{"id":38980,"date":"2011-12-01T17:11:52","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T11:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"index.php\/2011\/12\/01\/urbanization-is-a-good-thing\/"},"modified":"2011-12-01T17:11:52","modified_gmt":"2011-12-01T11:41:52","slug":"urbanization-is-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stockviz.biz\/index.php\/2011\/12\/01\/urbanization-is-a-good-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Urbanization is a Good Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Peepli<\/a> <\/p>\n

Image via Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I watched this movie called Peepli Live<\/a>, produced by Amir Khan. The story revolves around an indebted farmer who, facing a large debt, contemplates suicide. Its an interesting movie. However, right at the end, there\u2019s commentary as to how millions of low-income farmers are being forced to forgo their (small) land-holdings and migrate to the city. Here\u2019s the thing: I don\u2019t see it as a bad<\/em> thing that needs to be reversed<\/em>. Rather, the role of the government and society should be to ease the transition.<\/p>\n

Urbanization allows efficient allocation of public services. It is easier to serve a city with 10 schools rather than 10 small villages with 1 school. The problem is that by portraying urbanization as bad, subsistence farming as good we are trying to swim against the tide and misallocating capital (like the insanely evil NREGA<\/a>.<\/em>) We would be better off focusing on easing the transition that is already taking place by focusing on city planning.<\/p>\n

Subsistence farming was never a good idea. Lack of scale and under-capitalization implies that millions of farmers in India lead a hand-to-mouth existence. We should be focusing on providing better options for livelihood generation rather than putting poverty on the pedestal and trying to wish the problem away.<\/p>\n

Urbanization is a good thing and it is going to continue being a predominant trend of our times. Deal with it.<\/p>\n

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