Barun Roy: Surprise on the steppes

Building a new capital city from scratch isn't easy. Myanmar, South Korea and Malaysia have all tried, but the only virgin city that has taken off beyond all expectations is Astana, Kazakhstan's new capital

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu's decision to build a new capital for the state around Vijayawada is a wise one, because building one from scratch isn't easy, it is time-consuming and not always successful. Vijayawada already has the basic infrastructure and developing convenient additional enclaves around it shouldn't prove too much of a burden.

Chandigarh was still incomplete after 14 years when it was officially launched in 1966 to serve as the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana. Twelve years after construction began, Myanmar's new administrative capital, Nay Pyi Taw, still remains an incomplete city. Too far away from Yangon and ill-served by road and air, it's still a vast stretch of open space. Only a dozen hotels currently have some kind of a presence. Some foreign companies, especially Japanese, have set up small branch offices. Only recently have shops and restaurants started to open. A couple of countries have bought land to set up embassies in the international zone, but construction has yet to start. Hardly anyone is out on the streets after 9 o'clock at night.

Much of the city still consists of multi-lane highways flanked by scrubland, forests, and fields. One can see orderly arrays of apartment blocks meant for civil servants according to rank, and ministry buildings identical in appearance. There's a pagoda imitating the famed Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon. But there's just not the spark of life because of commuting difficulties.

After trying since 2004 to develop an administrative capital on an 18,029-acre virgin site in the Gongju-Yongji region, some 120 km to the south of Seoul, by 2020, South Korea has now decided to concentrate on Sejong City, 74 miles southeast of Seoul, where connectivity and infrastructure are much better. Residents began arriving in 2011 and 30 government offices are already located there. By 2030, Sejong is supposed to be home to half a million inhabitants. At the same time, South Korea has decided to distribute most of its 410 public agencies around other well-connected urban centres, while keeping some of them in Seoul, including the President's residence, the National Assembly and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Malaysia moved its administrative capital to Putrajaya in 1999, but it's only 25 km south of Kuala Lumpur and is much easier to manage and commute to and fro. Even so, Putrajaya is still in the making and Kuala Lumpur, or KL, remains the centre of business and commerce.

The only virgin city that has taken off beyond all expectations is Astana, Kazakhstan's new capital shifted out of Almaty in 1997. It has sprung up on a 722-sq km steppe landscape, where only a few old buildings from the Soviet era had existed. All those buildings are being replaced by glitzy, new architecture, designed by such acclaimed architects as Japan's Kisho Kurokawa and the UK's Norman Foster. With a population of over 800,000 (against 281,000 in 1999), Astana is already the country's second-largest city. The government expects some 1.5 million people to live there by 2020.

Some people have described Astana as the world's weirdest capital, boasting futuristic structures, a shopping mall that doubles as the world's largest tent, and a science-fiction-like skyline that has drawn global attention. Kurokawa has designed Astana's airport, while Foster has designed a 203-ft-high pyramid, called the Pyramid of Peace, which houses, among other things, a 1,500-seat opera house, a national Museum of Culture, a University of Civilisation, and a research centre on ethnic and geographical groups.

The surprising thing about Astana is that it's thriving even though it's 13 hours apart from Almaty. It's well-served by air and railways, and there are plans to build a high-speed railway line to bring the two cities together. One possible explanation is that Kazakhs want to outlive their Soviet past and find a totally new and modern national identity. Astana fulfils that ambition.

rbarun@gmail.com