Who’s This Development For?
Dog on the street in front of the new Racecourse, after the gala opening.
I’m not a hater I just blog a lot. I’m all for development but seriously, who’s all this stuff for? The five star hotels, luxury high-rises (Krrish), the bourgeoise shopping centers. We need some stuff like this, but we also need public transit and education and parks for, you know, the public.
How many five star hotels and luxury apartments do we need, and can the market sustain? Sometimes it feels like we’re building stuff for tourists with foreign money and not really thinking of ourselves. And we should.
Sri Lanka is a market and we can make money selling products and services for locals. But most locals don’t stay in five star hotels or buy luxury apartments. Honestly, I think the best investment would be in the middle class, not the 1 or 10%, and foreigners.
It’s like the government has two sets of policies – one for the very poor, ie Samurdhi type welfare schemes which keep them poor and dependent vote wise (literally, especially under the new local government consolidation, officers can and do threaten to withhold benefits if people don’t vote a certain way)… and one policy for the very rich, ie the 1%.
The thing is that the 1% all over the world has more in common with each other than they do with their own countrymen. Hence you get foriegn money in (as investment), often untaxed, and it serves foreign or foriegn leaning clientele. I say this not as a xenophobe but a Lankaphile. I have no shortage of foreign connections but I still live and work here and can’t afford or even understand a lot of these new developments. I mean, how many luxury apartments does Colombo need (aka Krrish) when around 50% of the city is living in shanties? Even if this is big ticket economic activity, what’s the point if it’s barely taxed?
This is not to say that these developments are necessarily bad, but in a world of finite resources and time I do question where our government is allocating its attention. To me the pressing needs (Colombo-centric) are education so we have a middle-class workforce, green(er) public transport so they can live and work without destroying our country or finances, and urban housing and things like parks and playgrounds so we can have a vibrant city for the people that live here.
The TV show the Sopranos taught me a lot about Sri Lankan politics. I was very sad to hear that the lead actor James Gandolfini 
Not to quote Ice Cube, but the Sri Lankan police are hardly beloved. A 
I just gave a talk at the University Of Sri Jayawardenapura along with Reeza Zarook of Anything.lk and Rohan Jayaweera of Google. These are my notes: Devin Jayasundara asked me for a subject for this talk and I told him Internet property. But I talked to my fiancé Shru and she had a better idea. Startups aren’t about creating property at all, not really. They’re about creating territory, about creating land.
I haven’t been blogging much, I know. It’s partly because we’ve been doing a lot of work on YAMU, especially shipping 1.0.1 of the Android app today. It’s on the 
Lonely Planet just placed Sri Lanka as the number 1 destination for 2013. Quite a few of the Tamil mob won’t be happy about it.
sad that it is not a place to live and make a decent living.
Say’s you fella. I do quite well for myself. Decent living is very possible. Doesn’t need to be illegal or crony to the politicos either. Just get your head out of your arse.
Why? Because we don’t have leaders who love the country or the people. Or we don’t elect such leaders.
Ranil loves the country velly velly much – and democracy too!
I rather like the way the old grandstand is shaping up. I much prefer it to the Dutch Hospital complex.
The Dutch Hospital was a much older complex and the imposition of the ultra modern interiors in those beautiful old shells robs them of much of their character. The structure of the grandstand
(a) lends itself much better to the extensions being done
(b) are less likely to defiled by a more modernist interior.
There are two distinct worlds in the property market. The low end houses and flats where prices have remained stagnant or declined since the collapse of Ceylinco in 2008/9. (It was Ceylinco had a big role in the property boom: they kept buying up low end residential property-and propping up the prices, as well as financing the redevelopment. The slower economic conditions are responsible for the rest.
The other world is the prime property in Colombo 3,5,7 and the super luxury flats. This is where the a lot of black money winds up. It is surprisingly hard to hide substantial quantities of money overseas these days, so it finds its way back here.
Its a reflection of society. I’m waiting to see whose house or flat the stolen artefacts from the museum will adorn.
On the subject of urban renewal/property development this needs to be done, but the approach can differ.
My view is that these would be best left to private sector investment, the Government either leasing or selling the property through open tenders or auctions. The money raised by the government should go towards reduced taxation.
The Government has other priorities on which they should spend on, in areas where it is difficult to attract private sector participation.
This is crony capitalism at its extreme. Why don’t we get leaders who love the country, people and the legacy that they left behind when they leave the office?
I think its pretty simple. This govt will do whatever deals/projects that they can make money for themselves. It was never about the country.
To that list of pressing needs, please add uninterrupted power supply and freedom from fear of fuel shortages.
Is that y many people here dream of immigrating to a western country?
In 2009 a poll conducted revealed that 50% of the youth of this country wanted to go abroad. Does that sound like in a country where people can make a decent living? Sri Lanka faces a serious issue of brain drain where educated youth are leaving the country and immigrate to a western country. Does that seem like everything is good?
If u get educated here even with a good university education and still u cant build a career here there are serious issues.
Can u have a decent education here? Education in SL was ok in the past, but it is deteriorating. U cant even be sure of ur OL or AL results because of mismanagement and scams. Education ministry is even unable to give a question paper without printing errors.
Have a look at the cost of goods. The citizens in Sl suffer. Many cant afford cost of food items. One third of the children is malnourished. It is a high time u take a look at how ur country men live.
where is the law and order? we experience our rights being snatched away by the politicians. Does that look like a country doing ok?
I dont know what u r standards of decent living are, i guess mine is certainly different from urs.
this is inreply to such
Don’t like it?
Leave.
the people who suffer the most here will never be able to afford to buy a ticket out, let alone settle down abroad. but they sure are trying, judging by the number of “boat-people” getting caught these days.
lol. Sri Lankans have always dreamt of immigrating to the west. Who can blame them. When I watch movies it looks great over there to me too. Not that great in reality though after you live there a while, plus white peoples ignorance and arrogance generally sucks. Ask a white man where he would want to live,a good number would say the tropics.
such,
After all the arrogance and the ignorance of the white ppl, it is still the preferred destination over our sunny island, isnt it? I knw it is natural for a people of a developing country wanting to go to a developed western country. But if a country is truly developing it should try to retain the people who try to immigrate.
the reason is a person in the middle class cannot improve their conditions. the inflation we have here makes the wealth they created devalue. You cant build a career here, in most fields.
Sadly but truly the education which was remarkable at a time in SL is now going down. The middle class is getting poor. Unemployment is rising, job opportunities are not created. health sector does not function as it should have.
Read a newspaper and look at the number of strikes we see now. People find it hard to live. that is the reality. I really do not see the gov taking steps to solve these issues. I am not pro or anti government, i am pro sri lanka, i want it to be a better place and i can tell u we are not in the correct track.
I agree with you 100% . You are right. This country has gone to the dogs. It started on the 4th of February 1948, the day the British handed over ”POWER” to us.
Majority of Sri Lankans have still not moved an inch from the 16th century since the Portuguese arrived. We are still living in the stone ages. WE haven’t progressed. We just don’t’ have what it takes to create advanced or even semi-advanced industrialized societies like the Europeans or Japanese/Koreans. Its the bitter truth. We also have other very serious problems, most of which I cannot even mention in public due to very sensitive nature.
Where there is a will there is a way.
No like Sri Lanka? Hop on boat.
Simple. Development is good – Wastage is not!
Green transport and sustainable housing is not glamorous enough to draw enough attention to it. These frivolous vanity projects have a lot of publicity attached to them meaning it’s easier to get ministerial backing for the headlines they’ll get with the implicit guarantee of a nice junket at the luxury development at some point.
When’s the last time you saw any politician or even a voter get excited about sensible, pragmatic projects? In the UK they have HS2. A project worth billions to build new railway infrastructure that nobody’s asking for. However, politicos get a little breathless when these grand infra projects come about because they can bask in what they presume will be its reflected glory. The truth is it would be more cost effective to renationalise the existing railways and simplify the fare structure and make better use of existing infrastructure. Unfortunately this will not get them the headlines they want. Same in Sri Lanka I guess.