How Empowering Mayors Can Make Indian Cities Smarter

The population India's financial capital Mumbai houses is comparable to many countries across the world. However, Mumbai did not find a place in the Centre's Top-20 Smart Cities list made public on January 28. In its smart city proposal submitted to the Central government, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had submitted details on the infrastructural facilities and amenities of the city, its vision for the future. It also suggested giving more powers to the city mayor. According to a report in The Economic Times, the Shiv Sena, which is part of a coalition government along with the Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra, insisted that there should be an amendment in the proposal which states that the mayor should have a say in the utilisation of funds.

Now, regardless of whether this was the reason why Mumbai was not in the list, most urban planning experts would agree that mayors of Indian cities should have greater powers.

Mumbai, unlike major global cities, has a mayor who does not have many official powers. Former World Bank researcher Alain Bertaud thinks this is why land-use regulations in Indian cities do not bear a close relationship with real estate prices. This also explains why Mumbai does not have infrastructure that is equipped to meet its demands. This also explains why housing supply in cities like Mumbai did not rise in proportion to the rise in population. The underlying concept is fairly obvious. When mayors have greater power and the power is decentralised, it is easier to implement economically efficient policies. A mayor is more likely to have localised information about the specific needs of a certain locality in Mumbai or Chennai more than, say, chief ministers of Maharashtra or Tamil Nadu. This is why even in private firms, the top management grants mid-level managers power to take independent decisions.

When Zhu Rongji was the mayor of Shanghai from 1987 to 1991, he found ways to circumvent red tape and open up the hinterland of Pudong district. This raised the supply of developable land in the city. However, he needed 10 major infrastructure projects that include bridges, tunnels, deep-water ports and metro lines to increase the supply of urban land in Shanghai. Shanghai had to spend $40 billion to accomplish the mission. In the 1990s, Shanghai grew by 8-10 per cent while the hinterland of Pudong grew by 16-18 per cent. There is no reason why Mumbai cannot replicate the success of Shanghai.

Shanghai's experience is not unique. Many other Asian cities like Seoul were able to open parks, construct grassy fields and build better bus transit systems because of the power and political mobility mayors enjoy. Cities like Curitiba (Brazil) and Quito (Equador) , too, built better busway systems because of more effective mayors.

Bill de Blasio, the current mayor of New York, years ago said that he believed that the densification of the city is important to make housing affordable. de Blasio wanted to allow a higher floor area ratio (FAR) in the city to make housing affordable in the city to which many people migrate every year.

This is true of even many developing countries. When Ilo in Peru was industrially growing, its mayor made low- income housing more available in the city in central areas, by opening up large plots of land for such development. In Ilo, this was more important than building better transportation networks, and the mayor was in a position to know such localised facts better than, say, the chief ministers or the prime minister.

Plans of the similar nature are being debated for long but no concrete steps have been taken so far. If the Mumbai mayor has more power, things may change more easily.