Sabarmati Riverfront Development project

Megacities as myths of beauty

Geography/demography of conflict:

History of the city Known for its textile mills, Gandhi Ashram,

Muslim architecture and communal violence City’s history allows a range of vocabulary,

elements one can choose from and mobilize in order to articulate different imaginations

Marred by communal conflicts, seen as an economic hub, abysmal income disparity between west and east

Since 2000s focus on development but skewed Time period in focus: Narendra Modi govt+ IT

boom

Promise of the metropolis: IT boom and the rise of the megacity

Megacity= 10 million or above, Ahmedabad=50 million+

Inside urbanising Asia: Darshini Mahadevia

Essential to look into: governance, financing infrastructure and hence a pattern of selective development. This is background, it will show how the narrative of development is problematic and serves only middle class imagination.

The ‘Manchester of the East’

To the ‘east of Manchester’

50% of dwelling in east Ahmedabad is slums and chawls

To get title of Megacity, sudden expansion of AUDA limits, inclusion of many more areas, reaching population targets

80% of the displaced population is Muslims State to protect you from yourself: Slum

dwellers identified as living in unhygienic conditions, in low lying flood prone areas

Most are hawkers, lower income class, grocers: obsolete occupations in a modern city

East city ecology Gurjari Bazar (flea market): 1200

permanent hawkers and 1000 temporary workers

Circus in the river valley: old dying tradition of pitching circus tents in the riverfront area since this is a seasonal river

East city preserved as ‘old heritage’ (congested, polluted) and West city fit for modernization

SRFD: whose dream? Rs 12,000 million budget 11.5 km long riverfront Land reclamation FSI (floor space index) rules changed 30,000 living households on the river banks Largest slum displacement in the history of

Post partition Gujarat On paper rehabilitation for 4000 people

offered so far Performative-festivals to claim land Rehabilitated to ‘downtown Ahmedabad’

Myth of the Megacity:

Excerpts of the imagined city: “It’s like a dream that one lives. Waking up by

the river, driving down the riverside; board meeting with vast blue vista in the background and then a cruise across the water for a power lunch on the other bank. And then, a dinner on the gloating restaurant with family to chill out…In the midst of concrete and steel that is the dream that city planners are conjuring for apnu Amdavad.”

On two stretches of 11.5 km, the future of a decaying city takes shape. It will create a central business district on the waterfront which will rub shoulders with world’s best- Melbourne which has only 800m and Singapore, 1.2km…the tallest of buildings in Gujarat…and ghats for religious activities.”

State authorized vandalism City as an aesthetic object, a site for

performative art: lifetsyle, cultural traditions, rituals,

Ahmedabad and Sabarmati: the relationship of the city (as a populated space) and the river, will it be altered by this?

Embellishing vandalism: Dario Gamboni Logic of e-governance: sacrifice for a greater

good