Link to a depressing article in today’s Wall Street Journal. But why would the authors pick an extreme case like Lucknow as their case study, I couldnt quite understand… Perhaps Patna didn’t make the cut. Its like choosing Detroit as a case study to talk about neighborhood foreclosures. A bit of smelly trivia from Lucknow – the city hasnt completed any major sewage infrastructure project since before the country’s independence in 1947. Leaving Lucknow aside, the numbers are pretty startling :
- India has 41 cities with more than 1 million people up from 23 two decades ago.( compare to US that has 9 cities with 1million+ population -http://www.citymayors.com/gratis/us-census2000.html)…very soon half a dozen others will join the list
- India has 25 of the world’s 100 fastest growing urban areas…that compares to 8 in China
Some quick comparison between the WSJ data (2007) and the information on US cities from city mayors website (2003 data). For those familiar with some the second tier Indian cities..the whole comparison can be unsettling and absurd.. even before one starts thinking about land area, population density, GDP, city budget etc !! Note numbers are rounded to nearest tenth of a million.
New York ( 8.1 million) ~ Mumbai ( 19 million)
Los Angeles ( 3.8 million) ~Surat (3.85 million)
Chicago (2.9 million) ~ Jaipur ( 2.9 million)
Houston (2.0 million) ~ Patna ( 2.15 million)
Philadelphia ( 1.5 million) ~ Ludhiana ( 1.6 million)
Phoenix (1.4 million) ~ Meerut (1.4 million)
San Diego (1.3 million) ~ Jamshedpur ( 1.3 million)
…and its gets even crazier
9 x [San Jose -0.9 million] ~ Bangalore (6.8 million)
12 x [ Detroit - 0.9 million] ~ Chennai (7.2 million)
2 x [ San Francisco - 0.75 million] ~ Faridabad (1.4 million)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124216531392512435.html#video%3D4E0F32B9-66FC-4338-9BE5-F97CC58FC787%26articleTabs%3Darticle%26project%3DIURBAN090
