From World City Dreams to Everyday Struggles: Reading Contemporary Bengaluru

In her book The Promise of the Metropolis (2008), Janaki Nair traces Bengaluru’s transformation into a twentieth-century Information Technology (IT) hub. The city, she argues, stands at the cusp of modernity as the “nondescript small town” has transformed into an “internally recognized gateway to styles of globalized consumption” (Nair 2008:81). About two decades into this transformation, the promise of world class infrastructure and equal citizenship appears fractured. Deep inequality, lack...