Development-induced Changes in the ‘Urban Landscape’ and ‘Social Space’: A Case Study of Metro Rail’s Impact on the Hyderabad City

Abstract

Scholars interested in urban space focus on topics such as place-making, place attachment, place identities and the politics of place. The expanded landscape of cities compels its inhabitants to constantly move into the city for livelihood and other activities. Consequently, urban anthropologists showed considerable interest in people’s mobility, infrastructure associated with mobility and mobility cultures in the city. However, in its dynamics, mobility alters the urban space, leading to the emergence of new frontiers for holistic urban phenomena. How urban space expansion causes mobility needs and the mobility solution, in turn, modifies urban space is the prime concern for the research. The present research focuses on the changes that occurred in the urban space with the onset of a single development programme introduced for people’s mobility needs. The study investigated ‘Metro’ commuters and non-commuters in Hyderabad City. Data for this urban ethnographic study of an Indian city were gathered using observation, semi-structured interviews and the case study approach. The study finds that Metro rail construction and operation for the mobility needs of the people have produced a new kind of techno-space on the roads of Hyderabad city. It also highlights how Metro pushed the ‘gentrification’ process to the forefront of urban social structural changes.