Hortense Rouanet: When major property developers shape the city in India. A comparative look at Bangalore and Chennai.

India’s major cities are undergoing far-reaching spatial transformations, characterised in particular by a proliferation of property developments aimed at transnational corporations and the upper middle classes. Our thesis focuses on the property development companies that initiate and coordinate this type of project. By studying two urban regions in southern India (Bangalore and Chennai), we seek to understand the processes through which some of these companies are strengthening their position in the material, symbolic and political shaping of urban spaces.

We begin by emphasising the crucial role played by central government through its housing finance policies (the expansion of household credit), the gradual liberalisation of land use, and the opening up of the construction sector to capital from financial markets. The thesis then shows how, in the mid-2000s, the explosion in investment, particularly from abroad, benefited a limited number of property developers. These developers took advantage of this context of abundant capital. Armed with the cognitive, social and political resources enabling them to navigate India’s ‘informal urbanism’, they took on risks that asset managers—still unfamiliar with local players, their practices and the geography of property markets—were unwilling to accept. Whilst recourse to financial markets brought about organisational transformations and accelerated a process of professionalisation, their key role in securing investment ensured these development companies a degree of autonomy. On the one hand, bolstered by the capital raised, they accelerated their growth by industrialising their operations and expanding their markets into southern Indian cities. On the other hand, these major developers were able to develop and disseminate models relating both to desired forms of urbanisation and to national and local policies on urban development.

Members of the jury

• Armelle Choplin, Senior Lecturer, University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée
• Eric Denis, Director of Research, CNRS, UMR Géographie-cités (rapporteur)
• Ludovic Halbert, Research Fellow, CNRS, UMR LATTS (co-supervisor)
• Loraine Kennedy, Research Director, CNRS, UMR CEIAS
• Christian Lefèvre, Professor, University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée (Director)
• Renaud Le Goix, Professor, Paris Diderot University (rapporteur)