Abstract

This chapter examines the spatial dynamics of industrial restructuring in Bangalore, India, contributing to emerging scholarship on deindustrialization in the Global South. Moving beyond national-scale analyses of premature deindustrialization, we investigate how industrial transformation manifests at the urban and neighbourhood levels, where its impacts are most intensely experienced. Through a novel methodological approach combining historical, spatial, and economic data, we reveal how different phases of industrial development have created and reinforced patterns of uneven growth within the city. Our analysis demonstrates how state policies and planning decisions across colonial, nationalist, and liberalized phases have influenced locational choices for economies, creating long-term implications for employment opportunities and infrastructure investment. We analyse how the state’s role influences industrial geography in the city and how it has evolved from direct industrial ownership to providing targeted infrastructure and incentives. Understanding these patterns is crucial for promoting more equitable urban development. Our findings highlight the importance of analysing economic transformations at the intra-city scale and offer methodological innovations for studying urban industrial change in data-scarce environments, contributing to both theoretical and practical discussions of Southern urbanization.