Fragile utopia: Why wealthy Gurugram is a failed city

Gurugram was flooded yet again. Once more, outrage flares on social media; once more, daily life grinds to a halt. And once more, the city will soon forget. The city seems to be stuck in a familiar loop of angst during the crisis, apathy once it passes. The so-called Millennium City is unable to break free. Why is this so? Why has Gurugram, despite its wealth, failed so often as a city?

On the surface, Gurugram n is one of India’s richest urban centres per capita, a collage of high-rise apartments, glass towers, international schools and sprawling malls. But beneath the sheen lies a profound absence. The city has no cultural core, no political presence, and little civic identity. Unlike Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata, it has no monuments or historic institutions to bind its citizens together.

Until the 1990s it was a quiet agrarian district. Its transformation into a corporate suburb was driven almost entirely by developers like DLF and manufacturers like Maruti. The result is a city without memory and a site of only offices and condos, but not of history or shared belonging.

This absence of culture matters, because culture often provides the glue for civic life. Where cities lack cultural anchors, they struggle to...

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