Forty years ago, a giant development effort known as the Green Revolution drove hunger from an India synonymous with famine and want.
Their work to resist state-sanctioned land grabs and giant development projects led to the formation of SPI, the Indonesian peasant movement, which now has 700,000 members and works in most of the country's provinces.
"There's been a recognition that they need simpler means of transport in the short term," said Stephen Brushett, an economist at the World Bank, which has been criticized for favoring giant development options like highways and dams.
To make up for the absence of a market in long-term debt Brazil created a giant development bank, the BNDES, with a balance-sheet larger than the World Bank's.
NYC 2012 says it is not a subterfuge for a giant development, but one adviser acknowledged that the Olympic effort needed a stadium with up to 100,000 seats for opening ceremonies and track and field events, and that it had few options politically other than building on the West Side.
The site attacked one very senior figure, claiming that a local official had delivered a suitcase containing $1m in cash to his home, as a result of which he had agreed not to collect $150m of tax due from a property company who were involved in a "giant development".
"The award extends our relationship with BP, as well as crowning our overall involvement with this giant development from concept right through to commissioning.
It's pretty much impossible to walk anywhere, since the entire layout is connected by massive roadways and arterials leading from one giant development to the next.
To get officially approved, the deal must go before a highly skeptical Board of Supervisors, many of whose constituents have expressed concerns about the drain the giant development, expected to draw 10,000 cars per day to one of the busiest intersections in all of San Francisco, will have on city services.
Firms such as Qatari Diyar, the UAE's Emaar and Kuwait's Kharafi Group have launched giant property developments in many Arab capitals as well as in tourist destinations along the Red and Mediterranean seas.
