Thursday, June 9, 2011

Gurgaon in the New York Times

I woke up this morning to an article shared on my Facebook wall from a friend Lindsay and I met while traveling in Turkey last year. Our friend is American but of Indian descent so it's been fun to remain in contact with her as we've progressed through our assignment.

Jim Yardley's NYT article, published June 8, 2011

If the caption under the first picture from the article doesn't draw you in, I'm not sure anything will:

"A booming suburb of New Delhi has become the model for development in India. And it would seem to have everything, except a functioning citywide sewer, reliable electricity or water, or decent roads."

I often write about the quirky and fun aspects of living in India; the servants, the drivers, the travel. Basically an extravagant expat life. This article does a phenomenal job of detailing some of the issues that plague the suburb of Delhi where we reside, Gurgaon. It's a city that is often used to embody the "new" India of corporate parks and malls. Well folks, I hate to break it to you and this isn't news, but even the "new" India has issues.

For all of those people that think government is inherently bad or think it shouldn't exist, read this article. I'm not a fan of big government but Gurgaon is a perfect case study of what happens to a city when there's 1.5 million residents (and growing) and no central plan.

Enjoy the article, it's a fascinating read (and I'm still convinced there are more than 26 malls in this town).


1 comment:

  1. Just read the article .. really was a good one!

    ReplyDelete