The dream of Delhi as a global city

This chapter is an edited version of the following article:DUPONT V., The dream of Delhi as a global city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol 35.3, May 2011, pp. 533-554International audienceThe dream of Delhi as a global city: What facts and realities form the basis of this ambition? And what are the consequences on the restructuring of the urban landscape, especially for those who do not fit into this vision? Delhi’s recent development confirms a trend first evidenced by Harvey (1989) in advanced capitalist countries, and now observable in emerging economies such as India: the shift to entrepreneurialism in urban governance resting on public-private partnership and involving the creation of an attractive urban imagery as part of the speculative construction of place in the context of competitiveness among cities. The international sporting event in Delhi provides a privileged moment to examine the transformations and processes at work in the Indian capital. In the same way as the Olympics elsewhere, the Commonwealth Games are used by the city’s authorities as a “catalyst of urban change” and an “international showcase” to enhance the city’s global recognition and image; the Games, along with other urban projects, including shopping malls and the Delhi Metro rail system, epitomize the “concentration on spectacle and image rather than on the substance of economic and social problems” (Harvey 1989: 16). As the Delhi study will also show, the assertive “new” Indian middle class, characterized by its “attitudes, lifestyles and consumption practices associated with commodities made available in India’s liberalising economy” (Fernandes 2004: 2415) has concurred with the restructuring of the urban space, as well as its concomitant polarization and underlying exclusion process-what Fernandes (2004) refers to as a “politics of forgetting” marginalized social groups