Frothing Urbanism

Frothing Urbanism is view of contemporary urbanism in India, advanced by urbanists Rupali Gupte, Rahul Mehrotra and Prasad Shetty. Frothing Urbanism begins with the idea that structured attempts at conceptualizing urban transformations in Indian cities are inadequate to make sense of extremely complex and fluid urban dynamics, and often end up simplifying the picture too much - even acquiring the character of conspiracy theories. In other words, Frothing Urbanism aims at being not a theory of urbanism, but a critique of conceptual frameworks that attempt to "force a structured pattern" on urbanism that is essentially unpredictable, contradictory and messy.

The authors base their challenge to mainstream urban theory by noticing the highly unusual behavior of agencies, individuals and groups in cities, often acting contrary to what is considered in their 'interest' or part of their 'agenda.' It is common to see, for example, NGOs (in contrast to their traditional adversarial role) joining hands with the state or collaborating with international development agencies; it is usual for formal institutions to act informally; civil society groups (that usually promote civil liberties) demanding segregation while elite groups (that traditionally profit from corruption) fight corruption. According to them, this is highly atypical of urban dynamics elsewhere, and therefore accounts that rely on common 'expectations' about urban actors are bound to be flawed.