https://thewire.in/urban/the-fantasy-of-exclusivity-in-high-rises
Under the impact of economic liberalisation, over the past three and a half decades – our cities have been demographically, operationally and visually been reconfigured. City’s settlement patterns, traffic condition, and the pull-factor have grown exponentially and grotesquely. Metropolitan cities have become the hub of all kinds of livelihood, production and service. The cities has become more cramped. Space is scarce, roads are narrow. Everything seems lot more suffocating, overflowing and chaotic. Shops, houses, garages, slivers of balconies, wires, lampposts, announcements, human movement – everything seems to be overcrowded. Courtyards are now a myth; and lawns are super privileges of a very few.
What is the rarest, the most expensive, and most dreamlike thing in our urban lives today? Land, housing, and an address. Look closely – most real-estate advertisements are trying to sell us exactly an experience that is far away from common people’s reach. There’s no land left in the city, and even if there is, it’s far beyond the purchasing power of the middle class’s legitimate earnings. Certainly, one can rise high, at the cost of demolishing old houses, filling wetlands, and acquiring farmland.
That’s exactly the essence of numerous housing ads in a an effort to sell Green Meadows, Mystic Greens, Spring Fields, Golf Forests, White Orchards – many of which are erected on former agricultural land. From everything degraded and dull – you will rise into a dazzling enclosure of abundance, whose high walls will isolate you from the sordid city. You will sit in solitude and think – this human right is your achievement and entitlement. Within this arrangement of consumption lies your safety, ease, detachment, and individuality. All your supplies will be app-mediated and will involve minimal human contact. Electricity, water and other supplies will be uninterrupted – at a high cost of maintenance. In this well-decorated lonely nirvana, every breath you take will be free of pollution – compared to the rest of the city.
09/11/2025