Introduction

Peri-urban areas of metropolitan cities have attracted significant land and real estate interests in the decades following liberalisation. This chapter examines high-speed, limited-access road projects promoted by state governments in the geographic peripheries of metropolitan cities. It not only interrogates their role in shaping peri-urban real estate markets, but also unpacks them as territorial strategies of state governments, trying to woo external investors, in the post-liberalisation milieu. The chapter focuses on the peri-urban road projects promoted in Kolkata and Hyderabad. Both cities, as state capitals, received a significant proportion of ‘place-making’ attention from their respective state governments after liberalisation.