In just two decades, Kochi has undergone a dramatic transformation. From a sleepy port city on India’s Malabar Coast, it is now a warren of high-rises, showrooms for foreign carmakers, a Metro and international hotel chains – all the modern conveniences that mark a “cosmopolitan and global city”. In one corner, it boasts of a Special Economic Zone that has been developed specifically to encourage IT companies. And in another part of this city of less than one million, non-resident billionaire Yousuf Ali has built the country’s largest mall, the Lulu Mall, a small gesture to give “back to his home state of Kerala”.
The story of urban growth, of course, is not unique to Kochi; it is one shared by several second-tier cities across India. It epitomizes the broader ethos within Indian politics that prioritises modernising and globalising of the country’s second-tier cities, and which has culminated in the Modi government’s centrepiece Rs 96,000-crore urban redevelopment project, the Smart Cities Mission.
During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to the UK, his British counterpart David Cameron agreed upon a five-year partnership with India to develop Amravati, Indore and Pune, three of the 100 cities taking part in the smart development mission. Cameron said that the UK should be India’s “number one partner” in raising finance for the campaign and expressed desire for British firms “with their world-class consulting, project management and engineering skills to help...plan, design and build these new cities”. During the trip, a £10 million joint research collaboration between British and Indian scientists was announced to develop new low-cost, low-carbon energy sources for cities.
Visions of a futuristic Singapore
The Modi government’s descriptions of the smart city strategy impressively include everything from “making governance citizen-friendly” to “reducing congestion, air pollution and resource depletion”. It does not, however, say anything about what these cities will look like in practice.
Yet, the repeated touting of cities such as Dholera in Gujarat as “blueprints for the future of smart and connected communities in India” gives some indication of the underlying priorities of the smart city campaign. It suggests a desire to emulate the futuristic visions of Singapore, Shanghai and Dubai that have allowed these cities to become integral nodes on the global circuits of real estate investment, financial exchanges, trade routes and commodity chains.
Driving the priorities of the Smart Cities Mission is the assumption held by India’s central government and municipal corporations that such forms of urban upgrade are crucial for stimulating investment, private enterprise, employment and jump-starting a process of capital accumulation for economic growth. As the Ministry of Urban Development’s concept note from last November said:
Certainly, urban infrastructural development plays a vital role in economic development. As the World Bank points out, India’s cities and towns generate two-thirds of the country’s gross domestic product and account for 90% of government revenues. Nevertheless, there is a need for greater reflection, to question what the smart urban solutions preferred by the government achieve, who they benefit, and who are the interest groups driving their implementation.
Privileging the privileged
In fact, it is important to keep in mind that Modi’s Smart City Mission comes against the backdrop of the increased commercialisation of the smart city rhetoric as a profit-making space for multinational technology companies, corporations that have now set their sights on India.
Outside Mumbai, the real estate developer Lodha Group has already given IBM a contract to develop an “advanced, data driven systems to integrate information from all city operations into a single system to improve efficiency” in the Palava City project.
Similarly, in Bangalore, Cisco is working to build Cisco Smart City, which will use the “the Internet of Everything, to showcase how connected education, connected healthcare, smart buildings, connected transport and smart parking can transform the ways cities and communities are designed, built and renewed to ensure economic, social and environmental sustainability”.
The introduction of smart and connected solutions in the city can, as the corporations point out, open new economic, social and political opportunities. But, they can also be socially divisive.
The Smart City Mission, with its projection of the city as a space of economic promise, privileges not only certain spaces but also people: the consumers and employees of special economic zones, shopping malls, transport and communication hubs, and gated communities. But what of the many others who are not “connected”? What of the urban poor living and working in various forms of informality? For this unprivileged section of the city, such forms of urban development serve to only further disenfranchise them politically, socially and economically. The development exacerbates the existing urban inequalities.
Space of shared life
It is easy to get swept away in the glossy and modern images of a smart city and all that it affords us. But it should not to be forgotten that smart and connected solutions are not a fix-all. They cannot take the place of real investments in public services, be it education, public health or sanitation.
Finally, it is important to be reminded of a more fundamental point: the city is more than just about a space of economic promise. Rajan Chedambath, director of Kochi Municipal Corporation’s Centre for Heritage Environment and Development, expresses this point well. While reflecting on Kochi’s urban transformations, he said, “Sometimes I do have to wonder, when I look at Kochi, what we are becoming. Because like we discussed, Kochi is my city. It’s where I work, where our children go to school, where we make relationships, where we live.”
Building a city is more than about attracting capital flows, more than generating investments or implementing technologies, and it is more than erecting the next Singapore or Shanghai. Amid all the conflicting pulls of economics and politics, the building of a city, at its most basic, is about creating a space of a shared life, of a community. During this time of redoubled efforts to develop Smart Cities, It is important to remember this simple, yet poignant, fact.
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The story of urban growth, of course, is not unique to Kochi; it is one shared by several second-tier cities across India. It epitomizes the broader ethos within Indian politics that prioritises modernising and globalising of the country’s second-tier cities, and which has culminated in the Modi government’s centrepiece Rs 96,000-crore urban redevelopment project, the Smart Cities Mission.
During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to the UK, his British counterpart David Cameron agreed upon a five-year partnership with India to develop Amravati, Indore and Pune, three of the 100 cities taking part in the smart development mission. Cameron said that the UK should be India’s “number one partner” in raising finance for the campaign and expressed desire for British firms “with their world-class consulting, project management and engineering skills to help...plan, design and build these new cities”. During the trip, a £10 million joint research collaboration between British and Indian scientists was announced to develop new low-cost, low-carbon energy sources for cities.
Visions of a futuristic Singapore
The Modi government’s descriptions of the smart city strategy impressively include everything from “making governance citizen-friendly” to “reducing congestion, air pollution and resource depletion”. It does not, however, say anything about what these cities will look like in practice.
Yet, the repeated touting of cities such as Dholera in Gujarat as “blueprints for the future of smart and connected communities in India” gives some indication of the underlying priorities of the smart city campaign. It suggests a desire to emulate the futuristic visions of Singapore, Shanghai and Dubai that have allowed these cities to become integral nodes on the global circuits of real estate investment, financial exchanges, trade routes and commodity chains.
Driving the priorities of the Smart Cities Mission is the assumption held by India’s central government and municipal corporations that such forms of urban upgrade are crucial for stimulating investment, private enterprise, employment and jump-starting a process of capital accumulation for economic growth. As the Ministry of Urban Development’s concept note from last November said:
“Smart Cities are those that are able to attract investments and experts and professionals. Good quality infrastructure, simple and transparent online business and public service that make it easy to practice one’s profession or to establish an enterprise and run it efficiently without any bureaucratic hassles are essential features of a citizen centric and investor-friendly smart city.”
Certainly, urban infrastructural development plays a vital role in economic development. As the World Bank points out, India’s cities and towns generate two-thirds of the country’s gross domestic product and account for 90% of government revenues. Nevertheless, there is a need for greater reflection, to question what the smart urban solutions preferred by the government achieve, who they benefit, and who are the interest groups driving their implementation.
Privileging the privileged
In fact, it is important to keep in mind that Modi’s Smart City Mission comes against the backdrop of the increased commercialisation of the smart city rhetoric as a profit-making space for multinational technology companies, corporations that have now set their sights on India.
Outside Mumbai, the real estate developer Lodha Group has already given IBM a contract to develop an “advanced, data driven systems to integrate information from all city operations into a single system to improve efficiency” in the Palava City project.
Similarly, in Bangalore, Cisco is working to build Cisco Smart City, which will use the “the Internet of Everything, to showcase how connected education, connected healthcare, smart buildings, connected transport and smart parking can transform the ways cities and communities are designed, built and renewed to ensure economic, social and environmental sustainability”.
The introduction of smart and connected solutions in the city can, as the corporations point out, open new economic, social and political opportunities. But, they can also be socially divisive.
The Smart City Mission, with its projection of the city as a space of economic promise, privileges not only certain spaces but also people: the consumers and employees of special economic zones, shopping malls, transport and communication hubs, and gated communities. But what of the many others who are not “connected”? What of the urban poor living and working in various forms of informality? For this unprivileged section of the city, such forms of urban development serve to only further disenfranchise them politically, socially and economically. The development exacerbates the existing urban inequalities.
Space of shared life
It is easy to get swept away in the glossy and modern images of a smart city and all that it affords us. But it should not to be forgotten that smart and connected solutions are not a fix-all. They cannot take the place of real investments in public services, be it education, public health or sanitation.
Finally, it is important to be reminded of a more fundamental point: the city is more than just about a space of economic promise. Rajan Chedambath, director of Kochi Municipal Corporation’s Centre for Heritage Environment and Development, expresses this point well. While reflecting on Kochi’s urban transformations, he said, “Sometimes I do have to wonder, when I look at Kochi, what we are becoming. Because like we discussed, Kochi is my city. It’s where I work, where our children go to school, where we make relationships, where we live.”
Building a city is more than about attracting capital flows, more than generating investments or implementing technologies, and it is more than erecting the next Singapore or Shanghai. Amid all the conflicting pulls of economics and politics, the building of a city, at its most basic, is about creating a space of a shared life, of a community. During this time of redoubled efforts to develop Smart Cities, It is important to remember this simple, yet poignant, fact.