Torn in Two

Bangalore city saw unprecedented growth in the 1980s & 90s deriving from its positioning as a hub for IT & associated industries. Even as the world watched its amazing growth in wonder Bangalore's own response was typically dichotomous. There was a throwback to a mythicized past a longing for the pensioner’s paradise & garden city of old; there was also an aspiration for a neoteric modern future. This book studies Bangalore’s growth through a kaleidoscopic lens. It asks the question:How has growth affected & manifested in Bangalore’s EconomySocietyPoliticsPlanning & Spatial characteristics? It points that a corporate led development imperative has resulted in& is sustained bya concomitant growth of a working class & assorted migrant poor groups. The consequence is a fragmented polarized society. Corporate neoliberalism stands in contrast to small local economies; socially there is a nouveau elite who prefer to invisibilize the poor; politics & policy become handmaidens to groups that influence them through very different processes. The book brings together theory & practice drawing upon both scholarship & the author's professional experience in the region.