Talking economics as if people mattered (part 2)

Here as promised a gist of what I said at the 6th South Asian Economic Summit's Managing Urbanisation Inclusively  session...

The background to the session seemed to suggest that being ‘inclusive’  is about the rural-urban gap, looking at ways in which the rural labourers, left out of the growth that is being generated by the cities, are able to benefit from that growth.  

The result of this is a labour force which remains predominantly agricultural and rural, while a small proportion of the population – that which is urban and more highly-skilled enjoys the benefits of growth and integration with the global economy.

What I wanted to point out in this session was that growth within cities is not equal either.  If one begins to talk economics as if people mattered, then one would see that urban development is beginning to transform city space, and relationships between people living in the city, in ways  that privilege some city dwellers and not others.  This is a conversation that we have been having at the Centre for Poverty Analysis, it was a sub-theme of our re-imagining development symposium last year, and is the subject of several posts on our blog and on contributions we have made to our Monday Morning Question in the Island, and to the Lanka Monthly Digest.

Of course city transformations, and city modernisation is nothing new.  Paris was ‘modernised’ in the 19^th century, under Napoleon’s instructions  and post World War II the same happened in New York.  In the second half of the 1950s, the Lincoln Square Urban Renewal Project in New York  created the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts and was supposed to build the image of a US that was culturally mature.  It was met with organised resistance by the people who defended the complex social world of their old neighbourhood and had a view of urban culture that was diametrically opposed to what was on offer.

Today, we are experiencing the transformation of Colombo into a ‘World Class City’ that will attract investors and become a preferred destination for business and tourism.  It could be argued that the city landscape may not be the only condition to attract investors, but that said, Colombo is, undoubtedly looking its best, albeit with a very ‘colonial’ feel. Different parts of the city have been leased (sold?) to developers who are expected to transform these areas into hotels (e.g. Shangri La), apartment blocks (e.g. the controversial Krissh Towers), commercial centres (e.g. lease of Slave Island to Tata) and a myriad of other transformative initiatives as small as the provision of a helipad and a car park for Temple Trees, the Metro Colombo Development Project funded by the World Bank.  But what about the citizens of this city?  Does the transformation include them?

50% of Colombo’s population lives in underserved settlements – which is a euphemism for slums.  Most of these settlements have been around for ages some with permanent/semi-permanent housing on land that belongs to the state or is owned privately.  Urban poverty is 6.6% according to official statistics, but the actual numbers are high, and we have reason to believe that the measure possibly underestimates the number of poor families. 

The people in these settlements provide innumerable services to the city – you will see them employed by the company that has the contract to clean the city, we go to them when we want a key cut, a bicycle repaired; they work in our homes, in the eating houses, they wash our clothes, they drive the three wheelers, they sell fish/vegetable/lottery tickets door to door.  They are the rather vilified ‘informal sector’ and while I cannot comment on their ‘productivity’ but I do know that they form an integral service to the city. They bring diversity to the capital,   you only have to walk through multicultural Slave Island, or Grandpass to recognise that the Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese have lived side by side for decades, cooking their biriyani, worshipping at their kovils, lighting candles to their saints and lighting up their houses for Vesak.   What is their role in this transformed city?

As far as I can see the urban transformation we are observing in Colombo

•           will displace (and relocate) about 70,000 families in the underserved settlements – no evidence that the National Involuntary Resettlement Policy is being implemented in this process, or even World Bank safeguards employed
•        is destroying landmark institutions e.g. dhobis who received land from the Dutch rulers[2]
•           is undermining the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) with the power of the better resourced Urban Development Authority.   CMC is a democratic institution that should be strengthened – and despite its many shortcomings has spent many man hours raising funds and supporting the USS
•          is creating very scripted public spaces – that is catering to a certain type of city dweller, and is almost ‘regimented’ in its design (the script also includes certain symbols of a prevailing ideology e.g. an army tank in the middle of the wetlands).  People have talked about ‘convivality’ of public spaces (Ivan Illich)  or public spaces to promote social integration – will these spaces do that?

     The changes are taking place with limited consultation.  In a sense, everyone is excluded.  No one has a voice in what is taking place.  But some are clearly benefiting more than others... 

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[1] Samuel Zipp (2009):The battle of Lincoln Square: neighbourhood culture and the rise of

Vol. 24, No. 4, October 2009, 409–433

[2] On the landside of Galle Face, where it slopes down to the Beira Lake there  lived a small community of dhobis. They had been there since the Dutch times and, probably, long before.  When the land was required for the new Military Hospital the dhobis were given land for their houses and a “drying-ground” across the lake in Kollupitiya village on the land known as Polwatte.  The dhobis settled down there and dis their washing and carried their customer’s clothes across the lake to the Fort by canoe.  They even used donkeys to carry their bundles.  Most of the washing was done for the British”  H M Mervyn P Herath (2004), Colonial Kollupitiya and its Environs, pp37