Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft - Das internationale Forum der Deutschen Bank - 2009 „What makes India Urban?“

India is undergoing an epochal transformation.  From a rural agricultural society it is becoming a largely urban society.   The biggest story in India today is the drama of India transforming its cities to accommodate ever larger numbers of people, and, Indians learning how to live in cities and learning to make sense of them.  Will India’s cities add to, or address, the difficult environmental problems the world faces?  Will India build cities that make the life of its entire people more liveable, or will it find ever more ingenious ways of excluding the poor from the hope and promise of city life?  Will India transform governance of its cities to strengthen the idea of democracy or will it choose a more authoritarian course?  Will India teach the world a new way to think of and live in cities? Answers to these questions will determine the fate, not only of India, but the world as a whole. 

Answers and statements will be given by representatives of India as well as Europe.  In the end, a panel discussion will close the symposium.

Additionally to the symposium Aedes will present an exhibition from the 9th of October to the 26th of November 2009. More than fifty projects provide insight into India`s diverse urban environments.