Neoliberal city and exclusive communities: the politics of contemporary urbanisation in northern India

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article focuses on a relatively overlooked dimension of urban development in India: the nature of community-making in new urban spaces. Using concepts from sociological and geographical literature on community formation, it examines the relationship between specific forms of urbanisation in contemporary (neo-liberal) India and community-making processes. The study is situated in the city of Noida within the national capital region in northern India. Examining two habitational forms, that of urban middle-class enclaves and urban villages, we suggest that a model of urbanisation involving eminent domain (the state’s power to acquire private property and convert it into public use) to produce gentrified urban spaces may promote conditions for rival forms of exclusivist community-making, including nativist ‘othering’.