The Fabric Of A City

A recent book on the city of Lucknow focuses on the idea of a place not only as a geographical territory but as a part of people’s social lives, their identity, memory, and a sense of belonging and pride, each contributing to place-making in specific ways

- Binti Singh

Urban spatial and cultural transformation, experienced in cities of the global South including in India, resonates with global patterns that have already been established (Sassen, 1991; Castells, 1996; Harvey, 1990; Lefebvre, 1996). For instance, Madanipour (2010) observes that “similarity between cities is in the converging methods of city building, in which the markets and new technologies are prominent” (ibid: 14). These transformations have left cities in India unsettled in many ways. Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, and historical, cultural and political epicenter of North India after New Delhi, is one such city. Concerns over changes, particularly observed in cities, from place (having shared meanings) to space (abstract and impersonal) have been expressed in literature on urban studies (Jacobs, 1961; Sitte, 1986; Massey, 1994). With changes set in motion by the forces of globalisation (especially cultural ones), economic liberalisation and political restructuring over the last two decades, Lucknow has been subjected to the experience of unsettled particularly in the form of disruption and rupture in its urban culture. If “culture is a phenomenon that tends to have intensely place-specific characteristics thereby helping to differentiate places from one another” (Scott, 1997: 394), then one can argue that dilution of culture results in the loss of sense of place. Given the homogenising tendency of cultural globalisation that compels cities in India to resemble any other globalised city with its rapidly transforming cityscape and dilution of local culture, how does the contemporary city in India maintain its particularised character? While examining this central question, this study threads together diverse theoretical strands — namely city branding exercises as part of attracting investments following the neoliberal logic; globalisation and the impetus for place-based culture industries; citizens’ activisms as part