globalization dream seems fairly substantial’ (2011, 55). This was also acknowledged by Amitabh Kant, who noted that the key challenge [to making smart cities work] ‘the will be to monetise land values’. But agricultural land particularly in regions of declining agricultural productivity with lower population density (and hence presumed as decreased potential for local resistance) makes land acquisition relatively straightforward. This has been the case in almost all new cities currently being built in India. While the 2009 SIR Act was brought in precisely to address what the IIR (2009) called challenge’, farmers in Dholera region did not realise that this law ‘land superseded the Land Acquisition Act, which meant that their land could be acquired far quicker and without compensation by the state for purpose’. Levien (2013) ‘public describes this process as a of dispossession’, where socially and historically ‘regime specific constellations of state structures of bureaucracy and governance produce particular patterns of dispossession of peasants and landless farmers. These initiate a new of urbanization’ whereby land is acquired for a good’ and ‘regime ‘public ‘delinked from capitalist production, by making it available for capitalist space of any kind’ (Levien 2013, 199). In Dholera, this constitutes a shift from for the market’ ‘land (Levien 2013), seen in earlier models of dispossessions, to a new model of for ‘land urbanization’ through the dispossession of those working and living in the rural ‘active
globalization dream seems fairly substantial’ (2011, 55). This was also acknowledged by Amitabh Kant, who noted that the ‘the key challenge [to making smart cities work] will be to monetise land values’. But agricultural land particularly in regions of declining agricultural productivity with lower population density (and hence presumed as decreased potential for local resistance) makes land acquisition relatively straightforward. This has been the case in almost all new cities currently being built in India. While the 2009 SIR Act was brought in precisely to address what the IIR (2009) called ‘land challenge’, farmers in Dholera region did not realise that this law superseded the Land Acquisition Act, which meant that their land could be acquired far quicker and without compensation by the state for ‘public purpose’. Levien (2013) describes this process as a ‘regime of dispossession’, where socially and historically specific constellations of state structures of bureaucracy and governance produce particular patterns of dispossession of peasants and landless farmers. These initiate a new ‘regime of urbanization’ whereby land is acquired for a ‘public good’ and ‘delinked from capitalist production, by making it available for capitalist space of any kind’ (Levien 2013, 199). In Dholera, this constitutes a shift from ‘land for the market’ (Levien 2013), seen in earlier models of dispossessions, to a new model of ‘land for urbanization’ through the ‘active dispossession of those working and living in the rural