Development In The Hood

The neighborhood imp.

I’ve written about post-war development in Sri Lanka, mainly Colombo. These are mostly government projects, or big business. What about the hood? Are low and middle income places developing as well?

Where I live is kinda middle-income, I guess. It gets hood (watte) near the canal and vaguely gentrifies up. I rent an annex in a large garden property, but everything around is lata pata concrete low/middle income housing. This is mainly a trishaw and squat toilet kinda neighborhood. The people here drive cabs or sell things, or take the bus or motorbikes to work. I get my dry goods from a Sinhalese, vegetables from a Tamil and meat from a Muslim, so the place is kinda mixed. The language at the places I eat is usually Tamil. My immediate neighbors are Sinhala and Muslim. There are a few big houses, but a lot of smaller ones with way more people in them.

So that’s where I live. How are the people doing? Has post-war development meant anything to them?

Well, on the main road someone has opened a new, branded bakery (Wonder Bakery), and bought some advertising space at the police post. Right on the corner, some dudes redid a room of a house, painted it blue and have started selling trishaw parts. Up my lane there was a second floor that was unfinished forever, and now they’re finishing it. This is above a trishaw repair shop.

This isn’t a proper sample or anything, but I’ve started seeing changes where I live, which hasn’t changed for over a year. I guess it kinda started when they repaved the main road like 6 months ago. Now I’ve been seeing personal, low-level investments, though people still don’t pick up the garbage that clogs up the drain. I’ve noticed that people are getting meters for their trishaws now, converting spaces for commercial use, and generally spending and earning a bit more than they did last year. Again, it’s not a comprehensive study or anything, but I have seen some development in the hood.

10 Comments

  1. No way, can’t be true no. According to the NGOs Sri Lanka is on a downward spiral, the economy is going to crash, and everyone is getting screwed to the ground. Nothing has improved since the end of the war.

  2. Most of that could be on borrowed money though. Most of our people, especially the urban populace, tend to borrow for everything – food, housing, clothes, tuition etc. etc. – and don’t save anything. Habit of saving is totally lost on them. Borrowing is good if it is for investment. But borrowing for consumption, including credit cards, is the norm for most of the urban Colombians! I know this for a fact because I was one of them too sometime back!

  3. private sector credit is getting out of hand. Hopefully the interest rate hike & release of the PEG will control it before things turn sour.

  4. I was in Madras/Chennai a “clean” city by Indian standards. Awful place. They’ve filled the town with American interstate-style flyovers and overpasses and other such feats of 20th century civil engineering. Unfortunately the majority of the vehicles using such constructs are bullock carts, “autos”, and bicycles. What’s worse are the water problems that everyone’s having now (goes from August to October I’m told) – not even the wealthy Brahmin households were immune from it. And hygiene is such a big concern for *everyone* – including the locals who live there. Certain restaurants to be avoided, etc. Advising people to stick to vegetarian when you eat out in case “something’s wrong with the meat”.

    On the other hand, Colombo, just an hour away by plane, has almost completed its imitation of Singapore. There are supermarkets and malls, Pizza Huts and HSBC’s. The household I was staying at was getting DSL installed the next week – 2 megabit downstream too, a whole 512kbits faster than me in Toronto! While in Madras the “Maruti” reined supreme despite most major global automakers marketing at least one car in India, in Colombo the Corolla is the vehicle of choice. Indeed, you could also find Volvos, Beemers, even a MINI Cooper. There were also some Nissan models you don’t find in North America – I suspect those are the ones marketed under the Infiniti label over here. I don’t know where all the wealth is coming from, but it’s certainly getting there.

    The difference between both towns, both of them large metros, was astounding to me. Statistically, however, it seems that Sri Lanka is just a poor Asian country known primarily for that oft-mentioned terrorist/separatist problem (the media reports make it sound worse than Nepal) while India seems like the place to be these days! Dost mine eyes decieveth me?

  5. You should probably look a bit closer and see how the majority of people living and working in Colombo get to and from work, not a Corolla or EVEN a Mini Cooper.

  7. I don’t know if what you describe is middle class, sounds more like working class.

    Things have definitely improved since mid 2010. The drivers have been a cut in vehicle taxes, cuts in taxes on household appliances and lower interest rates. The reduction of income taxes has helped as well plus the tourism boom.

    However the outlook does not look so rosy, with the recession in Europe. Government debt and spending are both out of control which means that interest rates and indirect taxes will rise, which affects disposable income.

    Thus the drivers of growth are losing steam, so unless some further reform takes place the pace will slow.

  8. How are the trishaw drivers in my neighborhood borrowing money? They deffa don’t have credit cards.

  9. It’s not exactly borrowing from the banking system. It’s informal borrowing. Could be from a cousin or a guy at the three wheel stand who lends money at crazy interest rates, like 10% per month or so. These guys who lend money are probably getting this money through illegal means. It could be black money. It may not be an altogether bad thing for black money to come into the system but borrowing for consumption, however or what kind of money you borrow, if you don’t have the capacity to re-pay, in my opinion can have bad repercussions to a society.

Comments are closed.