
How one Indian city cracked the problem of urban spread - godelmachine
https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/11/24/how-one-indian-city-cracked-the-problem-of-urban-spread
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Tade0
_But the Atlas of Urban Expansion, a project based in New York University,
estimates that roads built in Ahmedabad after 2000 are 8.5m wide, on average,
compared with 7.2m for roads built earlier. Roads also take up more of the
land area in the newly developed suburbs. Because wide roads can carry more
cars and buses, future suburbanites in Ahmedabad ought to be spared the awful
traffic jams that frustrate large Indian cities such as Delhi and Mumbai._

I grew up next to a three lane street(roughly 18m in total width) that lead to
the suburbs which in turn experienced rapid growth during the nineties,
continuing a few years into the 21st century.

The additional few tens of thousands of new inhabitants commuting each day to
work were enough to turn this place into congestion hell.

I don't think 8.5m - even each way is going to cut it in a city of well over 5
million.

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ethbro
Thankfully, if there's enough room, you can repurpose roads into light / heavy
rail when density increases enough.

Especially if the roads were laid out with foresight instead of organically
tangling.

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baq
Good luck with that when everyone already has a car...

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marcthe12
Actually motorcycle are popular in India. Most people use motorcycles in
India. It wosen the traffic as bikes can cut between cars.

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choot
Motorcycle aren't as safe as cars.

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newnewpdro
My impression of India isn't a population that prioritizes safety. Just look
up footage of trains in India, there are as many people clinging from the
outside as there are inside.

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Arnt
I've travelled on a few different trains in India. More than a few actually,
though not close to a hundred. Without seeing a single person clinging to the
outside.

I've seen those in films and on photos, yes, just not in person. So maybe it's
not that common, really? Except when a million people need to flee from the
latest flood in Bihar.

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viburnum
This article has it backwards. Long, straight, wide roads are great for
speeding cars but terrible for humans. It's the different between walkable
places like and suburban American car sewers. But confidently wrong is
completely on brand for this magazine, so thumbs up for them.

~~~
kartickv
Pedestrians will also have a shorter walk if roads are straight, won't they?
And, unlike cars, which can easily drive a kilometer or two further with no
strain, pedestrians and cyclists are sensitive to this.

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jaggederest
In the limit, you build roads too small for cars, like in the old walled
medieval cities in europe. They are in general great places to walk and
terrible places to drive.

In the other limit, you build like e.g. Detroit suburbs, where it's
essentially impossible to do anything on foot, ever.

If you have to choose which one to be more like, curvy narrow roads are the
way to go if you care about pedestrians.

Add to this the fact that, if you provide space for cars, they will take it
up: adding lanes / width / parking increases car usage to a greater extent
than the space added, such that you end up drawing more congestion to the area
than before it was improved.

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kartickv
We can control polluting vehicles by imposing a pollution charge, or even
banning them from some roads. Or by limiting them to only one lane.

I was trying to think in an idealistic or "from first principles" way as
opposed to the practical / realistic approach you took. From that point of
view, I'd want all roads to be straight lines to minimise travel distance.

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BIackSwan
As a counter argument i propose you read the book “Seeing like a state” by
James Scott.

It clearly lays out the flawed thinking as done in the article and why this
systematic kind of urban planning/engineering almost always fails.

Having been a resident of ahmedabad for a decade and having several friends
here let me point out that the residents here have seen commute times increase
despite all the planning and expansion of roads here.

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bengaluru
Happy/sad here. European cities are shifting to bikes to cut pollution (noise,
brake dust, emission ...) amongst other things so that they are "livable"
again. They are definitely putting in kinks in straight roads to prevent
speeding and other rash driving. Unfortunate; Looks like Ahmedabad is aping
the west (or US more precisely) by prioritizing cars and might end up with
problems plaguing these cities now.

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ethbro
The biggest problem seems to be preemptively cutting out speculators.

It'd be nice to see some kind of eminent domain clawback for someone who
bought land solely for speculative zoning change.

Whether financial (e.g. compensating landowners on a multiplier scale
according to how long they've owned the property) or legal (e.g. land recently
sold is more easily seized via eminent domain, weakening the new owner's
bargaining position).

Land development in a coherent, socially productive manner is the ultimate
tragedy of the commons -- the individually optimal move is always to be enough
of a dick so that the social utilities get built on your neighbors' lands,
then reap the benefits.

~~~
yholio
It may seem unfair that speculators exist, but the losers there are the
previous owners and not the rest of society. For those who buy flats in a
residential building, the price will be the same regardless of who gets to
pocket the land appreciation, a farmer or a real estate investor.

The best way to protect the owners is to make the development process as
transparent and impartial as possible, so that everybody can act on that
information not just those with privileged access. For example, the local
government could mandate that infrastructure development proceeds in
concentric circles radiating from a virtual center point of the city, and
layout a plan for a decade or two, with a number of stages. After this, money
is awarded according to the plan, as the city needs to grow.

So the information about a future urban development is known a decade in
advance and the true owners can enjoy a steady growth in value as the events
unfold. Speculators can still invest, but they need to do so well in advance,
driving the whole land appreciation by providing liquidity.

~~~
ethbro
I do believe it's unfair, but my point is more about it being _inefficient_.

A measured and transparent expansion system would be one way to help that,
although complexity would vary widely with locale (plains vs river cities).

The problem with (independent) speculators is that the city is trading a
largely rational actor (agricultural land owner) with capital / a solely
profit-driven actor (speculator).

My point is the latter is less inclined to compromise than the former, to the
detriment of urban development.

One could make the point that aggregating speculators serve a necessary role,
but I don't see much value delivered by "smaller than a planned community"
types.

Furthermore, I _have_ seen them hold up urban progress. It only takes one
landowner to prevent a contiguous utility from being constructed...

~~~
yholio
Rational, in this context, means profit maximizing - both kinds of landowners
should act in a similar way. If the owners compromise to less than the value
of the land, sure, that's a way to redistribute the savings back to society,
but it's still unfair to them. It also opens a major conflict of interest for
those controlling the negotiation to get involved and grab some of that money
on the table.

I much rather empower all owners to maximize the value of the land, but at the
same time, have sane eminent domain regulation that prevent them for getting
rich at the taxpayer's expense. So any inefficiency is the result of
legislation that allows speculators to abuse the process.

~~~
ethbro
Rational only means strictly profit maximizing under simple economic
treatments. In this case, we're talking about improvements that boost land
value, but must be agreed to / enforced on all.

Consequently, you deal with local optima, when everyone is perfectly
individually greedy, no improvements can be constructed, and everything is
less "good" than it could be (for the individuals and society).

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kartan
The solution looks good. But the remaining problem is density. The higher the
density the easier is to provide services for the population. New York, Tokyo,
Paris, etc, have several store tall buildings with people living in
apartments. For what I see these new cities are more similar to Los Angeles or
Mexico City than anything else. Single-family homes spread all over the place
without access to trains or subways.

I have lived all my life in apartments. So, for me, it feels normal and it is
very practical. I guess that if you are used to single-family homes that is a
difficult step to make.

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screye
It's a shame that Indian cities aren't designing themselves around public
transport. Road projects ensure a continuous under the table paycheck, unlike
public transport....so roads are easier to fund. But, they really aren't the
answer.

India is perfectly structured for public transport. High density, massive
village -> city migration, a primarily lower-middle class population and some
of the worst pollution on Earth .

Mumbai and Delhi are 2 cities that are now entirely dependent on public
transport. Many rich people in Mumbai take the local train, because of it
being faster and more reliable than roads during peak times.

Despite the public demand for it, it is very hard to now retroactively
construct public transportation infrastructure in Mumbai.

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baybal2
I don't think there is any much "innovativity" in that approach, just urban
development done right.

