ABSTRACT
The culture of few societies is static. Much changed in India during the last three decades of the twentieth century. At the end of the twentieth century New Delhi housed about 300,000 people but had become swamped by surrounding growth. Delhi’s metropolitan population grew from under 1 million in 1947 to an agglomeration of over 16 million in 2007. Both positive and negative outcomes have resulted from this change and the concomitant growth of the middle class. These outcomes have had an impact on the housing market and thus on the built environment. Not only Delhi but Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai and many smaller cities have burgeoned in population numbers. Sadly, once elegant places developed the characteristics that the new middleclass had wished to leave behind them. Cows still wander amiably across streets and dogs pick at the over flowing piles of garbage on them. Roads have become jammed with an assortment of vehicles (Delhi has 5.5 million at the time of writing and with the Nano replacing motor-scooters the number will increase substantially). Beggars crowd traffic intersections.
