Advisory Center for Affordable Settlements & Housing

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Document Type General
Publish Date 02/03/2019
Author
Published By Ram Narayanan
Edited By Sayef Hussain
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SMART CITIES INITIATIVE – WILL IT DRIVE THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF INDIA

As a part of my various geographical movements in my growing up years and career, 3 cities where I lived, have influenced by thoughts about economic development by developing cities and upgrading their infrastructure viz. Nagpur and Surat in India and Shenzhen in China. I did my schooling in Nagpur in the 80`s. Nagpur at that time was considered an easy-going Tier2/3 city and was mainly known for its oranges and the scorching summer. From the late 90`s and in the 2000`s thanks to the initiatives taken to upgrade the infrastructure and basic amenities, Nagpur today is one of the bustling cities in India with companies like Boeing setting up their base in the city.

Surat in mid-90`s, was hit a plague, and considered one of the filthiest cities in India. Again, thanks to the clean up initiatives and infrastructure build up, Surat is one of the cleanest and most livable cities in India which has augmented its highly competitive textile and diamond industries. Shenzhen in China was a fishing village in the 60`s and upgraded to a city infrastructure to parallel Hong Kong.

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