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The Ruin of Mumbai

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Re: The Ruin of Mumbai

#31

Post by elevatedastalt »

anon291 wrote: post #15

I have never lived in Bombay, but my parents grew up there, and our family history there goes back to before it was even a city. Indians have an insatiable appetite for centralized economic planning that has done nothing but hurt the country. For me, it's inexplicable, but it's often like trying to talk at a wall. It makes American NIMBY's look like transit advocates. And for all the fascination with bureaucracy, the…

> evicting tenants for things that would be trivial in America, such as failure to pay

Evicting tenants is a MASSIVE pain in the ass in many American states.

Re: The Ruin of Mumbai

#32

Post by danlugo92 »

blackhawkC17 wrote: post #24
anon291 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say... for a city with a population almost that of the entire state of California, this is hardly anything. To put that in perspective, California spends 200-300 billion each year.

Many people seem to struggle with the difference between absolute and proportional values. Something similar in my country (Nigeria). Many people keep pointing out that Lagos, our most crowded and number one commercial city, has an annual budget of roughly $1 billion, meaning there should be world-class infrastructure. Until I point out that $1 billion is roughly $50 annually per person. Even accounting for labor and…

> Until I point out that $1 billion is roughly $50 annually per person.

I wanted to make a comparison with New York Metropolitan Area and they spend 20 billion only in traffic stuff.

Re: The Ruin of Mumbai

#33

Post by anon291 »

valarauko wrote: post #30
anon291 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your vision of India is a mirror house vision of a 50 year old India at best. Well realistically, this is when my family left, but the article seems to cite the same pain points today. Also, I think this comment exemplifies some of the issues with Indian society. The moment one levels a criticism, suddenly, the rather pointed criticism is taken as a criticism of society as a whole. At no point did I criticise India…

> How long does an Indian passport take? I'd applied for a passport in the summer of 2020, during the height of the COVID lockdown. I could get an appointment at the passport office within a week (socially distanced, reduced capacity), and had my passport in hand the next week. Prepandemic I'd say the average was about 10 days, for passport renewal. A fresh passport takes more time since it requires 'police verificat…

> I'd applied for a passport in the summer of 2020, during the height of the COVID lockdown. I could get an appointment at the passport office within a week (socially distanced, reduced capacity), and had my passport in hand the next week

So no different than America? The official site says 8 - 16 weeks, but in my experience, they come promptly within a week or two at most. Unless you have confusing circumstances that require manual review. I had a friend going to Ireland and his entire family had the passports within days but he filled out his form wrong and it took the full eight weeks, including a visit.

I mean, we just renewed a passport last week, and got it this week.

I'm happy the passport process is so streamlined, but again that wasn't the point of the article. Nor is passport processing times at all related to government intervention in the economy.

Re: The Ruin of Mumbai

#34

Post by selimthegrim »

alephnerd wrote: post #27
selimthegrim wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you make of the DDC trying to demolish the mosque in Delhi currently then?

Mixed bag. They shouldn't have demolished the historic Akhondji masjid (it is truly ancient), but the slum built around it was built on land that was encroached on. Delhi is ruled by the opposition AAP. It's not like Temples don't get demolished either [0], and 4 temples were demolished along with the Akhondji Masjid [1] during the Mehrauli demolishment drive. If it was truly egregious Islamophobia, Indian allies lik…

https://thepatriot.in/heritage/experts-historians-object-to-...

NDMC is 80% controlled by Central Government, not Delhi government. (Sorry I should have written NDMC instead of MCD (which is what I meant by DDC above)).

Re: The Ruin of Mumbai

#35

Post by jkic47 »

marcinzm wrote: post #7
jkic47 wrote: post #3

In fraught issues like rent control and housing, I often see claims like the one in the article that people moving to cities can see up to a 30% increase in income, but they never seem to factor in the increase in costs, which could be far higher than 30%, leading to a net loss. Same story with global warming claiming additional deaths due to increased temperatures without the corresponding statistic on deaths due to…

> Same story with global warming claiming additional deaths due to increased temperatures without the corresponding statistic on deaths due to cold. I am not claiming the point is invalid - just that a fuller picture can make the conversation richer. Studies on this definitely account for both. Of course, given that cold related deaths are already significantly fewer than heat deaths there isn't much to talk about be…

Not sure where you see my comment assuming they are idiots or malicious. I just note that they don't mention it, where they might reference the study that supports your assertion that they are significantly fewer.

Re: The Ruin of Mumbai

#37

Post by addicted »

anon291 wrote: post #28
addicted wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is almost entirely ahistorical. India as a country is about 75 years old. It’s ridiculously young. India is the largest democracy in the world despite having half as many official languages as American states, and an order of magnitude more spoken languages, cultures and religions. Despite this India has remained a largely integral state, has seen authoritarian rule and seen it off in a few years, unlike…

> Your vision of India is a mirror house vision of a 50 year old India at best. Well realistically, this is when my family left, but the article seems to cite the same pain points today. Also, I think this comment exemplifies some of the issues with Indian society. The moment one levels a criticism, suddenly, the rather pointed criticism is taken as a criticism of society as a whole. At no point did I criticise India…

> but the article seems to cite the same pain points today.

The issues raised by the article are a result of colonial era policies. And it’s not clear what the author means by “Mumbai” because they don’t link or reference most of their claims but I suspect they’re talking about Mumbai proper which is fully built out. The growth of Mumbai is happening in the “suburbs” (very different from American suburbs in that they’re denser than Mumbai proper) and connecting them through a newly built subway system.

> At no point did I criticise India's democracy or accuse it of authoritarianism.

You claimed Indians have an insatiable appetite for central planning and this has led to a massive waste of human potential. I showed through the Chinese example that Central Planning does not necessarily lead to any waste of human potential and almost certainly is responsible for the greatest use of human potential in the history of human civilization. But more so, India is an extremely federal state, maybe behind only the U.S. and the EU if you consider the EU a state.

> It would behoove you, and Indians more generally, to listen to the criticism without getting confused over what's being criticised.

I agree Indians don’t take criticism well and that’s a problem. My comment was not because I can’t take criticism. I can write a critique of India today where the footnotes would be longer than the original blog post. Heck I’ve written that (I won’t post because I don’t want to lose my anonymity).

The problem is that your criticism is completely wrong and worse backwards. India’s problem has nothing to do with an insatiable appetite for central planning. If anything India’s problem arises from a lack of sufficient central planning.

Let’s talk about the U.S. The US is extremely federal but almost all the useful infrastructure in the U.S. is still a result of central planning around World War 2. The highway system, the massive series of dams and other energy projects, land grant colleges, etc.

My issue isn’t with you criticizing. My issue is with you criticizing based on knowledge from 50 years ago where the criticism isn’t just wrong but actually backwards.

Re: The Ruin of Mumbai

#38

Post by alephnerd »

selimthegrim wrote: post #34
alephnerd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mixed bag. They shouldn't have demolished the historic Akhondji masjid (it is truly ancient), but the slum built around it was built on land that was encroached on. Delhi is ruled by the opposition AAP. It's not like Temples don't get demolished either [0], and 4 temples were demolished along with the Akhondji Masjid [1] during the Mehrauli demolishment drive. If it was truly egregious Islamophobia, Indian allies lik…

https://thepatriot.in/heritage/experts-historians-object-to-... NDMC is 80% controlled by Central Government, not Delhi government. (Sorry I should have written NDMC instead of MCD (which is what I meant by DDC above)).

Sunehri Bagh Masjid hasn't been demolished: it's still there.

Also it appears you are confusing different cases.

It's going through the court system, as it should.

Hindu temples go through the cycle as well, and as I noted above, 4 Hindu temples neighboring the Akhondji Masjid were demolished as well.

Look, I won't deny that it sucks being Muslim in India, but not every act is explicitly done out of Islamophobia.

If I wanted to, I could say the same thing about Hindu Mandirs being demolished in Karachi's slum redevelopment program as well (not out of Hinduphobia)

Finally, I've never heard of "The Patriot" before. The primary newspapers in Delhi are The Tribune's Delhi Edition and The Hindustan Times, and it's been that way for over a century.

Re: The Ruin of Mumbai

#40

Post by anon291 »

addicted wrote: post #37
anon291 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your vision of India is a mirror house vision of a 50 year old India at best. Well realistically, this is when my family left, but the article seems to cite the same pain points today. Also, I think this comment exemplifies some of the issues with Indian society. The moment one levels a criticism, suddenly, the rather pointed criticism is taken as a criticism of society as a whole. At no point did I criticise India…

> but the article seems to cite the same pain points today. The issues raised by the article are a result of colonial era policies. And it’s not clear what the author means by “Mumbai” because they don’t link or reference most of their claims but I suspect they’re talking about Mumbai proper which is fully built out. The growth of Mumbai is happening in the “suburbs” (very different from American suburbs in that they…

> I showed through the Chinese example that Central Planning does not necessarily lead to any waste of human potential and almost certainly is responsible for the greatest use of human potential in the history of human civilization.

Hold your horses. I agree that Chinese central planning has done wonders for China. However, American-style distributed planning is still clearly superior. American GDP growth has been continuous for years, and America is currently completely outpacing China. Many economists predict China's decline over the next few decades as the centrally planned demographics cliff hits. I think it's foolish to be overly impressed by China, and I think your characterization of it as the 'greatest use of human potential in the history of human civilization' is completely off point.

> Let’s talk about the U.S. The US is extremely federal but almost all the useful infrastructure in the U.S. is still a result of central planning around World War 2. The highway system, the massive series of dams and other energy projects, land grant colleges, etc.

Hmm... well certainly some are, but the highway system is distributed planning. The feds centrally fund it, but individual states are responsible for actually planning the highway's routes, as long as certain conditions are met. The majority of American highways existed before the interstate acts. The acts simply brought them up to standards and ensured a consistent numbering system. For example, before I-5 was designated, there was the 'Pacific highway' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Highway_(United_States...) built in a distributed manner by three states acting together at the behest of groups of individuals.

Moreover, a lot of American infrastructure is private: hospitals, banking, energy, rail. This was even more true in the developing years of the American economy. By the time the federal highway funds came in, America was already a 'developed' country, and had developed without much central planning.

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