Introduction

Neoliberal Urban Transformations in Indian Cities: Paradoxes and Predicaments

“…The specialty of this restructuring lies in two aspects—first, the scale of restructuring which took place at the state level fuelled by increasing inter-state competition for attracting capital and second the driver of restructuring was the state government that acted in a typical top-down fashion and involved private actors to leverage urban governance reforms for improving urban competitiveness. These new actors practise, as Shatkin and Vidyarthi (2014) describe, ‘network politics’ for pursuing a particular project or achieving certain shared objectives of urban transformation.…”

Planning a ‘slum free' Trivandrum: Housing upgrade and the rescaling of urban governance in India

“…Second, whilst programme implementation is usually devolved to State and/or local government, finances and rules for this are set nationally, resulting in struggles over technologies of governance (in our case, the seemingly mundane practices of plan-making and project approval). Third, and more particular to our case, JNNURM self-consciously sought to redress India’s lack of ‘meaningful rescaling in favour of local governments’ (Kennedy, 2017: 10), through a scalar strategy: enforcing from above an ordered decentralisation to enhance cities’ governance capacities (Shaktin and Vidyarthi, 2013). The literature has not addressed the scalar contradictions all three unleashed, but these are of potential significance for studies of governance reform far beyond the urban Indian context.…”

“…States have had greater scope to promote and regulate economic growth, often competing with each other through industrial subsidies, and the development of land (Sud, 2017) and infrastructure (see also Jenkins, 1999, 2014). This process has been indirect and somewhat haphazard, and as Shaktin and Vidyarthi (2013) note, it has also had dramatic city-level consequences, including the transformation of the real estate market (Searle, 2013) and the establishment of elite policy networks (Sami, 2013; Vidyarthi, 2013; Weinstein, 2014a). As liberalisation has unfolded, opportunities for real estate development have expanded massively, alongside linked pressures from local middle class and elite groups to ‘modernise’ their cities (Weinstein et al., 2013).…”

“…As liberalisation has unfolded, opportunities for real estate development have expanded massively, alongside linked pressures from local middle class and elite groups to ‘modernise’ their cities (Weinstein et al., 2013). These newly empowered actors have aimed to curtail the influence of the poor within urban politics and ‘realize a vision of an economically competitive city’ (Shaktin and Vidyarthi, 2013: 24, see also Chatterjee, 2004).…”