Some elite tourists visiting Thailand's beaches have decided that the tsunami was not such a bad thing after all, because the area was "littered with commercialism" such as "beach chairs".

According to this article from yahoo news "Many believe the tsunami that devastated this tourist hotspot and killed thousands had one positive side: By washing away rampant development, it returned the beaches to nature."

Phanomphon Thammachartniyom, president of the Phuket Professional Guide Association, stated that "Nature has returned nature to us. I want it to be this way forever" -- and Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's Prime Minister, suggested that the tsunami was beneficial for it swept away unplanned and illegal building and offers an opportunity to regulate growth.

But is this really the case? Most poor countries, including Thailand and others affected by the tsunami, claim that they have a problem with 'illegal' building, but they fail to examine its fundamental causes.

Poor people build 'illegal' dwellings because -- as Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has documented -- acquiring legal permission to own their property is an onerous and excessively bureaucratic process.

What's worse, planning regulations in cities like New Delhi are used to prevent the city's poorest inhabitants from constructing and owning their own dwellings. I was living in New Delhi in February 2002 when the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) used bulldozers, tractors and trucks to plow down 'illegal construction' in Lajpat Nagar, in south Delhi. Prior to this, it served 3500 demolition notices to the residents and then obtained a Supreme Court order to carry out the demolition.

Much of the 'illegal' construction in Lajpat Nagar was built by poor slum dwellers and immigrants from other parts of India, at the time of India's independence. Some were given one-room houses with no bathrooms. Many of these people, through trade and entrepreneurship, became wealthier and as might be expected, built additions onto their dwellings -- but this was unacceptable to India's political elite (and perhaps some of south Delhi's wealthy upper class residents).

Middle class Indians became outraged at the demolition - and subsequently Lajpat Nagar was granted a Right of Way for development to continue.

Lajpat Nagar was a high profile case. Sadly, the DDA frequently invokes its power to demolish and relocate poor people in lower castes and poor immigrants, who have little say in the matter. Unless the residents pay excessive bribes to bureaucrats, city governments will often destroy 'slum settlements'.

Slum dwellers are prevented from owning any property because of onerous laws and regulations, and layers of bureaucracy. They end up building anyway - but ultimately do not possess title to their land, nor can they acquire it.

(here is an article about the politics of such demolitions)

This article discusses a scheme in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where favelas (slums) are transformed into real neighborhoods when people are given title to their land. Perhaps our friends in Thailand and other tsunami-affected countries could take a lesson from this - instead of perpetuating systems that only harm the poor.