Unboxing Bengaluru - by Malini Goyal and Prashanth Prakash

ISBN: 0670098523
Date read: 2024-08-20
How strongly I recommend it: 7/10
(See my list of 360+ books, for more.)

Go to the Amazon page for details and reviews.

I already love Bangalore, India, and plan to live there. But this is a good book that shows what’s wonderful about Bangalore, according to many of its residents and observers. I highly recommend to anyone interested.

my notes

Delhi is the city of politics, power and access.
Mumbai is India’s financial capital.
Bengaluru is the city of ideas, the city of the future - India’s most global city.
Technology is to Bengaluru what Bollywood is to Mumbai.

Bengaluru is always ready to reinvent itself.
One encounters people who are plotting an alternate trajectory, asking larger questions in life and careers.
Taboo topics like gender fluidity and mental health find their way into social chatter easily.
The young, cosmopolitan city has been relatively more open to new ideas about kinships and friendships, sex and cohabitation, parenting and marriages, women and atomization of families.
They sit at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and reject the conventional chase of stable jobs.
Young women recall an evolved cosmopolitan city, a city where they were freer than their peers elsewhere in India to wear what they wanted and moved around - alone or with men - in public spaces. “The sense of freedom it gave me. You could wear jeans and shorts here.”
Having lived in London, Mumbai and for a bit in Delhi - cities where the emphasis on looks and dressing up is high - she likes that Bengaluru people are comfortable in their skin. She also enjoys the warmth in the city, where people, instead of meeting in pubs and cafes - the norm in London - frequently meet at home.
Over 37 per cent of Bengaluru’s population is aged between fifteen and thirty-five years.
Away from parents, freedom and space to experiment.
Unlike Delhi and Mumbai, where everything seems to be so hard fought, Bengaluru is an easy-come-easy-go city where you can do your own thing.
Parts of Bengaluru may have reached the post-consumption, post-material phase and mindset that the rest of India is yet to reach.

Bengaluru’s successful first-generation entrepreneurs have not only shown how to create wealth but also how to give it away.
It’s the philanthropy and activism capital of India.
“The Ugly Indians”: an anonymous group of volunteers who aspire to keep Indian streets clean.

Disruption is everywhere. The old economy is getting supplanted by a new one.
India’s digital public infrastructure, or India Stack (including Aadhaar and UPI), has helped the country leapfrog ahead and develop what is among the world’s most advanced digital payment systems.
India’s earnings from software services exports have outpaced Saudi Arabia’s earnings from petroleum exports.

In an economy that was largely anti-meritocratic (pre-1991), Bengaluru emerged as a meritocratic haven for the best talent.
Bengaluru is a melting pot for young, educated, well-heeled workers.
Expect these early adopters to set trends for the country in general.

Polyglot city, speaking 107 languages.
Karnataka is the only Indian state that shares land borders with six other Indian states.
Bengaluru’s multicultural ethos and its cosmopolitan social fabric emanates from both its history (being an important trading hub) and its geography.

Bengaluru was (previously) known as India’s music capital.

Before Independence, Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai were India’s four largest cities. Bengaluru was a small cantonment town.
Kolkata’s decline coincided with Mumbai’s rise.
A similar shift of corporates from other cities to Bengaluru is currently underway.
In numbers, Surat is India’s fastest growing city, but Bengaluru’s growth is mainly urban-to-urban elite migration.
Bengaluru’s urban-to-urban elite migration is relatively more permanent, where techies move with families, have high disposable income, invest in real estate and spend on things like education and entertainment. This migration is also more stable and has better gender balance.

As a tech hub, Bengaluru’s biggest competitor is Hyderabad. Good infrastructure, proactive governments and their continuous support since the 1990s has helped Hyderabad.
Hyderabad has been aggressively wooing companies. The proactive Telangana government, superior infrastructure and smart moves like the setting up of the Web3 regulatory sandbox, will enable it to take the lead in emerging areas.

In Bengaluru, more than in any other city, young singles often stay by themselves (and not with parents) and have the privacy and comfort to invite their dating partners home.
The trust factor in Bengaluru is very high.
A dense network with many connections makes information on the good and bad aspects of one’s reputation spread more easily.’
Time taken between connecting with someone on a dating app and meeting at home is the shortest in Bengaluru as compared to Delhi and Mumbai.
In the ever-evolving and expanding world of technology, where life isn’t always seen as a zero-sum game, you don’t begin by doubting people here.
Trust is easier to build as often, both parties may have something to gain.
As a result, collaboration is easier, new ideas face low barriers and pay-it-forward culture thrives.

The city’s built-up area has risen from 27 per cent three decades ago to 86 per cent in 2021.
Potholed roads, garbage dumps and infamous traffic jams.
The world’s second most congested city in 2023.

India has only fifty-two cities with a population that is over a million. China has 375.
A China-watcher says, “I see India and Bengaluru as the new rising star.”
A satellite that will cost $10 million to build overseas can be built here at $1-2 million.

The number of Indians living in extreme poverty fell from 451 million in 2004 to 137 million in 2019.
Its per capita income in 2022 at $2389 pales in front of China’s $12,720 and USA’s $76,399.

Bengaluru is home to over 450 research laboratories, over 85 incubators and accelerators and over 800 colleges.
Electronic City was ground zero. India’s first A-grade IT park was being set up in partnership with the Singapore government. Everything for that project was flown in from Singapore till the last screw.

In traditional business, you invest in the family, the insiders. But in Bengaluru, first-generation founders invested in each other - the outsiders - and built a positive closed loop in the ecosystem.
The earliest wave of tech founders were educated with middle-class roots, had no capital, little network access and built businesses purely on the basis of their ideas and hard work. They were founders of bootstrapped startups who had modest ambitions and ran their businesses frugally.
These entrepreneurs were also great role models - in business and in life - setting new benchmarks for personal conduct, how they made money and also how they spent it. Coming from the middle class and facing its struggles, they wanted to preserve those values. Their understated lifestyles and disdain for showiness set the tone for the ecosystem.
In those early days, Premji would get out of the old Bengaluru airport and take an autorickshaw home.
They also felt this strong desire to give back.

Koramangala, HSR Layout and Indiranagar, often referred to as ‘Silicon Halli’.
Indiranagar, a hip startup hub with a vibrant nightlife.
In Delhi, techies are second-class citizens. Politicians, bureaucrats and the trading class make up the top tier.
In Bengaluru, techies are the top layer.

Community space Lahe Lahe hosts a range of clubs, workshops and live performances, with the goal to build a place which felt like a home, a community that felt like family.
He loves meeting people without an agenda and helping when he can without expectations. ‘I was often a misfit [in Delhi’s transactional culture]. I find my kind of people more easily in Bengaluru,’
Mobile app called The Bridge connects people at scale.

India is in the middle of a pet boom and Bengaluru is considered the country’s pet capital.

Shalaka Kulkarni self-published her book, Orenda.
Micro-fiction, where I had to share a story in ninety-nine words.
Terribly Tiny Tales, a micro-fiction platform.

Thiruvananthapuram was so conservative that wearing shorts would earn you frowns.
People judge you there all the time. Here in Bengaluru, nobody bothers.

Bengaluru had the smallest share of slum dwellers at 8.5 per cent, as against Delhi (15.1 per cent), Chennai (29.5 per cent) and Mumbai (42.4 per cent).

Thousands of workers from the north-east, insecure and fearful after rumours of a possible attack on them, fled the city.
An overhang of that fear remains. Hailing from Manipur, she often encounters the ethnic slur ‘chinky’.
Bengaluru has become India’s top and the world’s sixth most attractive emerging destination for expats.

Bengaluru has become bigger, denser and more congested.
Bungalows are being demolished to build high-rises.
There is a feeling here that everything was better in old Bengaluru.
People romanticize the past.
There is greater poverty, but the middle class has grown even bigger. While the city was greener before, it is now a lot fairer.
Only after a certain level of wealth and prosperity is acquired - when bread and butter issues have been taken care of - that one begins to worry about larger issues like climate and environment.
You need a middle class before you start to think about long-term issues like the environment and clean air.

Bengaluru feels like the city of future. Not so much in the infrastructure or food, but in people’s outlook. They seem to be living three–four years into the future.

Church Street is also a booklover’s paradise with its many bookstores.
The noise and chaos, KR/City Market, Asia’s largest flower market.
In Mumbai, we see a problem, we do a dharna.
In Delhi, you organize marches and bandhs.
In Bengaluru, we see a problem and we want to figure out how to solve it.
Culturally, Bengaluru is very different. Successful founders here aren’t money focused. It isn’t their biggest driver. It has always been about solving problems, making lives better.

The steel flyover project: October 2016, proposed 6.7-km steel flyover to the Bengaluru airport.
The government refused to make the detailed project report public.
Over 8,500 protestors created a human chain 4 km long to express their collective anger.
More than 1,00,000 calls were made to the missed call campaign.
42,000 responses, with everyone except thirty-two people voting against it.
The flyover project was scrapped in 2017.
The Steel Flyover Beda was an important citizen movement. Perhaps it was a tipping point.
In June 2022, the suburban rail project, called K-Ride, setting a deadline of forty months for its completion.
In the 2023 state elections, while the state’s voter turnout was 65.69 per cent, only 52 per cent of Bengaluru turned out to vote.

Bengaluru’s meteoric rise in the tech world has been matched by a precipitous decline in city life. Virtually every part of the urban landscape - roads, lakes, garbage and traffic - is crumbling.

Startups solve mega problems facing the world. But right outside their gates, they must negotiate their way through routine and mundane problems that they can’t solve.
India Today’s cover story on Bengaluru in October 2022, headlined ‘How to Ruin India’s Best City’.
Multiple surveys have ranked Karnataka among the most corrupt states in India.
52 per cent of India’s statutory towns and 76 per cent of census towns do not have any master plans.
Frequent shuffles in state politics - in the ruling party and the leader at the helm - add to the problem.
The state has never elected the same party twice in succession since 1985.
Such instability breeds insecurity and corruption and discourages long-term strategic decisions that are good for the city.
Bengaluru’s population almost doubled from 55 lakh in 2001 to 91 lakh in 2013 and is set to cross 1.4 crore in 2023.
This is the highest CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of any major city in the world.
Mysore, Karnataka’s second-largest city, is one tenth of Bengaluru’s size.

Delhi was the most unsafe place for women in 2021, recording 13,892 cases of crimes committed against women, Mumbai stood at 5,543 cases while Bengaluru recorded 3,127 cases.

Kannada language is increasingly getting weaponized.
Autorickshaw drivers tell her to learn the language or go back home.

Garden city has turned into a garbage city, thanks to newcomers who have a very transactional relationship with it.

Unicorns in Bengaluru today are led by founders who are from outside Karnataka.
In Surat, in 1994, the city was a mess. The plague created a panic, with thousands of residents fleeing.
That’s when IAS officer S.R. Rao took charge, and with firm handling the city underwent a massive transformation within two years.
Today, Surat ranks among the cleanest cities in India.
Pittsburgh in USA was once a decaying rust belt, grappling with polluted air, poisonous water and massive disparity. Today, it has reinvented itself as a smart city and robot town.

Whitefield grew rapidly, with both residential and commercial campuses, but without adequate attention being given to civic infrastructure and amenities like roads, transport and water).

The government should look beyond Bengaluru, build new hubs, direct growth to newer areas and ease pressure on the city.
BLR will soon have India’s second longest metro network.