City rankings are a thriving industry. This week, the Economist Intelligence Unit published its newest report on the most costly and cheapest cities. Ahmedabad ranks among the top ten of the latter, with devastated Damascus and Tripoli. Earlier, the government released an update on India’s cleanest cities, with Indore once again taking first place.
The government also publishes a list of cities ranked by their comfort of life– Bengaluru is first, followed by Pune, while Srinagar and Dhanbad are last. A comparable list published by the Centre for Science and Environment has Bengaluru first, followed by Chennai (which is fourth in the government ranking). Because a complex set of criteria has been spelt out, a smart city rating may be on its way soon, assuming it hasn’t already been done.
Some patterns are easy to identify. The large cities don’t fare well, either in India or worldwide. Mumbai and Delhi (and Kolkata, for that matter) rarely rank high, whereas the most liveable cities on a global scale have been mid-tier cities like Vienna, Auckland, and Vancouver — though Melbourne performed quite well for a long time.
The most populous European, American, and Chinese cities are not the most liveable, in part because they have the most costly real estate. There are also the normal issues of commuting time and pollution. Japan continues the pattern, with Osaka outscoring Tokyo.
A second pattern is that cities south of the Vindhyas, as well as the main three of Gujarat, farewell. Places like Mangaluru, Coimbatore, Chennai, and Thiruvananthapuram score highly for the cost of living and healthcare, two of the seven indicators utilized for a global ranking on Quality of Life. This is within the backdrop of Indian cities often ranking in the third quartile from the top.
This underwhelming performance is affected by low-income levels and hot temperatures. As a result, many of India’s top cities are located on the Deccan plateau, which provides an elevation that allows for a less oppressive summer. Indore (elevation: 1,800 feet) is located on the border of the Malwa plateau, while Coimbatore (1,350 feet) provides easy access to the Nilgiris.
If India is to properly urbanize, it must focus on Tier 2 cities with populations ranging from 10 to 50 lakh. Some of them are receiving attention through the government’s Smart Cities programme, which is fine but insufficient in the absence of structural changes such as directly elected mayors, a sensible property tax system, designs that are citizen- and bicycle-friendly, and floor-area ratio rules that allow high-rise office towers, which are required to create a central business district and avoid urban sprawl.
What’s the lesson?
But there’s also a lesson in the fact that, despite their terrible Quality of Life rankings, the great cities remain magnets for modern-day Dick Whittingtons. Indeed, welcoming immigrants from other places is a common trait of successful cities, which is why Mumbai has so many Gujaratis, Parsis, South Indians, and, once upon a time, Baghdad Jews. It’s also why Delhi has grown less Punjabi-dominated, and why Kolkata had so many non-Bengalis in its heyday, including Chinese, Armenians, and others. This combination is what makes metropolises more exciting and cosmopolitan, while smaller towns remain provincial.
Bengaluru is a fascinating case study. Despite being outranked by Coimbatore and Mangaluru on several measures (such as pollution, healthcare, and safety), it consistently ranks around the top as the most liveable, despite having inherited the difficulties of a car-oriented metropolis.
Its climate, cosmopolitan air, affordable real estate, and high purchasing power index rating (presumably due to its tech-powered elite) make it the city of choice for those looking to avoid Mumbai’s real estate prices (which are among the most unaffordable in the world, relative to income) and the poorly ranked Delhi-Gurgaon-Noida. However, the biggest growth occurs in Tier 2 cities – Surat’s population has expanded by more than 70% on average over the last four decades. Such cities will determine whether India’s future urbanization succeeds or fails.
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