Sustainable Building Design: The larger Issues

7. Governance issues

• Literature from both India and Pakistan is of the opinion that with devolution and decentralisation there is the withdrawal of protection to civil services and this affects their impartiality and intellectual integrity and as a result they cannot be a check and guide on populist inclinations of politicians and become political partisans and tools in their hands. In India for example, at least 3,000 officers are posted and transferred whenever political change takes place. Considerable evidence to show that this has a negative effect on the built-environment (Shahid Kardar and S.K. Das)

• Can academia be involved in research and advocacy on governance related issues related to the built environment?

8. The impact of neo-liberalism

• The market economy promoted by neo-liberalism has had a major effect on the built environment and the actors and factors associated with it.
• New terms and concepts have been promoted. These include
  • “It is not the business of the state to do business”. This has led to the privatisation of utilities and the weakening of state institutions
  • Cities are the “engines of growth”. This has led to major investments in the urban areas at the expense of the rural
  • GDP as the most important measure of economic growth. This has led to unequal development because investments are made where they can grow

• Structural adjustment is an integral part of neo-liberalism. This has curtailed government investment/subsidies in the social sectors. It has been substituted by DFI, BOT, BOO, PPP.
  • These have completely changed the planning paradigm and the manner in which infrastructure projects are identified and implemented.
  • The need for DFI has led to the creation of the concept of special economic zones and corporate farming as a result of which massive dislocation (case of India’s 400 million by 2015)

• WTO political reforms and deregulation have reshaped property and land markets
  • Trading across boarders in gold and contraband goods is no longer lucrative
  • As a result, the gangs and mafias involved in the activities have shifted to the real estate business. This has skewed the land market and promoted massive speculation
  • State has responded to these market pressures and made land available for development through landuse conversion, new development schemes and the bulldozing of informal settlements (Karachi, Delhi, Bombay, Lahore, Calcutta)
  • Killing and kidnapping of opponents, rivals and social activists. (Karachi 17 estate agents killed and 3 activists, Bombay number of cases)

• The above scenario has been further consolidated by the promotion of the concept of the World Class city which has been universally accepted by the major state and corporate sector stakeholders in South Asia

9. The World Class City concept

• Karachi, Bombay, Delhi all aspire to become World Class cities.
• According to the World Class city agenda
  • The city should have iconic architecture by which it should be recognised, such as the highest building or fountain in the world.
  •  It should be branded for a particular cultural, industrial or other produce or happening.
  •  It should be an international event city (Olympics, sports fairs).
  •  It should have high-rise apartments as opposed to upgraded settlements and low-rise neighbourhoods. It should cater to tourism (which is often at the expense of local commerce).
  • It should have malls as opposed to traditional markets. For solving its increasing traffic problem (the result of bank loans for the purchase of cars) it should build flyovers, underpasses and expressways rather than restrict the production and purchase of automobiles and manage traffic better.
  • Doing all this is an expensive agenda and for it the city has to seek DFI and the support of International Financial Institutions (IFIs).
  • For accessing DFI, investment friendly infrastructure has to be developed  and the image of the World Class city established.
  • For establishing this image, poverty is pushed out of the city to the periphery and already poor-unfriendly byelaws (which are anti-street, anti-pedestrian, anti-mixed landuse and anti-dissolved space) are made even more unfriendly by permitting environmentally and socially unfriendly landuse conversions. Hawkers are evicted instead of integrated physically and in economic terms in the city structure

• The three most important repercussions of this agenda are that
  • One, global capital increasing determines the physical and social form of the city
  • Two, in the process projects have replaced planning, and
  • Three, landuse is now determined on the basis of land value alone and not on the basis of social and environmental considerations.