Bypassing the Squalor: New Towns, Immaterial Labour and Exclusion in Post-colonial Urbanisation

Abstract

<p>India's "bypass" approach to urbanisation seeks to decongest its post-colonial metropolises by building new towns for a new economy of knowledge-based activities and businesses driven by global capital on their fringes. The globalised economy, hegemonised by immaterial labour, creates conditions for these new towns to culturally secede from their national or regional location and align themselves with the global cities. However, the condition of post-coloniality, characterised by capital and its wasteland, manifests itself in the new towns as the slow but inevitable encroachment of the excluded population on these new zones of exclusivity.</p>