Futuristic pluralism of modernist new towns: The case of a steel-manufacturing city in India

Conference: Making the City. Transformative Processes in (Post)Industrial Urban Spaces, Chemnitz University of Technology, Sächsisches Industriemuseum, Chemnitz, 28 June–01 July 2023

Construction of modernist industrial cities in overwhelmingly rural regions was one of the pillars of new future-building in postcolonial India. Built as cities of the future unburdened by the baggage of the past, new towns were built with the aim to foster a new citizen. I situate the construction of one of these cities – Bokaro Steel City – within a post-war international context centring the spatial politics of it, namely the variety of urban-planning techniques aimed at constructing a specific social subject.

The drawing of the neighbourhood unit in the General Plan of Bokaro Steel City.
Image © Courtesy of Dipankar Das, Bokaro Steel City.
The drawing of the neighbourhood unit in the General Plan of Bokaro Steel City.
Image © Courtesy of Dipankar Das, Bokaro Steel City.

More information
https://www.makingthecity.tu-chemnitz.de/