Housing Crisis in the "Garden City of the East"

"While people in cities across the Global North are unable to access affordable housing, their comrades in the Global South are dispossessed of houses that they and their families have lived in for generations. In South Asia, under the banner of development, people have been evicted from their houses to make space for exhibitions centers, transport projects (such as roads) or infrastructure."

"Colombo as a Case Study Former Secretary of the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development, Gotabaya Rajapaksa referred to the idea of Colombo as a World-Class City in 2012. Under his vision, the project consisted of the Urban Regeneration Project (URP) and the Metropolitan Development Plan. Under the URP, the government tried to transform Colombo into a uniform cityscape of apartment blocks, public transport and green spaces."

"To compensate them, the government relocated them into high-rise apartments outside of the main metropolis. Workers, at the moment, have limited other options-land is too overpriced to buy and property developers have focused solely on a rental market for the upper and middle classes. As a result, they are stuck in "vertical slums" that have been hit by crisis-after-crisis: first, the pandemic. Then, the economic crisis. And, finally the austerity stipulated by the IMF."

Urban residents in the Global North face unaffordable housing while many in the Global South are dispossessed from generational homes. In South Asia, development projects such as exhibition centers, transport infrastructure and major events have driven mass evictions, including an estimated 200,000 people displaced in Delhi for the 2010 Commonwealth Games and 200 people displaced by Lahore's metro. Colombo pursued a 'World-Class City' vision through the Urban Regeneration Project and Metropolitan Development Plan, aiming to replace informal settlements with uniform apartment blocks, public transport and green spaces. Relocated residents were placed in high-rise apartments outside the metropolis, producing concentrated poverty and vulnerability amid pandemic, economic collapse, and IMF-mandated austerity.

Read at The New Inquiry