I AND MY WORDS

Affordable housing is a subject that can generate a lot of passion from every walk of society. Yes, affordable housing is a need. But what is it needed for? Who is it needed for? Where should it be? No one seems to be able to answer it properly. What constitutes affordable housing? What is the paradigm through which it should be seen? These are questions that fundamentally need to be addressed. Housing is a function of demand and supply, or so is the thinking usually. However, it is not so simple. Housing is a response as well to the economic functioning of any city. Economic geography’s Bid Rent Theory, despite its limitations, points out that housing prices decrease with distance from a city center due to competition for prime land. This theory came up to explain the lack of affordable housing in the city centre, and was primarily linked to the idea of a “Central Business District (CBD)” driving a city’s economic growth. On the surface, it seems a fair theory, and one may assume that...

Courtesy: Times of India Yes, you read it right. There is disaffection in the Indian middle class right now with the Narendra Modi government. This is not about tier I wine sipping elite intellectuals. This is about the great Indian middle class that has suffered immensely due to the COVID lockdown. This is the great Indian middle class of tier II, tier III and tier IV, living across India, many of whose children were working in tier I cities but lost their jobs and came back to sit idle at home. This is the great Indian middle class that forms a significant skilled migrant set that is increasingly getting  frustrated at the lack of job opportunities in the job market. This is the great Indian middle class that pays taxes across all hues but does not count as a significant voter base any more for the BJP. There is this sentiment among several well wishers turned haters that the BJP rose on the backs of the Indian middle class only to trample its spine and move forward to ensure tha...