Current Projects

(1)  Speculative Urbanism: Land, Livelihoods, and Finance Capital (2017-2021)

Funded by the National Science Foundation (USA) award no BCS-1636437

A major social experiment is underway in Asia’s rapidly growing cities. Compelled by the dominant urban planning models circulating through global policy networks, governments have acted to implement a vision of the ‘global city’ – a modern megalopolis of 10 to 20+ million people replete with world-class infrastructure and amenities. To realize this new urban vision requires enabling large financial investors to convert under-utilized land into fungible property, a process that is expected to enhance urban competitiveness and reduce poverty. But are such ambitious policies working out in practice?

This three-year research project, which started in January 2017, will produce an urgently needed analysis of the policies, practices, and effects of this experiment through a relational comparison of urban and peri-urban sites in two highly dynamic Asian cities – Jakarta and Bangalore. We seek to understand how this process is working on the ground, and to assess its implications for the livelihoods of those displaced. How land is acquired, consolidated, and converted from a social asset into a liquid financialized asset is critical to the execution of these large-scale projects.

To this end, the project has (1) studied the social networks and processes through which land is assembled and assetized; (2) examined the role of policy and financial networks in facilitating these processes and this regime of urban development; and (3) assessed how the resulting real estate and infrastructure projects impact the livelihoods of local communities and urban sustainability. The research design has pursued these objectives through a mixed-methods approach, with an emphasis on in-depth qualitative field research, combined with appropriate quantitative data and methods.

The research is contributing to scholarship on the transformation of southern mega-cities and on the relationship between financialization and urban change, by exploring in depth processes of displacement and dispossession as land it turned into real estate; providing new insights into the role of global policy, business and financial networks in shaping urban development; documenting the effects of large-scale urban development projects on the lives of local people and communities; and contributing to current high profile debates about how to best conceptualize urbanization in the global South. Through a relational comparison of Jakarta and Bangalore, we aim to develop a geographically and historically grounded theory of urban land transformations that can be tested in other similar contexts.

Principal Investigator: Prof. Vinay Gidwani, University of Minnesota

Co-investigators:          Prof. Michael Goldman, University of Minnesota

Prof. Eric S. Sheppard, University of California Los Angeles

Prof. Helga Leitner, University of California Los Angeles

Prof. Carol Upadhya, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore

Please visit: https://www.speculativeurbanism.net/

Past Programmes

Provincial Globalisation:The Impact of Reverse Transnational Flows in India’s Regional Towns, a five-year international collaborative research programme with the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, funded by WOTRO, the Netherlands (2010-15).

The Great Transformation: Urban Land Markets, Livelihoods and the Growing Ecological Crisis in Asia’s Cities. Collaboration with Michael Goldman and Vinay Gidwani, funded by Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change (ICGC), University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (2013-16).

Past Projects

(1) World-City Planning in Andhra Pradesh: A New Model for Urbanisation?

PI:  Carol Upadhya

Three years (July 2016 to June 2019), funded by Azim Premji Foundation

Land acquisition, urban renewal and planning, and infrastructure development are among the most politically contentious issues in India today, with ramifying implications for democracy, social justice, and development. This research project will address these issues through a longitudinal study of India’s most ambitious experiment in planned urban development since the early post-Independence years – the new capital city of Andhra Pradesh (Amaravati). The research will follow the development of the city over three years, documenting the social and economic consequences of the construction of a futuristic ‘greenfield’ city in the midst of an agrarian landscape. The Amaravati project, still in the planning stages, has already stimulated processes of urbanisation (planned and unplanned) and changes in land and livelihoods that will have profound effects on all the inhabitants of the capital region. The research will examine the variable consequences of ‘world-city’ urban planning for different social classes and communities, tracing changes in livelihood strategies, patterns of mobility, and new aspirations and visions of the future. It will also study the ‘land pooling’ system that was used to acquire land for the new capital, trace its connections with the real estate market, and explore the social consequences of the rapid conversion of agricultural land into a speculative asset. By mapping the dynamics of urbanisation in Amaravati and its impacts on the social welfare and economic security of local communities, the project will draw broader conclusions about the implications of this model of urban planning, land assembly, and infrastructure development for the creation of sustainable and equitable urban habitats in India.

(2) India’s Changing Cityscapes: Work, Migration and Livelihoods

Funded by the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), in collaboration with the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore

India’s cities have witnessed the expansion of the consumption-oriented ‘new service economy’ – especially low-skilled sectors such as hospitality, big retail, security services and transportation -- opening up new employment opportunities for youth with a range of educational levels and skills. The increasing importance of services, combined with the crisis in agriculture in many regions, rural unemployment, and rising levels of education as well as aspirations, have engendered new pathways and modalities of mobility, as potential workers flow into the city from rural areas and small towns in search of jobs. Current skill development programmes have also targeted these sectors to address the problem of unemployment. This two-year study examined the linkages between migration, skilling, employment, aspirations and socio-economic mobility among low-end service workers (especially migrants), based on extensive field research in Bengaluru and Raichur district, Karnataka.

Co-Principal Investigators:  Carol Upadhya and Supriya RoyChowdhury

View Final Report here