City profile Hyderabad: Visioning, restructuring and making of a high-tech city Diganta Das ⇑ Humanities and Social Studies Education, NIE, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), 1 Nanyang Avenue, #3-03-131, Singapore 637616, Singapore article info Article history: Received 11 August 2014 Received in revised form 13 November 2014 Accepted 13 November 2014 Keywords: Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh Telangana Cyberabad High-tech Smart city abstract Hyderabad is the second largest metropolitan region in India. The advent of globalization in India has opened the door for Hyderabad to brand itself as the popular destination for high-tech industries. In 1999, the entrepreneurial state government initiated Andhra Pradesh Vision 2020, a strategic document to develop the state by attracting foreign direct investments and developing specific growth engines in order to leapfrog toward the information society. Hyderabad was chosen to be the spine of the state governments’ visioning strategies and efforts have been made to brand it as the ‘world-class’ high-tech hub of India. Since then, Hyderabad has been under massive urban restructuring. This profile provides an overview of the origins and history of Hyderabad, the changing political economy of the state and resultant urban restructuring and followed by an exploration of emerging urban challenges and socio-spatial complexities of the expanding metro. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Hyderabad is the state capital of Telangana, a recently formed state of southern India and functions as the central administrative, industrial and commercial hub of the state. 1 From its humble origins as a small town founded in 1591, it has developed to become one of India’s fastest growing metropolises with a population of approximately 7.7 million (Census of India., 2011) which is further expected to increase to about 19 million by the year 2041 (GoAP, 2013). As per the United Nations (2014) document on World Urbanization Prospects (2014), Hyderabad metropolitan region is ranked 38th in the world and by 2030, it will be 28th most populous urban region in the world. Located centrally on the Deccan Penin- sula, Hyderabad acts as the link between southern and northern India. From its origins as a small town, today Hyderabad surrounds nearly 650 km 2 and the larger metropolitan region extends up to 7228 km 2 . 2 During 1994, Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of the state at the time, envisioned transforming Hyderabad into a world-class city through making of ‘knowledge enclaves’ similar to Malaysia’s Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) and Silicon Valley of United States (Sen & Frankel, 2005). Inspired by Malaysia’s Vision 2020, the state government asked McKinsey Consultancy to prepare Andhra Pradesh (AP) Vision 2020 that would sketch out the state’s development strategy. The vision document suggested making Hyderabad as one of the engines of growth through the creation of high-tech knowledge enclaves (GoAP & Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1999). Furthermore, the World Bank also suggested similar prescription to the state in order to receive more foreign direct investments (FDIs) and achieve a desired growth trajectory by ‘leapfrogging’ toward an information society. Working on these sug- gestions, the state government initiated massive restructuring of Hyderabad to promote and brand it as a world-class knowledge hub of Information Technology (IT), Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) and biotechnology (Naidu & Ninan, 2000). Hydera- bad’s urban restructuring experiment also reflects the increasing emphasis on city-centric development in India, often initiated by political leaders and elites impressed with ongoing neoliberal seduc- tive processes around the world (see Bunnell & Das, 2010). Building on the existing research, this profile attempts to provide an insight into Hyderabad’s recent urban restructuring and emerging challenges. In what follows, the next section of this profile provides a brief overview of the geographical location and history of the city. The successive section reflects on demographic change and migration aspect, followed by a section on the larger restructuring processes and making of Hyderabad as engines of growth. It is followed by a http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2014.11.008 0264-2751/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Tel.: +65 67903405. E-mail address: diganta.das@nie.edu.sg 1 Telangana officially became the 29th state of India bifurcated from Andhra Pradesh state with effect from June 2, 2014. Hyderabad was the capital of undivided Andhra Pradesh for nearly six decades. While Hyderabad is now the official state capital for Telangana, it is also the shared administrative capital of residual Andhra Pradesh for 10 years while deciding on the new state capital (see http:// www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27658817). Reference to Andhra Pradesh in this present article connotes to the erstwhile undivided state of Andhra Pradesh (AP). 2 While Hyderabad municipality has a physical boundary of nearly 650 km 2 , the metropolitan region of Hyderabad extends far beyond to the surrounding peri-urban region. Cities 43 (2015) 48–58 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Cities journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities