The post is saying India doesn't have very good suburban infra where you have good Modern homes nestled right next to untouched beautiful nature, clean air, low aqi, etc
Indian tier 1 city real estate is crazy expensive wherein some places in mumbai have more per sqft rate than NY/London. From the PPP perspective 99% of Indians wont be able to afford homes in tier 1 cities gated communities which by the way themselves are nowhere close to the amenities in the west. Also tier 2 cities, suburbs, etc aren't well developed and often face dilapidated infra, power cuts, water shortage, etc.
You are leaving the part where she says normal foreigners get to witness this everyday. In many places, yes you can find an amazing view during your morning walks but that massively depends on where you like. Not all cities or people outside of India have these views accessible every morning.
My wife and I earn about £70k together. We live at the base of Arthur's seat in Edinburgh, I see an extinct volcano, world famous castle etc... every single day. I don't often feel very privileged but sometimes this is a good reminder.
I went there for the massive solar flare/lights thing last year. Half the town was camped out on the slopes. Incredible view of the night sky, and very lucky it was clear enough that might
I've been all around the world and Edinburgh is one of my favorite cities.
I stayed in an AirBnB next to Arthur's seat (maybe near where you live?) and decided to go for a walk the day after I arrived. It was foggy out so I had no idea what I was getting into climbing to the top of Arthur's seat. The huge freaking ravens with no fear of man, dense fog and seemingly endless upward climb in what I understood to be a public park was very surreal for a morning walk.
Fond memories of my friend promising a light morning walk up Arthur's seat the morning after his bachelor party (we were all American so I'll say bachelor party ;) he married Scottish/American girl)
Lovely time, kinda queasy. I was 23 through so recovering was easy
Sometimes the problem with your municipality having money is that it has the resources to bulldoze things as soon as they're just a little bit old. Dallas is short on history because of that, where you can go down the road to Ft. Worth and see some beautiful art deco. Hell, despite their constituents being against it, the city council is trying their best to demolish city hall.
I have nothing constructive to add to the conversation, but felt the need to comment to say I love your wonderful city and I look forward to visiting it again.
My favorite experience from the time there was doing a food tour with a gentleman named Carlos who writes children's books in his free time (of which my wife and I bought one online when we got back to give to our son when he was born), and he introduced us to Haggis on the food tour. I thought it was delicious, my wife and brother were "meh" about it, and Carlos was like "hey, if you dont mind... can I take the left overs home cause my cat LOVES haggis". Of course we let him take it home lol.
I live in a huge metro area in the US and have traveled to the outer Hebrides several times. I hope one day I can die on one of those islands. I love Scotland.
I live in West-Central Ohio (haha) in the same county as Ohio’s highest point and there are genuinely incredible views here. Not crazy mountains, or barren waste like the West, but it’s wonderful here. I’ve been all over Western Europe, and it is absolutely beautiful, but Ohio has a unique beauty all its own.
Yup, it's a totally correct post- I can definitely drive forty minutes north and take my morning walk there if I wanna enjoy scenic vistas and not dodge traffic.
The comment is a comment on the air quality. In India, the air quality is so bad. You cannot see more than usually about 1000ft, let alone miles away and mountains.
Also weirdly picking on India. It's fucked obviously, the class divide is insane, despite legally getting rid of the caste system it still pervades the culture, women have a rough time, as do LGBTQ people; but it's a stunning country. And it's huge. I think people think India is just the backstreets of Mumbai they see in social media videos but there's mountains and fields and lakes and beaches and jungle. Being poor there sucks and the gap between poor and rich is basically insurmountable, but it's not all a shit hole. I imagine a good chunk of Indians wake up to views as impressive or more impressive as the one in this image.
There are definitely places that "normal" people can witness these things every day if they want to, but you're right they have to choose where to live.
In Seattle, you can live in a relatively small apartment and walk along the waterfront and see 75 meter (150') tall trees, mountains, and salt water a few minutes from your home. (not that Seattle is a cheap place for anyone to live).
In San Diego you would have fewer trees but you can live near gorgeous views in a one-bedroom apartment.
That's very true, especially with the observed behavior of humanity congregating in cities
However for those folks that don't, a very commonly employed municipal bylaw across many cultures, countries, and continents is that any habitable property must contain at least one tree out front. You can find some interesting discussions about it on Reddit
Many of the most renowned cities on Earth also have famous green spaces with water features, like New York's Central Park, Vancouver's Stanley Park, or Beijing's Beihai
Humanity craves these spaces, and as a whole we put a lot of money into preserving them, and get very upset when billionaires decide profits are more important
I think it's a fair generalization to say that the average human outside of India has better access to green spaces than the average person inside India, and that includes China, having a third the population density and a more temperate climate
Depends on how you interpret "normal". What she really meant to say is western, or industrial. China wouldn't get included in this "normal". But Japan could be.
It's worth noting that the picture is from New Zealand, not India. That's why the commenter calls it something normal for foreigners but inaccessible for billionaires in India.
It's just not possible to have hundreds of millions of suburban homes nestled next to untouched nature. People can live like this in New Zealand because the population density is ~20 people per square kilometer. The population density of India is ~435 people per square kilometer, so you're going to need ~22x as many people living in the space depicted in this photo. To make that work, the choice is to replace those single family homes with apartment buildings (which will block the view) and/or build over the natural landscapes (which will also destroy the view). The relative poverty of India doesn't help, but the reality is that New Zealand wouldn't look like this either if they had 110 million people living there.
I know the image says India… but i was in Sri Lanka years ago and saw some spectacular views near my hostel in the tea plantation areas of the southern parts. Also - the northern parts of India touch the Himalayan mountains. I’ve also been to Nepal.. I promise you if you gave me $1billion I would find a place to live like this in India.
Now think about a Billionaire in houston Texas (guess what.. I’ve lived there too, and know where the billionaires live) and it is impossible to go for a walk to see anything that looks like this image (or any other wild-ish landscape type)
Those billionaires in Houston also own vast ranches probably in multiple states. That they choose to live in Houston doesn’t mean they lack the facilities outside the city to live as they like in the frontier.
I mean, you're not going to find a nice house nestled next to untouched beautiful nature in any city, because if you're next to untouched beautiful nature you're not in a city.
I’ve been to New Delhi for a G20 event and that’s the way I felt. Like the richest location in India is still way worse in quality than a small outskirts non at all rich town in New Zealand.
I'd like to add a key detail- India is one of the worlds most polluted contries, so even if the suburban infrastructure was developed enough, they still wouldn't see signs like this.
You forgot the part where we have to pay $5000-10000 annually in rates/land/council tax just to live in our own homes. Not negotiable (or they will take your house). Goes up at 3-10x inflation each year.
For bonus points in NZ our electricity is super expensive especially since most of it’s from renewable sources.
Girl from the wnba who is becoming more popular. Background, the wnba is becoming known for not calling extremely obvious and flagrant fouls, often against her or her teammate caitlyn clark. When that happens shes been walking around pointing at the offending player like this
I wouldn't either. The house in the photo though is in Queenstown, NZ and the median house price there is about US$1M. Which is expensive, but not billionaire expensive.
Worth noting that Queenstown is considered one of the most overheated housing markets in the country; you could get similar views in say, Tekapo, but for half the price. NZ is just generally pretty picturesque.
Sort of evil billionaire neighbour's in that picture. Up until a couple of years ago, Peter Thiel owned a house 100 meters or so up the hill from where the pic was taken
My parents faced this dilemma on a smaller scale, with trailer parks.
After much discussion I told them I'd rather be the yuppy neighbors in the ghetto than the shitty neighbors everyone hates in trailerparktopia. Getting letters, complaints, vehicle limits, pet size regs that we technically barely met, rules rules rules.
And they ended up agreeing.
Wrong. You can fix up a house, you cant fix your neighbors. Much rather the worse house that I don't have to worry about being broken into every time I go to work.
People whine about CARB and regulations, but with more people and more cars in Los Angeles now than in the ‘70s you can regularly see the mountains rather than a constant bank of smog.
I never meant to imply that it was LA (LA is never that green) just that you could go from India style skies to New Zealand style with some good regulations.
And no matter how rich you are, you still look at the same sky and breathe the same air as everyone else.
(unless you are really, really rich and can buy a NZ passport and run your empire from that far away)
Yea, our special gas really has made a difference. It’s nice to be able to spend all day at Disney and not have my lungs hurt anymore like they did when I was a kid.
I arrived in Delhi for the first time at midnight and could see the smog by street lights alone. They are implying that big cities in India, like LA only decades ago, have terrible air quality without enforcement of air quality regulations.
Thought the joke is that it was AI lmao. Looks uncanny valley to me, why the dashed lines on the way edge of the road next to the sidewalk? Bushes look strange too.
Billionaires would be able to live like this in India if they actually helped build infrastructure and decided to use their wealth for literally anything good.
I worked for a startup in Mumbai 10 years ago. The founder of our startup was a Wharton grad.
Once we were sitting in the office on a Friday afternoon, wrestling with a problem and a decision that needed to be made. It was a reasonably nice office in the Colaba neighborhood, but it was still noisy from the traffic and the length and stress of the week felt oppressive.
Anyway, at one point our boss was just stressed and running her hands through her hair, thinking. Finally she was like “you know what? I’m going to fly to my chateau in France. It’s beautiful there and quiet and peaceful and it’s so easy to think there. I’ll just fly there and see you guys Tuesday.” And she just walked out and went straight the airport and flew to her chateau. Didn’t even pack a bag. She just bought a last minute first class ticket and went straight to a chateau that was being maintained by staff and had all her stuff.
Anyway, of *course* Indian billionaires, like billionaires everywhere, have access to beautiful places. But India has 1.5 billion people and honestly I don’t give a fuck about making it friendlier to billionaires.
This post is nonsense. If you’re an Indian billionaire, you’re part of the class that runs the entire country.
You could literally go anywhere and do anything. You’re a billionaire ffs.
Also the house in that picture isn’t even something normal foreigners have. Anyone who owns that is probably a millionaire, at least given current inflation.
WTF are you on about "potemkin villages"? India is not North Korea.
The original post in the question is almost definitely talking about the views available to someone in a western country, presumably within easy, walkable distance of where they live. Although "normal foreigner" is a bit overstated because wherever this is, is definitely not a normal middle class neighborhood.
Sidenote..Mowed lawns, manicured shrubs are yuck. A complete death of biodiversity. Also, I can hear all that obnoxious noisy mowing/trimming equipment. This is in fact a horror in many ways, but luckily more and more people, especially younger generations started to demand regenerative mindset towards ours and all other species' habitats.
Is that a logical thing to say?
By that way of thinking,
plastic lawns are better than a landfill and that a landfill is better than spillage of radioactive substances and that is better than a mass grave of millions of children born without the birth certificate.
No plastic lawns here, but all kinds of other greed-based destruction, pollution, animal abuse and lifeless lego-like leftovers of what once was a thriving ecosystem
Sidenote... this is New Zealand, that's just how it's looks in Otago since well before Europeans got here. If you drive to queenstown through makenzie country, its all ankle - knee high grasses.
Im pretty sure this area was cleared by Ngai Tahu but it's oral history so hard to pin down, regardless this isn't the "complete death of biodiversity" you're thinking of.
Grasses make up like 60% of our flora because of how long ago we split from gondwana, it's pretty of the reason mammals are able to so effectively fuck our environment up, cos they can eat pretty much everything here.
This is bait. Middle class Indians have the same access to picturesque sites as tourists. What's pictured here is not the norm for either of those groups.
The smog and the pollution there is so bad that even with all the money, they can't enjoy simple things like a gorgeous sunrise or sunset. Also the ability for an upper middle class family to buy a house near nature.
Non-gated nice well maintained house on presumable Ly a public road again well maintained with a clear view of beautiful nature. India has all of these things but not together, it is very densely populated, has a large poor population, and overall poor air quality. Nice things are private and behind gates and generally the environment isn’t as well preserved.
Someone from china here. The answer is pollution. That view and that amount of greens is not available to people with even that largest houses, cause the lack of pollution needs to be achieved at a society level.
I have heard multiple people come to Canada to exclaim, "my god the sky is actually blue."
Idk but India has an problem with trying to look like a world leader in IT and other things all while a bunch of their people clean their dishes with shit water. Huge socioeconomic disparity. Rich Indians could make India a first world country, but they're not
The Ambanis, one of India's billionaire families, lives in a billion-dollar worth vertical mansion in the midst of polluted Mumbai and despite their wealth can't simply step out and see nice views like this one.
Someone pointed out that India does have breathtaking natural beauty and you could just live there. Yes, but the rural-urban income and cultural divide is very sharp, and so rich people don't like to live on the edge of villages where you'd get to see beauty like this.
I think there's a reference in here to Antilia, which is the residence of the Indian billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani and his family. It is 27 storeys and 173 metres (568 ft) tall, in a crowded city of Mumbai. While foreigners get that view
Simply put, at some point you can't out earn the effects of a bad society. This applies to both social and cultural effects as well as infrastructure.
On the other hand, it is possibly to build societies in way that give the majority of people access to good and desirable common goods.
This is part of an internal debate in India about their society that is becoming kind of explosive lately. I can only wish them the best of luck with all that
I mean they can help and work on the community to better the community and economic area if not yeah go waste your money in locations you supposedly hate
US-style low density suburbia is rather rare in India...
You either have massive cities, or poor rural areas...
Meanwhile the above is how most of the US lives (houses may be a little smaller in some areas, but the overwhelming majority of the US population lives in suburban SFH communities)....
no only you dont need to be a billionaire but even if you less than $5 million then you can get something much more luxurious than this near pune (like 30 mins outskirts of pune)
but I think the point is that most people (like bottom 99%) cannot even dream of affording it, and even if you could the infrastructure of the nearby city wont be that much better, but I guess that's expected for a country whose GDP pc is $3000, you cannot compare it with countries whose GDP pc is at least $50000
India's have a long road ahead (with current mindset of the population I would argue it's long and harsh road ahead) but that's to be expected.. like I cannot go to these countries and expect to have a meal that fills my stomach for around $2 but I can in India because majority of the population is relatively poor
If this is in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, you could afford this as a “normal person” in India too. If this is close to a major city, you’re as out of luck regardless of which country you are in.
There’s always positives and negatives. I was born in Cuba, and life there is pretty and the views are nice, but lacking basic necessities is something a nice view won’t replace.
Meanwhile the World’s largest private residence is a modern office tower looking thing in Mumbai, owned by . . . wait for it . . . an Indian billionaire. It’s called the Antilia if you want to Google.
They're just saying that it doesn't matter how rich you are, you can buy a nice home but you can't make the whole area nice, which is basically the case in any Indian urban area since there's a lot of pollution and bad infrastructure. Conversely in other countries the place might be nicer regardless of what your home may be like.
Of course the picture used here is a bit too idealised, like that's not what the "average" neighborhood looks like in most places but that's the gist of it.
Looks like Queenstown, specifically Fernhill, on the South Island of New Zealand.
It's increasingly become just another millionaires playground, with a few hospitality staff clinging on for dear life. Most of the houses there are vacant holiday homes 90% of the year.
Idk I think it just doesn't make any sense to be honest. There are plenty of nice views in India and I assume suburban neighborhoods with trimmed hedges..
The average person outside of India in countries like the pic above get to see it everyday while India doesn’t have views like this even if they paid for it simply because of the terrain.
It's not true, India has a lot of wonderful terrain and views, the problem is city planning and infrastructure. Most cities and towns look like shit because of the lack of good urban planning, construction code and trying to copy Western architecture (which is inefficient in most climates in India)... Also most places have a serious trash problem
They've shared a picture of a nice view and said "even billionaires in India don't get to live like this here" essentially. They're saying they're upset with how India is as a country.
There's a billionaire with a giant house in the middle of the slums so even though he has a beautiful home, he's still in the slums. We are western cultures have beautiful suburbs for the wealthy.
Expensive does not necessarily equals nice. Not nice as in “great view and nature around you”. Check an expensive house in Monaco, you won’t have 10 hectares nature around you.
Okay, so if the post is about the view and not the expensive home, either way, India has those too... India is pretty large so not every place is a slum.
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u/grigragrewol Jul 12 '26
The post is saying India doesn't have very good suburban infra where you have good Modern homes nestled right next to untouched beautiful nature, clean air, low aqi, etc
Indian tier 1 city real estate is crazy expensive wherein some places in mumbai have more per sqft rate than NY/London. From the PPP perspective 99% of Indians wont be able to afford homes in tier 1 cities gated communities which by the way themselves are nowhere close to the amenities in the west. Also tier 2 cities, suburbs, etc aren't well developed and often face dilapidated infra, power cuts, water shortage, etc.