Vertical Urbanization and Horizontal Urban Populism

Half of the population of India by 2035 is expected to be urban. In addition, Indian cities’ contribution toward GDP is expected to rise from 58% (2013) to approximately 70% by 2030. Further, increasing rural to urban migration for employment opportunities and corresponding urban expansion to assist growing market economy is redefining existing rural dominated national political discourse. The urban peripheries of metropolitan cities are mostly hosting these transitional social dynamics. High-rise gated residential housing complexes are being developed with exclusive commercial, educational, and recreational offerings to the migrated population in such social spaces. Such neoexclusive urban spaces are built primarily for accommodating economic interests where civil amenities are prepaid and coexist with neighborhoods which are predominantly based on contractual social relationships. These new urban spaces challenge conceptual framework of populism which rests on the identity construction of a social class which is spatially and temporally deprived of their obligatory economic entitlements due to the ruling elites and their unilateral access to the ownership of the means of production. However, political and economic governance in group-housing complexes is co-owned by the residents in the form of Apartment Owners Association (AoA), thus a distinctive separation of the ordinary from the elites.