ABSTRACT
Densely-packed, labyrinthine streets are lined with higgledy-piggledy constructions. Lean blocks rise skyward beside squat single-storey buildings framed by clouds. Avenue road as it presently exists cannot survive the implementation of road widening. The relationship of tree and building epitomises an essential dimension of life on Avenue road. The global city is grounded in a different premise. It is obsessed with spatiality and appearance. For better as well as for worse, Indian cities have thus far tended to emphasise people over the spaces in which they live and work. Any conception of ‘the global city’ that is at odds with the prevailing nature of indian urbanism is equally at odds with its cultural substructure, a fact of far greater consequence. The global city proposes its own notions of space and time, promotes its own forms of consumption, its own ‘lifestyle’.
