Posts

Showing posts from January, 2010

New urban development leading towards unsustainable consumptive lifestyles

Image
Last week, I had a chance to visit and stay in Gurgaon, a new face of suburbia in India. I was appalled at the chaos that is Gurgoan. I had heard about the glitz and glamour of the city. The NH8 that connects Gurgaon to Delhi is lined with tall glass facade buildings, showing prominent corporate brands on their faces. The NH8 itself is a multiple lane freeway, where cars speed to and fro between Delhi and Gurgaon, carrying in them elite business class of India, churning wealth and pouring money into the country's economy. While this is happening at one end, where the private sector is complacent in its own wealth, the roads and the urban infrastructure is terrible. The minute you step out of your own glass building and stand on the road, you see a high speed vehicle access but no place to walk! Footpaths are not only non existent, its extremely unsafe to walk along the road sides at dusk. The dusty landscape of this region spills on to the new roads, so the road sides are sand fill