## Colophon tags:: url:: https://mailchi.mp/0c63b92e08fe/for-subscribers-only-book-excerpt-6418169?e=79b3041772 %% title:: For Subscribers Only: Exclusive Book Excerpt type:: [[clipped-note]] author:: [[@mailchi.mp]] %% ## Notes > Exclusive Excerpt Chronicles of a Global City: Speculative Lives and Unsettled Futures in Bengaluru — [view in context](https://hyp.is/QP7GTAL_EfClqxOYh8e2Dw/mailchi.mp/0c63b92e08fe/for-subscribers-only-book-excerpt-6418169?e=79b3041772) ⬆️ date:: [[2025-03-17]] > Bengaluru’s urban future is here. Or at least in prototype, if we go by the proclamations of Snehdeep Aggarwal, founder-chairman of Bhartiya Group and self-described mayor of the 125-acre integrated township of Bhartiya City, near Hebbal. Aggarwal exuberantly calls the project his “City of Joy.” The guiding concept that anchors this “smart megacity”? Improbably, it is “happiness.” Aggarwal’s ambition is to build a city that is an “ecosystem” for happiness. As the website for Bhartiya City announces: “Happiness is in the little things. Happiness isn’t momentary, it’s a state of being. Happiness is not an island. The more you are surrounded by happy people, the greater your chances of being happy. Happiness is a product of all those little things coming together to form a complete environment—an ecosystem.” Bhartiya City’s sales proposition is that happiness can be planned, and you are invited to participate. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/TNDFiAL_EfCqqs_qcbpeTg/mailchi.mp/0c63b92e08fe/for-subscribers-only-book-excerpt-6418169?e=79b3041772) > Oh, and let’s not forget that this is after all a smart city. When Bhartiya City’s central command center—Aggarwal calls it “the brain”—is fully up and running, life’s amenities will be available at your fingertips: “Enter, an app called Whimbl. Book a show, book a table, book a court, replenish your groceries, get your car washed, you get the idea. If you are a husband responsible for the chores of your household, this simple app should make you a happy man indeed.” There is a nod and a wink here to the professional and tech-savvy families, with cosmopolitan gender norms, who are likely to be your neighbors—if that’s the social mix you desire. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/mCSAOAL_EfCrbK-se6KXug/mailchi.mp/0c63b92e08fe/for-subscribers-only-book-excerpt-6418169?e=79b3041772) > Niranjan Hiranandani, managing director of the Hiranandani real estate group, praises mixed-use integrated townships as a “new urbanism”—the panacea for a plethora of urban ills, from congestion, lack of infrastructure, and increase in traffic and travel time to low-quality living spaces. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/uiHGWgL_EfCZBZcoxaTNmg/mailchi.mp/0c63b92e08fe/for-subscribers-only-book-excerpt-6418169?e=79b3041772) > Hiranandani, who is also vice-chairman of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development’s National Real Estate Development Council, oddly makes no mention of India’s rich history of integrated developments, from company towns to public-sector townships. Bhilai, Bokaro, Bhadravati, Jamshedpur, and Jaffrabad are a few that spring to mind. Whereas these were primarily intended as self-contained housing projects for employees, with various amenities ready at hand, perhaps what makes today’s townships a distinctively “new-age construction” (in Hiranandani’s words) is their purposeful alignment with the market logics of entrepreneurship and consumption. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/yMhV6AL_EfCkaav-R0deRg/mailchi.mp/0c63b92e08fe/for-subscribers-only-book-excerpt-6418169?e=79b3041772) > Contemporary mixed-use townships are premised on a postindustrial imagination, where digitally mediated service-sector jobs have overtaken manufacturing. Hence, each one, to varying degrees, promises a setting where workplace productivity can be optimized by minimizing the trade-off between labor time and leisure time. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/1dHCfgL_EfC6ybtYogBYlw/mailchi.mp/0c63b92e08fe/for-subscribers-only-book-excerpt-6418169?e=79b3041772) > Patrick Geddes, the polymath who lived and worked as a town planner in India from 1914 to 1924 (he was also a biologist, sociologist, and philosopher). — [view in context](https://hyp.is/MogiYAMAEfCmavej-gKgbA/mailchi.mp/0c63b92e08fe/for-subscribers-only-book-excerpt-6418169?e=79b3041772) ⬆️ That's a lot of things. > Geddes fine-tuned his method of “conservative surgery”: revitalizing urban quarters by minimizing the destruction of existing buildings or the expulsion of settled populations. His method, which contrasted with the standard demolish-and-rebuild approach of British municipal engineers, rested on discovering a city’s genius loci—the spirit of a place—and designing a plan to improve and amend a city’s environment in alignment with this inherited character. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/LIzcBgMVEfCrWY9CxRgNdg/mailchi.mp/0c63b92e08fe/for-subscribers-only-book-excerpt-6418169?e=79b3041772) > Given Viren’s formative role in Bengaluru’s aspirational reinvention as a global city—he has been involved in some of the most defining (and, critics might say, disruptive) architectural projects in the city—Geddes struck us as an odd inspiration — [view in context](https://hyp.is/NWQt3gMVEfC5wMO6vrMmSQ/mailchi.mp/0c63b92e08fe/for-subscribers-only-book-excerpt-6418169?e=79b3041772) > After all, the sameness of “world city” builtscapes—the repetitive parade of glass-and-steel high-rises, swanky malls, curated shopping districts with brand-name stores, and sanitized green spaces—can overwhelm the quirks and differences that impart cities their distinctiveness. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/RaXG0AMVEfCzn_uCOzUZLQ/mailchi.mp/0c63b92e08fe/for-subscribers-only-book-excerpt-6418169?e=79b3041772)