THE REAL ESTATE BOYS

2019-2020, Extended metropolitan region of Delhi

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Bypass highway projects of all shapes and sizes are popping over all over the metropolitan regions across India. The extended metropolitan region of Delhi is a great exemplification of this. These roads are not just roads however and provide in roads for speculative housing projects. These housing project are aimed at the middle class home investor who is banking on possibility of quick speculative gains in the frontier zones of urbanization. 

The project of luring and making the middle class investor to buy requires a very persuasive operation in which the 'real-estate boys' are the ground soldiers. Along any new highway in India, a number of men can be found operating out of a pitched tent along the road, hurling shiny property brochures at the passers-by, hitchhiker style. The real estate boys are the bottom end of the infrastructure of 'speculative housing market'. This infrastructure includes the show-flat, the real estate site office, the loan facilitators. 

The ambiatic building renders featured in the brochures, fabricated by 'foreign consultants', belie ground realities. They lure the home investor with promises of exclusivity, a gated utopia with swimming pools, club houses, private cinemas, etc.

A life gated from the city, with no public spaces or street life.