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Tata Building $7,800 Apartments in Mumbai
theodp writes "What do you do for an encore after you've shown the world it's possible to build a $2,000 car? Ratan Tata, head of India's giant Tata conglomerate, now plans to build, 30 miles outside of Mumbai, 1,200 tiny apartments that will sell for $7,800 to $13,400 each. Sure, they're small (floor plans), but keep in mind that you can pay a quarter of a million bucks for a 250-sq.-ft. studio in the East Village. Time reports that Tata has had to beef up security to handle the rush of buyers who want to plunk down their $200 deposits (yes, that's two hundred dollars!). Who would've thought you could make IKEA homes look pricey?" The Businessweek.com article says that the apartments are aimed at someone making $6,000 to $10,000 per year (Time says $5,000). In Mumbai, a call center operator with 10 to 20 years of experience barely qualifies at $6,400 annually. 70% of the country's 1.2 billion people live on 1/20 as much.
Tata cars have proven themselves to be unsafe for driving (no protection, and the car frame is too thin)
i wouldn't be surprised if these buildings couldn't survive 45 mph winds
We don't want another Cortlandt Homes incident.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
For a second I read that as Dubai and was trying to fish out my credit card. Mumbai I could care less about.
The median price of a house in Detroit is $7500. Floorplans vary, but they are larger than these apartments. Home prices are relative.
I'm sure people are happy to buy a nice place in Mumbai, so the market supports higher prices. No one wants to live in a corrupt one-party third-world conflict zone like Detroit.
This is one the the wisest investments Tata has ever made, and will fill an important niche in Indian urban living.
The economic difference between the rich and the poor is so vast, that if you are making 10k+ a year you are very rich by a normal villager's perspective...the problem is unless you are living in a rural area, there are not many places for you to live unless you want to live other than the slums or in a wealthy neighborhood.
Of course this is just a generalization, but if you ever go to India, and truly experience it outside of the MNC bubble, you will see why something like this is needed.
-n00b
These apartments are extremely tiny at only 283 - 465 sq ft and for $7,800 - $13,400 that isn't really that cheap as it is around $28-29 per sq ft. The condo I own in Houston only cost me $43 per sq ft and they are now going for much cheaper than that after the economy meltdown.
70% of the country's 1.2 billion people live on 1/20 as much.
True, but not relevant.
This is aimed at the middle class in India, which numbers 50 - 100 million now and is expected to grow rapidly :
India's middle class is expected to swell almost 12-fold from its size of 50 million people to over 583 million - some 41% of the population.
Let's see, 10 million homes for $ 10K each is $ 100 billion USD - a market worth going after.
I dunno. The ability to build mass housing for cheap is rather interesting. Why not take the plans, modify them slightly, and then have low-cost housing in North America? Habitats for Humanity would probably do quite well in this situation. There's more than just tech nerds out there, remember. There's also social sciences nerds.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Sorry to sound snooty, but that's my gut reaction to the "this is unsafe!" comments. Unsafe by American/European standards, probably. Unsafe compared to Indian options? Ha.
Some photos of life in Delhi (a bit less "European" than Mumbai), including the inside of a couple homes, here. (Disclosure: that's a link to my old travel blog.)
We should praise improvement, not demand perfection.
I'm confused by the terminology. Around here (southern USA) an apartment is something you rent. A Condominium is like an apartment in that it is on managed grounds but you can "buy" them. I say "buy" in quotes because the concept of buying half of a building attached to someone else's half does not sound like anything I would want to buy.
Anyway, what are they talking about?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
We'll throw in the crackhouse on the left ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Unfortunately, employed workers in the West (the US at least) have been creating shoddy, overpriced products that no one wants for some time now:
Giant cars that get horrid gas mileage; doctors and prescription drugs that routinely cause more harm than good; tiny, uninsulated, overcrowded apartments that cost more than houses; buggy, barely-functional software; industries that are less energy-efficient than those in developing countries; financial services that border on fraud.
And that's not even including any of the horrid government "services" which employ nearly half of everyone and no one has any say in even purchasing: prisons for substance abusers; welfare for immigrants; jack-booted thugs who murder Americans; spooks who spy on us; soldiers who waste trillions of dollars making us less secure; and of course generous hand-outs for banks and wealthy corporations.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Ever lived in a shipping container? I've worked out of one, converted into a temporary work space. They're hotter than hell in the summer (think solar heated oven) and bad in the winter too.
Note that I'm intentionally ignoring the pretty pictures in the linked to page
I must admit, I'd buy and drive a Nano here in the US for in-town commuting.
But I'd totally shove a Hayabusa engine in it.
Insulation
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
. . . Ratan Tata will soon be known as the William Levitt of India: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Levitt. Maybe he thought up that idea during his Harvard days.
He is making money for himself, but he seems to be doing a lot of good for people, as well.
The world could do with a couple more of him.
I looked at the floor plans, and thought that it would be a great place to buy for vacations.
But, alas, the 3-D animation was slashdotted. So other Slashdotters seem to be thinking the same thing. And I certainly do not want to be living next to Slashdotters. All that noise from "vi or emacs" arguments next door, and the Slashdot residents would be permantly wigged out at living above ground, as opposed to in their parents' basements.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
What are you doing on Slashdot? I know that we love car analogies, but Nanobusas and Fisker Karma double-entendres require a degree of car-guy knowledge not usually found in computer geeks.
Then again, I'm here too.
Tiny? They're bigger than my place, you insensitive clod! Ah...the joys of grad school...
Res publica non dominetur
I used to drive a fiat 850 spider. Dang *smaller* than a Nano and what a fun little car, wish I still had it. Medium zippy and got 50 MPG! I rebuilt the engine and transaxle and it was just swell. Worked fine as a commuter and although it wasn't a real hotrod, being a little bitty convertible it was a babe magnet, they'd go "cute"!! heh,. fringe benefits ;)
Tata is NOT saving costs by compromising on materials. So how are they saving costs? They're going in for cheaper land that's farther out from the city, and they're paying below market price for it, because they're offering the landholders an amortized profit-sharing across many years. They're then organizing a large number of builders to create entire communities from scratch, including hospitals, schools, marketplaces, and a variety of amenities where there were none before. They're building entire townships, and not just some homes. This is obviously a very capital-intensive approach. Call it the Las Vegas strategy: buying land in the middle of nowhere at low cost, and then building an entire self-supporting community there.
In India, people who earn $5000/yr are not ghetto, they're lower-income lower middle class. They're not on welfare (there is no welfare), they're employed.
"Why not take the plans, modify them slightly, and then have low-cost housing in North America?"
I take you have never been involved in the zoning approval process for a low income housing project in the US. If you had been you would learn how much hysteria can be generated by the thought that the value of a middle class American's house could be dented by the presence of a less expensive alternative.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Unfortunately, that attitude is what creates many of the problems of LI housing. If a small (relatively) number of subsidized housing units are incorporated into each individual location, things are just peachy. However, when you attempt to put a large amount of subsidized housing in one location (the projects) then all of the stereotypical problems arise. Since this is what cause the stereotypes, not the properly done ones, fewer communities are willing to accept subsidized housing, and large amounts of it are mashed into communities that are willing to accept it, then the typical problems occur, then the stereotypes are perpetuated.
You must know nothing about India if you think a place with pipes (never mind running water, we're just talking drainage), four solid walls, a roof and a floor is anything short of "middle class".
Maybe in 40, 50 years the places would be considered slums/projects, if India continues to improve at the rate it has been. But from the looks of things, they should serve as suitable housing until they're ready for replacement. And if they leave room between the buildings/complexes, and don't make the complexes too large, they'll be able to blend properly with the surrounding area buildings as people become more affluent.
The projects in the US failed because they were the spear tip of a political movement (ie, politicians did it) to bid for their own election. "Here's a house if you vote for us" kind of thing. No foresight was given for things like jobs or infrastructure - and there were a lot of other things fundamentally wrong about the 1950s era planning mentality.
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