THE FUEL AND THE FIRE - 1. Millions are migrating to cities, often due to rural distress. As a result, there is growing demand for homes, offices, schools, hospitals, everything else in cities. If governments produce them in an orderly way, great. Else, these will come up anyway.
THE FUEL AND THE FIRE - 2. It is natural to ask 'who owns this?', 'who allowed this?' after each tragedy, but even after punishing those responsible, the problem remains. There are shortages of necessities, & the gap is filled illegally as people search desperately for options.
THE FUEL AND THE FIRE - 3. Three lakh people move to Bengaluru annually. We'd need 70,000 housing units for them. But how many did planning bodies sanction last year? About half that number, which leaves half the families without proper homes. What do you think happened to them?
THE FUEL AND THE FIRE - 4. Now, think of everything else in addition to homes. Offices, factories, schools, hospitals, hotels, shops, ... the list is large. In EACH case, there is a deficit of 50% or more. But all of these things come up anyway.
THE FUEL AND THE FIRE - 5. Shortages & desperation combine to form an explosive fuel in the lives of millions of people. They adjust in some way, usually outside the protection of safety laws, but also outside the protection of dignified options. The two are deeply tied together.
THE FUEL AND THE FIRE - 6. The odds are weighed heavily against the masses. Lakhs of locations, millions of people, shortages - put the three together and ask yourself, what is the most likely outcome? A million small bad things happen daily, and occasionally a large one too.
THE FUEL AND THE FIRE - 7. If we want to put the latest blaze out or rescue people from the latest collapse, we'll have to the most we can with fire engines and earth movers. But if we want the latest one to be the last one, we have to address the shortages.
THE FUEL AND THE FIRE - 8. Shortages are at the core of urban chaos, and as people search desperately for options, they fuel corruption. We can pretend for a while there are no costs, but eventually the bill comes due. In the form of tragedies, and so much avoidable suffering.
