track record, it will make sure it showcases its organising prowess to the world yet again.<br><br>One cannot miss the parallel track that’s part of this story about China’s approach in raising its cities’ profile. Beijing (Summer Olympics 2008), Shanghai (World Expo 2010), Guangzhou (Asian Games 2010), Shenzhen (Summer Universiade 2011) and Nanjing (Youth Olympics 2014) are few of the cities that have immensely benefited from hosting such events. Winter Olympic Games alone will bring $56 billion in investment, mostly for the Zhangjiakou region (a sleepy hill station surrounded by poor rural areas). Compare this to the $40 billion-plus investment in Beijing that went into the 2008 summer games and you will realise that in one ambitious stroke the government will end up urbanising yet another underdeveloped region.<br><br>The point here is not to start the India-China debate. I cited the above example to show that large developing nations such as China and India require more than policy making to tackle the challenges of urbanisation. Apart from how China leverages global events to upgrade and showcase its cities, it’s evident from China’s success (and to some extent from India’s inability in the same space) that the government needs ambition, boldness, imagination and above all, extreme focus on execution to tackle the urbanisation issues, be it infrastructure, housing, income disparity, employment or environmental issues. It’s the last one, where China has not been impressive, that can derail the success story for it.<br><br>I am certainly not advocating that the answer to urbanisation problems is hosting global events, but the fact that political will and national ambition have to be part of the big picture that goes above and beyond announcement of schemes and policy formulation. The case in point is the Commonwealth Games, which gave us more problems than benefits because of our narrow focus, poor planning and extremely inadequate governance towards execution. The trickle-down effect of the event towards urbanisation and development (which should have been the main objectives, because nobody really cares about the Commonwealth!) was cosmetic and too little.<br><br>Urbanisation in India occupies an interesting place on the challenge-opportunity spectrum. India had the second-highest urban population in the world in 2012 and will perhaps be the fastest-growing urban population in absolute terms until 2020. This massive trend holds significant investment opportunity and economic potential, but it also creates challenges like poor infrastructure, lack of affordable housing, unemployment, pollution, crime levels and lower productivity.<br><br>Prime Minister Modi has said on several occasions that urbanisation is often seen as a challenge and yet it can be the biggest opportunity for our country. I completely agree, and especially, at this juncture. If tackled with reasonable political will and a robust execution plan, urbanisation and housing-related investments will not only create significant employment but also become a major source of future GDP growth. Ironically, the challenge created due to poor handling of the urbanisation process in the past now gives rise to this unprecedented opportunity. The trick, however, is to grab it and not squander it away by leaving it to partisan politics and bureaucratic inefficiency.<br><br>Perhaps, the announcement of initiatives (Smart Cities, AMRUT and Housing for All) by the government is the very first step in this direction. Apart from solving our urbanisation needs, these initiatives, if well executed, can bring to the Indian economy what China enjoyed for nearly 20 years, a very high growth. But given our track record of ‘policy to performance’ journeys in the past, this is a herculean task and unless the government supports it with clearly defined accountability structure and execution plans at the micro level, chances that these will end up being slogans, are quite high.<br><br>At the very outset, there is a need for an immediate realisation that our existing government institutions responsible for implementing these initiatives may not be able to deliver on these bold and critical initiatives. There is a need to create new institutions that are focused, nimble and accountable to deliver. We need speedier decision making, agile approval processes and, most importantly, a pool of skilled executives who can be held accountable. The ownership of the overall programme has to quickly cascade to the lowest denominator i.e., city administration level. In other words, whilst the federal policies can create a broad framework, the real benefits and deliverables need to be formulated at the city level.<br><br>There is another reason for a complete overhaul of the planning and delivery system and that has to do with the interesting/exciting times that we live in today where technology, innovation and disruption are causing changes that are too fast to be handled by traditional methods.<br><br>Technology is rapidly changing the basic components of the urbanisation framework. The need and definition of mobility has been turned on its head with the advent of e-commerce and other Internet-enabled platforms. Services like Uber are challenging the basic assumptions for traffic planning and need for parking. Number of applications for driving licenses is already falling in countries where these services have gained momentum. As a result, car ownership levels, parking needs and the framework for office and residential buildings will have to be re-thought. This is just one disruption, we can well imagine the complexity when we start evaluating the total impact of this new ‘knowledge economy’ and how it will unfold in the coming years. The way people live, work and shop is changing more than it ever did. I believe its essential we change the way we look at urbanisation needs in the same manner.<br><br>The writing is on the wall. Traditional examples, planning tools, benchmark data and models will not be able to help us as we embark on solving the urbanisation and housing needs for the next couple of decades.<br><br>I am an optimist and a big believer in the India urbanisation opportunity, but we live in a disruptive world and there is work to be done. This time, we cannot afford to let it slip!&nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 24-08-2015)</p>