Contesting the Indian City
Global Visions and the Politics of the Local
IJURR Studies in Urban and Social Change Book Series

Contesting the Indian City features a collection of cutting-edge empirical studies that offer insights into issues of politics, equity, and space relating to urban development in modern India.

• Features studies that serve to deepen our theoretical understandings of the changes that Indian cities are experiencing
• Examines how urban redevelopment policy and planning, and reforms of urban politics and real estate markets, are shaping urban spatial change in India
• The first volume to bring themes of urban political reform, municipal finance, land markets, and real estate industry together in an international publication

Series Editors’ Preface ix

Preface and Acknowledgments x

1 Introduction: Contesting the Indian City: Global Visions and the Politics of the Local 1
Gavin Shatkin and Sanjeev Vidyarthi

2 Contested Developments: Enduring Legacies and Emergent Political Actors in Contemporary Urban India 39
Liza Weinstein, Neha Sami, and Gavin Shatkin

3 Conflict and Commensuration: Contested Market Making in India’s Private Real Estate Development Sector 65
Llerena Guiu Searle

4 “One-Man Handled”: Fragmented Power and Political Entrepreneurship in Globalizing Mumbai 91
Liza Weinstein

5 Power to the People? A Study of Bangalore’s Urban Task Forces 121
Neha Sami

6 Social Conflict and the Neoliberal City: A Case of Hindu–Muslim Violence in India 145
Ipsita Chatterjee

7 Gentrifying the State: Governance, Participation, and the Rise of Middle-Class Power in Delhi 176
D. Asher Ghertner

8 Becoming a Slum: From Municipal Colony to Illegal Settlement in Liberalization Era Mumbai 208
Lisa Björkman

9 Building a “World Class Heritage City”: Jaipur’s Emergent Elites and the New Approach to Spatial Planning 241
Sanjeev Vidyarthi

10 Planning Mangalore: Garbage Collection in a Small Indian City 265
Neema Kudva

11 Comparative Perspectives on Urban Contestations: India and China 293
Gavin Shatkin

Index 311

Gavin Shatkin is Associate Professor at the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. His research focuses on contemporary urban redevelopment practices in Asian cities, urban inequality, and community organizing and collective action around issues of shelter and infrastructure delivery. His book Collective Action and Urban Poverty Alleviation: Community Organizations and the Struggle for Shelter in Manila was published in 2007.