SB/Naveen Sirs,

Both of you are right - we have almost arrived at the solution to the burning problem of craze for CBD / City phobia.

Chinese, it appears, have adopted this model successfully.  It is like the great saying 'if mohammad cannot go to mountain, the mountain will come to mohammad'.  if authorities cannot provide services to the habitats around the great cities, simply make them a part of the great city/agglomeration - like BBMP with 198 wards and let those farmers reap the harvests of sky rocketing real estate values, establishment of Cafe coffee days, peter englands, leos, KFCs, Malls - examples - marathhalli, Hosakerehalli, Koramangala, Hosur are classic examples.

- Most of these extensions have good schools, good hospitals, better parks, Malls and environs and residents have reduced their trips to CBD areas except visiting MG/Kg Rd etc., for a change and occasionally for some bulk purchases that may be cheaper in City Market area !. 

If we have to remove this CBD phobia and decongest further, reduce various pollutants and save the Silicon/garden city from decay, some fighters like Mr.Ashok Kheny with a couple of NICE roads in N E W S directions, dotted with self contained mini cities with attendant facilities and catering to different kinds of citizenry with bases like industry , cultural, heritage value etc., may have to come forward and just do it to namma Bengaluru.  Other improvements -

-Piped gas from Bombay High,

-interconnected river basins for equitable distribution of water between neighboring states,

- large scale usage of solar energy for lighting homes and streets

- Desalination of sea water into potable water

-import of goods as an alternative to fuel gurgling  industries,  from other countries

Such cities /extensions may be served with Mono rail facilities like the olympic rings with interconnectivity and with one ticket duly supported by metro rail from North toSouth and East to West. 

If there is good connectivity at reasonable cost, people will not hesitate in settling anywhere and everywhere.  Government should only be a facilitator and a regulator for keeping a semblance of control over untoward happenings in execution of such projects but without being a pain in the neck. 

Mega projects are not the cup of tea of government agencies - we have had bad experiences in Bengaluru and even now are suffering.

My wish list includes

a) piggy back car transportation on the decks of high speed trains using minimum fuel but travelling in a magentically elevated rail system to reduce load on inter-city connecting road infrastructure and to reduce fuel consumption;

b) finally, to transport raw liquid sewerage laced with chemicals to remove the smell,   pumping  and loading it on to trucks like Petrol tankers, dump a few quintals of seeds that can grow in arid regions/deserts etc., piggy back those tankers on the decks of high speed goods trains, transport them and then transfer the sewerage contents and spray the liquid with seeds on to the desert areas with the help of built in powerful pumps in those tankers.

- Fantasy unlimited?   No Sirs, it will be much cheaper to transport than to establish 100s of sewage treatment plants as the population grows. The double barrel effect will be you will be greening the desert areas with the help of the seeds that sprout and establish themselves but species may have to be identified by our agricutlural experts.

- All these are 100 per cent possibilities and we are talking about 2050.

- Vasanth Mysoremath

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Some data to ponder over

Tokyo (src: wiki)

Population- 12.7 mil

Area - 2187sqkm

Density - 5847 people/sqkm

HK (src: wiki)

Population - 7mil

Area - 1108 sqkm

Density - 6054 people/sqkm

Bangalore (src: bbmponline.org)

Population - 6.8mil

Area - 800 sqkm

Density - 8500 people/sqkm

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I will be 80 and am not sure I want to be around :) given how well we treat our senior citizens today.

Lets look at 2050.  I have a very pessimistic outlook of 2050 and this will colour my post.

a. Climate change will ensure that monsoons would have become extremely unpredictable and we will have an absolute deluge of people into urban areas.   Bangalore would have burst at its seams.  I would say even 17-18 million is feasible.  Doubling in 35 years using the rule of 70 means 2% growth -  3-5% is more likely

b. We will be well past peak oil (expected anytime between 2010 and 2020).  Given the state of coal resources brown outs will be rampant.  The smarter people would have gone for solar power and rainwater harvesting.

c. India will have a population of some 1.8-2 billion depending on how well we have done our family planning.  Tigers, elephants will be extinct in India and forest cover will be down to 4-5% at best. 

We should ensure

a. We would have finished about 150-200 km of Metro in Bangalore with all arterial roads covered and have a dedicated nuclear plant to keep this going (somewhere near Bellary which would have been converted to wasteland anyway).

b. More space for cycles and walking as that will be the only affordable option. 

c. We will have a much smaller city with most offices vertical and give incentives to pull down current buildings on MG Road and Old Airport Road and build 50-60 storey buildings.  Essentially have 30-40 of 60 storey buildings in a 5-6 square km each with 5-6 million square feet of space.  or about 200 millon square feet of space or a place where 2-3 million people work.  There will be similar working hubs in 4-5 parts of the city.  (Driving from 35 km, etc will simply not be affordable)

d. Provide enough economic incentive for vertical housing as well and ensure that space is conserved and people live closer to work.  We cannot afford urban sprawl.

Srivathsa

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 Climate change will ensure...

Between a killer virus and climate change... I would pick the virus. I guess we dont have to wait billions of years for the sun to eat up the earth.

Back to the point. Cycling and walking will become the last mile and not be used for end to end travels. Local bicycle rentals at all hubs need to start getting encouraged with the 1st phase of metro itself and mass transit needs to accomodate velib style bikes. ELCIA is making a good start on last mile cycling per recent reports. That is the way to go inside the city as well.

I agree current FAR is underutilising the space in the CBD and BBMP should approve only those structures that will be considerably taller and compulsorily LEED rated within the CBD. All new residential areas and group housing schemes have to compulsiorly agree to minimum green cover and be audited for the same. If this is not adhered to immediately you will have wall to wall concrete. Relaxation of FAR will help to a great extent.

I dont agree with the not driving 35kms part. People working in BIAL new industrial area will begin to live in chick/dod-ballapur. They will need fast commute into BLR city or to electronic city. Fast commuter rails connecting cities within 60-70kms is a necessity. We cant drag our feet on 1 HSRL for so long. A railway hub needs to be planned near BIAL for super fast trains.

North south & east west roadways (for private+public transport)across BLR city will be needed to connect current IT corridor with the ones coming up at BIAL & Bidadi. This will enable the city to be congestion charged. 

If the above connectivity is not started on now we will be staring at a total meltdown by 2020 itself.

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IDS,

I don;t mean the climate change brought about by the sun becoming a red giant.  I mean the climate change brought on by ourselves through CO2.  More and more of the Arctic is ice free each year.

There will be mass extinction events well before the sun even remotely reaches the red giant stage.  They happen once in 65-70 million years. 

Did not get the people working in BIA staying in Dod/Chik ballapur needing fast connectivity to E-City.  Why??  They don't work there by your first statement.

Cycling is a perfectly viable option for upto 10 km (30 mins one way).  Why do you rule it out summarily? 

Our track record from 1999-2009 is quite poor.  We had SM Krishna who frankly wasted 5 years of a majority rule.  No progress on mass transit, no progress on the airport.  Just tarring roads is not a very big achievement.

I see us headed for total meltdown given our track record - on power, water, education, transport, environment.  The crisis will be huge and that will force us to rethink our whole approach.  

You are a technology cornucopian; I am not.  With oil at $20, we could not commercialize desalination.  We are as far from nuclear fusion as we were in 1980 with viable fusion always 20 years away.  And we will have 9 billion people on our planet by 2050.

Srivathsa

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mean the climate change brought on by ourselves through CO2

I know what you meant, I threw in the red gaint to emphasise the inevitability. You have a point there about the extinction, my take is it will probebly be a virus.

working in BIA staying in Dod/Chik ballapur needing fast connectivity to E-City.  Why??

There may be requirements to travel to IT corridor also. We cant box people into corners can we.

Why do you rule it out summarily? 

Not ruling out but considering the population and mass transport scenario we should encourage last mile connectivity by cycle. Not that there wont be mavericks doing their 30kms by cycle.

We look to the west to provide us technology to do everything. Desalination should have been perfected by the countries which lack water supply namely 'us'. This is why I want the govt out of silly business interests like airplanes, buses, watches, soaps etc and go back to utilizing tax rupees on fundemental research. The spin offs need to be given to industry and move along. Not sit down and start running things. Leave businesses to the people who are running around for employment anyway, Abdul Kalam said yesterday "Today, India needs employment generators, not employment seekers. And the quality of an employment generator is creative leadership."

Understand your pessimism, but necessity is the mother of invention. Technology is what will bail out mainkind not going back to living in caves. 

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So what needs to be done now to complete the 2050 picture?

• If we believe inner city will have high rises, shouldnt we be granting more FSI to builders
• If there will be new redevelopment shouldnt we be laying down the minumum green requirements for buildings and green ratings? 
• If we believe we need to encourage last mile cycling shouldnt we start providing cycle rental facilities at TTMC, Stations etc? 
• If we believe there will be more mass transit shouldnt we be taking some of these underground inside the ORR? Start with HSRL going underground from ORR onwards.

I believe every suggestion or solution has to think on the Suzy Welch 10-10-10 lines. What will be its impact 10 mins (immediate), 10 months (short term) and 10 years (long term). the 10 is just indicative, the timeline has to be consistent with that in the bracket.

In this cast the long term is 2050 and immediate is what has to happen next year, Any more visions which can lay down the 2050 and 2010 picture? 

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Interesting discussion...

There will be mass extinction events well before the sun even remotely reaches the red giant stage.  They happen once in 65-70 million years.

I think this needs to be corrected - a star becomes a red giant only when dying (after all hydrogen fuel in it's inner core has been used up & when it starts consuming from outer /surfaces). For the sun, this is not expected to happen anytime for the next 4.5-5.0 billion years. Some of the theories for the extinction of dinosaurs are meteor striking earth or some such cosmic event, acid rain or a prolonged ice-age (not because of sun's activity).

Our track record from 1999-2009 is quite poor.  We had SM Krishna who frankly wasted 5 years of a majority rule.  No progress on mass transit, no progress on the airport. Just tarring roads is not a very big achievement.

SM Krishna had pursued both - the erstwhile ELRTS as also BIA. For ELRTS on a 25/75 funding formula, the government had selected a private consortium on a BOT basis (led by UB Group, based on a feasibility study that had pointed to an elevated LRT, 96-km long with 6 routes). This group had asked for 94/6 funding formula after more detailed studies for cost & demand had been made. Thus, the matter had ended there as central govt had no policies in place then to fund such hugely expensive PTs & the state was ill-equipped to fund it entirely by itself. It was only after DMRC's successful funding pattern was realized that the central govt agreed to such proposals elsewhere & has a policy in place now.

For BIA - the civil aviation ministry had similarly posed obstacles with reference to private sector participation & Tatas had pulled out after the unduly long delays. I dont think SM Krishna was to blame.

I see us headed for total meltdown given our track record - on power, water, education, transport, environment.  The crisis will be huge and that will force us to rethink our whole approach.  

Fact is sometimes stranger than fiction, they say. By "meltdown", the implication is that of a doomsday, or annihilation. I believe India, with it's lower levels of consumption patterns, is better positioned to cope with the future than the west. Even China believes in, or at least has shown indications of increasing consumption of scarce resources. India, on the other hand, has consistently been miserly, thanks to it's poverty. This may actually be a blessing in disguise, for the future.

With oil at $20, we could not commercialize desalination. We are as far from nuclear fusion as we were in 1980 with viable fusion always 20 years away. And we will have 9 billion people on our planet by 2050.

True, but current world thinking is against using the atom for any kind of use or solutions for fear of misuse by rogue states. When this thinking changes with resources becoming more & more scarce, policies, opinions & safegurads will automatically be pursued more vigourously & evolve for the benefits that it can offer. As regards desalination, currently, our water requirements are not so acute as to warrant deslaination plants. In any case, costs are currently very high.

If we believe inner city will have high rises, shouldnt we be granting more FSI to builders

FSIs will increase as & when mass-transits are built, as already announced & in the pipeline.

If there will be new redevelopment shouldnt we be laying down the minumum green requirements for buildings and green ratings? 

The new central govt policies seem to be headed generally in this direction, along the lines of international thinking, though progress is slow considering the ground realities here.

If we believe we need to encourage last mile cycling shouldnt we start providing cycle rental facilities at TTMC, Stations etc? 

Absolutely - I like this, I think this is the only viable & clean option, instead of demanding autos, taxis, minibuses & what-have-you. None of these are being used elsewhere, nor can they be cost-efficient.

If we believe there will be more mass transit shouldnt we be taking some of these underground inside the ORR? Start with HSRL going underground from ORR onwards.

The metro ph-2 is expected to have a large portion "buried" below the ground. As per indications, abt 30km is planned underground. The realization has finally dawned on the powers that be (as also us as citizens !) that some excess cost today, though tight on our pockets now, will pay off in the long run. Even as recently as last year, we were critical of the Metro for it's huge cost, not to mention the HSRL.

I believe every suggestion or solution has to think on the Suzy Welch 10-10-10 lines. What will be its impact 10 mins (immediate), 10 months (short term) and 10 years (long term). the 10 is just indicative, the timeline has to be consistent with that in the bracket.

Perfectly said - could'nt agree more.

In this cast the long term is 2050 and immediate is what has to happen next year, Any more visions which can lay down the 2050 and 2010 picture?

I think our city will head in the direction of Manhattan, Chicago & Hongkong in the near term, with tall, huge, ugly, monstrous buildings in CBDs. This trend will continue for the next 10-15 years since it will attract more of the knowledge economy. Subsequently, I think it will taper off - since, by then the world will start changing as the west will begin to see a lot of wastefullness of scarce resources in it's practices.

Man would have become "more equal", unlike today. There will be much more mixing & "cosmopolis" is likely to replace the term "metropolis". It will be quite common to see an englishman or a hispanic working in bengaluru since his profile may bring him here, just as an Indian may be working in distant Iceland or New Zealand since his credentials may be more apt there.

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Dear all, this post is a highly challenging post and I hope my post will kindle various faculties of our learned Prajas for their feedback for posterity.

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Mr.VKM :

Whilst some elements that you mentioned, such as reduction in consumption levels, etc. are inevitable, most others seem quite extreme.

As fantasized by you, use of space is imminent as is dependence on solar energy. Match-box sized homes, such as those in Mumbai & Hongkong is also a distinct possibility in Bangalore.

However, I don't think scarcity of food will reach a level where we will have to depend on sources from outer space due to pollutants on earth. Further, air is never going to be so polluted that we could not breathe. The doomsday scenarios created by movies such as "Death race" & "Wall-E" might never become fact since mankind is aware & will take corrective steps, not to mention mother nature itself (with reduction in reproductive capacities, for example).

Tsunami, El-Ninos, Acid rains, Earthquakes, Volcanoes - Natural phenomena such as these have always been happening & man's activities are partly to blame, no doubt. However, I think with corrective steps, they may never reach a stage where these become a threat to mankind & life itself.

For the deccan plateau to get detached, it would take millions of years, if ever as geological phenomena cannot be predicted with any certainty.

Water will be available in abundance when desalination efforts get more attention, as it will be within a few decades, if not a few years.

These aside, the movie "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly" did not have Sidney Poiter nor was it centered in New York. It had Clint Eastwood (Good), Lee Van Cleef (Bad) & Eli Wallach (Ugly) & was set during the American civil war when part of the money for buying arms in the war effort was stashed away. The story revolves around two recluses & a confederate army man, all of whom are in search for the missing money.

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Thanx Naveen

My mistakes.  But the film was a good one and I think I will have to see it once again to refurbish my memory.

As regs food scarcity, this monsoon was deficient and the Food Ministry forecast is that only 40 per cent khariff ploughing was possible to be completed and it may not be possible to get one crop unless the late september/october rains are sufficient enough.  There will be a shortage of food crops during 09-10.

planning is afoot for importing food grains for meeting the shortage and again it will increase the subsidy part and resulting in increased   deficit budget. 

No doubt what I have posted about doomsday scenario is unlikely and cannot be treated in Nastrodamic proportions; albeit elements of probabilities do exist.

- vasanth mysoremath

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Let me try bring this thread to positive state, and to our home state of Karnataka.

Lets say we buy that prediction about of 2 out of 3 Indian, or Kannadiga (Karnatak-ian I mean) living in a city.

Dig deeper now. Karnataka's population in 2050 could be 10 crores, or 100 mill. Going by 2 in 3 stat. 66 mill could be living in cities.

How many quality cities should the state have by that time? Assume 16 in a good scenario - and 8 in a bad one. How do you distribute 66 mill in 10 cities? Assuming that an aggressive Tier 2 growth strategy could put 3-4 mill in each of those cities by 2050? Then:

• With 16 good cities to live and work in, and 3 mill each in other 15, and leaves 20 mill for Bangalore
• Only 8 to pick from, putting 3 mill in each, you leave 40 million people for Bangalore!!

Maths here is very simplistic, but I just wanted to bring that perspective to this thread.

Tokyo is tokyo, and Hong Kong and Mumbai so because these cities developed at the time when you had to be close to a job center to connect with your colleagues, customers and investors. I am guessing that these cities have only grown as far as 1 hour of fastest public transportation system available can take them.

Bangalore is growing at a time when you don't really have to be that close to collaborate, sell and support for your business.

With that future in mind, or seeing it the other way, that type of future to plan for, the best any government or planner can do for Bangalore today is to prepare those 15-16 centers (that are dismissively referred to as Tier 2 today) that would add some serious redundancy to Bangalore.

The economic equations could very soon force that anyway. When 10000 people live packed in a square kilometer area, cost and quality of living plays out louder than the job and business opportunities. And when good enough job and business opportunities invite elsewhere, we all could move.

I am confident that most of the 30-40 of us who actively spend time talking and doing Praja stuff today would be living elsewhere in the state by 2020 itself.

To sum it up, Masterplan-2015 was only about Bangalore - big mistake. If the city is to do a Masterplan-2020, and Masterplan-2025, we would be wiser to allocate most of the money to build Metros, Tech Parks, BRTs and expressways in Shimoga, Hassan, Hubli, Karward or Udupi.

So now, how does this change the Bangalore -2050 plan?

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What I am thinking is :

1. 911 Service for Fire, Ambulance etc.. operated at the service levels of US. Many of the US companies are outsourcing many services to India and companies in India are working to their standards. Sameway some private company funded by Government on some model should work on the 911 Service with Airlift of accidents and emergencies.

2. Health Insurance part of US is worst and India is following the same with very high costs in Apollos , Mallyas etc.. I was seeing a documentary on Discovery and they described the insurance system in Taiwan, Japan and UK is very good with funding by Government. Something should be done on this front.

3. Infrastructure at the village and town level - Hospitals, Schools, Good Road and Rail Connectivity to nearby cities. Bus connectivity is very important since most villagers are dependent on buses and people go on top of buses. I would like to see by 2020, airconditioned buses plying to villages.

4. Coming to cities, businesses, especially IT businesses which are not dependent on raw materials or water, mostly dependent on Network Connectivity and Power, can be spread across  cities all over Karnataka.  Bangalore should be well connected to these towns by air, train and road network. Especially road connectivity should be good from Bangalore Airport. I want to see Tumkur, Hassan, Mandya and Mysore to take advantage of nearness to Bangalore.

5. Within city, I would like to see fuel cell buses (which are already running in London and Amsterdam) to be running without any emissions.

6. Power and Water requirements should be met by the Government and we should not see any disruption in these services.

I would like to see myself back in Mysore, city where I was born in 2020 (If I am alive).

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SB,

What you suggest may become true to some extent & people may spread out, if fast /reliable mass transits & expressways connect the city to the exteriors.

However, various services such as education, medical, entertainment, etc. work on principles of economics of scale to be cost efficient & the better (or best) services tend to be located in the larger urban centers worldwide, even in Europe or the America/s. It is for this reason that the larger cities keep attracting the best available services first (before other smaller cities).

In India, China & in Asia in general, due to poorer all round development, this has led to huge influx of people to the cities when economies have started improving. Manual labor pools cannot locate too distant from large urban settings as readily available employment becomes more challenging for them.

Thus, though what you point to may well be true for the IT services industry, it may not be true for most other/s since physical presence at location would be a necessity when employed.

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Health Insurance part of US is worst and India is following the same with very high costs in Apollos , Mallyas etc.. I was seeing a documentary on Discovery and they described the insurance system in Taiwan, Japan and UK is very good with funding by Government. Something should be done on this front

The state controlled health services in India have been pathetic & have been nothing more than dens for corruption & misuse of government funds. Reforms in health services have long been overdue. No progress has been made in decades, & there has been a crying need for them.

Something along the lines of low-cost insurance should be thought of for healthcare for the poor in India.

A system that charges an affordable annual premium (say Rs.100/-) can help to run such services better with state support, involving private parties. A watchdog body, such as SEBI or TRAI could monitor functioning of health services for the poor.

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Just looking back on this comment I had good ideas on making BIA a railway hub with super fast trains bringing people from suburbs & connecting them even farther thru air travel, congestion charging to get into the city, last mile cycling with bike rentals etc... at least the bike thing has caught some fancy

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