Chapter Four

Fiat and Fairness

Why China Can Build Cities Overnight and India Cannot

Shanghai and Mumbai are the respective commercial capitals of China and India. Each city features a stretch of waterfront—the Bund in Shanghai and Marine Drive in Mumbai—as the defining architectural feature of the urban landscape. Old colonial buildings, remnants of a bygone era, ring each waterfront. Beyond their crescent-shaped waterfronts, however, the two cities could not be more different. A comparison of their origins and development reveals the opposing sets of priorities China and India hold regarding public and private property rights. Different priorities led to different policies that shaped the different physical environments in which billions of ...

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