IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v50y2018i7p1386-1406.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rule by difference: Empire, liberalism, and the legacies of urban “improvementâ€

Author

Listed:
  • Malini Ranganathan

Abstract

From Victorian England and its colonies, to cities in South Asia today, “improvement†has long infused the language of urban planning. Through the case of Bangalore, India, this article argues that urban improvement should be understood as a project of liberal government forged in the crucible of empire and harnessed in the service of the state’s capital and spatial accumulation strategies. Once practiced by colonial planners, urban improvement fundamentally entails enhancing the value of urban space and its circulatory infrastructures through the mobilization of corrective behaviors related to property and propriety. In the process, improvement grafts race, class, caste, and other forms of social difference onto urban space, which in turn provides the justification for further improvement. Ultimately, improvement begets cycles of inequality and exclusion, even while it promises betterment and inclusion. Three improvement regimes are identified here: racialized improvement in the colonial city (1890s–1920s), classed improvement in the industrial city (1930s–1970s), and marketized improvement in the world-class city (1980s–2010s). The article further shows that with each wave of urban improvement came vernacular and nationalist responses that sought to extend housing and services to unserved constituents. These indigenous calibrations are as important to the genealogy of improvement as its original European form.

Suggested Citation

  • Malini Ranganathan, 2018. "Rule by difference: Empire, liberalism, and the legacies of urban “improvementâ€," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(7), pages 1386-1406, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:50:y:2018:i:7:p:1386-1406
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X18781851
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X18781851
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X18781851?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hans Schenk, 1997. "The Rurban Fringe: A Central Area between Region and City: The Case of Bangalore, India," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Manas Chatterji & Yang Kaizhong (ed.), Regional Science in Developing Countries, chapter 15, pages 212-223, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Stephen Legg & Colin McFarlane, 2008. "Ordinary Urban Spaces: Between Postcolonialism and Development," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(1), pages 6-14, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael Schwind & Uwe Altrock, 2023. "Negotiating Land in Rurban Bengaluru, South India," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-17, February.
    2. Junxi Qian & Ning An, 2021. "URBAN THEORY BETWEEN POLITICAL ECONOMY AND EVERYDAY URBANISM: Desiring Machine and Power in a Saga of Urbanization," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 679-695, July.
    3. Natacha Aveline-Dubach, 2017. "Centrality of Land in the Capital Accumulation Regime in China [La centralité du foncier dans le régime d’accumulation du capital en Chine]," Post-Print halshs-01556558, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:50:y:2018:i:7:p:1386-1406. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.