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  • Essay / Urbanization and city building in Bangalore

    The narrative of urban modernization calls for replacing the indigenous urban poor with a new class of people who will champion the global city ambitions projected by the Bangalore government. Indeed, land dispossession and booming real estate investment in India are not happening in city centers, but rather in booming peripheries and small towns, such as settlements on the outskirts of the city electronics from Bangalore. Lefebvre calls this India's "urban revolution", explaining the shift of capital from its primary (industrial) circuit to its secondary (property-based) circuit. This form of urban revolution requires an injection of excess capital into real estate in emerging markets and the movement of previously “underutilized” areas into capitalist space production. In India's case, this relied on millions of small peri-urban land deals, bundled together and sold to developers. The manipulation of existing laws emanating from the colonial state, in conjunction with India's Special Economic Zone Act, resulted in an unprecedented level of acquisition of state land for urban development through the ruse of eminent domain . Indeed, India has 143 active SEZs, with another 600 approved and planned for future development, requiring more than half a million acres of new land, much of which will be devoted to luxury housing and retail: “the real attraction of SEZs for most developers. ". Yet Bangalore, in its quest to become a global city, has led to considerable displacement following the expansion of the secondary circuit of capital. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original EssayA discussion on urbanization and city building in India is not complete without addressing informality. Macfarlane offers an alternative conceptualization of the distinction between formality and informality: the two are different forms of practice. The product of urban modernity and economic liberalization is assumed to lie in the realm of the “formal,” while informality can be conceptualized as a negotiable value. In reality, formality and informality are not fixed categories, but rather fluid, allowing planners and developers in Indian cities like Bangalore to switch between the two in order to achieve their goals. However, this comes at a high price, as Bangalore's information technology-driven global urban development projects have also undermined a significant informal economy that employs much of the city's population and provides 50 to 75 % of GDP. Like many postcolonial cities, urban neighborhoods in Indian cities are informally populated and are "recognized and administered by hybrid, contradictory, and ambiguous sets of legal mechanisms and state practices." Informal slums emerge from development-induced poverty and subsequent migration from rural to urban fringe areas. Indeed, informality is a way of life, experienced and used by both elites and slum dwellers, and it is essential for understanding how development takes place in India. Developers and state agencies undermine existing laws, begin illegal construction and only then get approval. In some cases, state agencies launch projects with the support of organized crime syndicates. It is therefore clear that informality is not limited to..