|
The Collection Wed, 11 Jun 25 |
Multiple stories, multiple perspectives, one theme worth your time—every week. |
Good Morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],
You are on a free plan. Your subscription has expired. Upgrade now to unlock premium newsletters, top feature stories, exclusive podcasts, and more.
11 September, 2022.
That was the day I landed in Bengaluru, raring to begin my internship at The Ken. I was also nervous and anxious, a small-town boy in a new and strange land. A short but intense breakdown was, in fact, just three weeks away.
But I pulled through. And over these three years, I’ve come to love everything that is to love about this city. A “salubrious” climate that was too good to resist for even our erstwhile colonisers. Beautiful parks you can spend sunny afternoons and evenings strolling through. A vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem with an irrepressible can-do culture. Fun-loving, incredibly helpful, and smart friends and colleagues.
There’s a lot to love about Bengaluru. But there’s much to lament too.
The narrow roads and traffic—bumper-to-bumper on most days, virtually standstill when it’s raining, and by now a mandatory joke in all standup comedy gigs—is just one part of it. In recent times, even the startup culture has started to… if not falter, at least flag. Not to mention all the trouble with water supply.
Just weeks ago, the Karnataka government passed an act to form a revamped and expanded administrative entity to manage the city. If you believe the state’s deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar, the new Greater Bengaluru Authority will be fully formed by 15 September, replacing the erstwhile municipality—Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). The government expects the move to make administration, maintenance, and infrastructure development more effective.
The Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024, allows the creation of at least three municipal corporations to govern the city instead of a single municipal body like the BBMP, according to a statement released by the state government.
All municipal corporations will be led by an elected mayor responsible for specific zones. These corporations will function under a central authority, the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), to ensure cohesive urban planning and infrastructure coordination across the IT capital.
The Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) Act, passed by the Karnataka Legislature in February 2024, was introduced in response to long-standing demands for governance reform in Bengaluru, a city struggling with rapid population growth, infrastructure challenges, and environmental issues.
There’s much to fix and revitalise. The GBA, if it works the way it is intended, can be the solution to some of it. Over the past few years, The Ken has written multiple pieces about the city’s infrastructure and economy. In this week’s edition of The Collection, we dive into these pieces to explore the many problems ailing the city. And some possible solutions to help it regain some of its lost sheen.
Many blame a city’s woes on a lack of “development”—on governments not doing enough. That’s often true.
Take water, for example. Many states, including Karnataka, are now increasingly passing on the responsibility of solving the water crisis to private firms. But perhaps the more important question to ask is: what does successful development even look like?
Right now, what’s happening in Bengaluru is that the political properties of its bridges, buildings, flyovers, and railway stations are derived both by decision and by necessity.
A skywalk is built across a road to solve a specific problem asked for by a specific entity, which cares about nothing else except to prevent its employees from getting run over. Flyovers are built because someone else in another part of the city wants it, even if it excludes the vast majority of people in that area. Air-conditioned railway stations are made because the Indian Railways will fund it, without any regard for how people will get to the station.
I’d urge you to read this edition of The Nutgraf by my colleague Praveen Gopal Krishnan to know why, many times, solutions actually become problems in themselves.
Bengaluru’s solutions are Bengaluru’s problems
Why air-conditioned railway stations are political
Inside this maze of narrow initiatives, daily struggles persist. Like Bengaluru’s most famous claim to fame—its choked-up traffic. When we spoke to multiple experts about this pervasive issue in 2024, they suggested a key reason behind it was misprioritisation of objectives, with tech-driven efforts leaning more towards detecting violations than effective traffic management.
Bengaluru’s solution for its traffic mess that tech couldn’t fix: even more tech
An AI-powered app and a Japanese system hit the road to ease congestion, but they can’t beat infrastructure-induced woes
Many of the infrastructure projects meant to alleviate these woes have stumbled. Take the metro, where the launch of a much-delayed extension of just 2 km in 2023 was bungled so badly that it resulted in the metro line becoming jam-packed during peak hours for months. The history of the city’s metro troubles actually go back nearly two decades.
Why a mere 2km stretch threw the Bengaluru Metro into chaos
The city is caught in a mass-transit tangle where overcrowded hubs are the new normal. Blame it on poor planning, a “Make in India” ripple effect, and more
Even Bengaluru’s image as India’s Silicon Valley and startup hub seems to have taken a hit lately, with many of the more recent players from Delhi, for instance, appearing gutsier and more resilient.
How exactly is Delhi challenging Bengaluru’s claim to the title of India’s startup capital?
Two By Two • 04 |
|
And as if all these things weren’t enough, there are the soaring rents for housing. Over the last few years, rental prices, especially around tech corridors, have skyrocketed. And a lot of this can also trace its causes to short-sighted policy resulting in lopsided housing development.
It sucks to be a tenant in Bengaluru right now
As landlords rake it in thanks to the sharpest rise in rents among large Indian cities in 2023
That’s all for this week. Tell me more about your Bengaluru experience by writing to [email protected] or leaving a comment on our website or app.
Get a premium subscription to The Ken
Unrivaled analysis and powerful stories about businesses from award-winning journalists. Read by 5,00,000+ subscribers globally who want to be prepared for what comes next.
Trusted by 5,00,000+ executives & leaders from the world's most successful organisations & students at top post-graduate campuses
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rahul leads the promotion and distribution efforts for the journalism produced by The Ken. He works at the intersection of the publication's editorial and business operations.
|
|
Share this edition
You can use the easy share buttons below
|
|
|
|
|
© 2025 The Ken
Do you know anyone else who would like to read this newsletter?
Share this edition with them.