Let’s see here…start with a new aiport, mix in a couple of big-name outsourcing vendors, sprinkle a couple malls here and there, and add some cumin…Voila!  A metropolis is born in less time than it takes Rachel Ray to make a vegetable curry:

A year ago, this relatively small, forgettable city in the heart of India did not have an air-conditioned cinema. In the sweltering heat of May, the rich here were known to fly one hour to Mumbai, the financial hub of India, to see a movie. There they stocked up on Levi’s jeans and Domino’s pizza and other big-city treats that Nagpur failed to provide.

But in a social experiment highly unusual for this most unplanned of countries, the Indian government has handpicked Nagpur to be fattened and primped into an international metropolis. (via)

Can you fake development?  More importantly, can you fake development if you’re not China? 

The key ingredient it seems, are the malls:

Nagpurians marvel at how, with every new mall, the young discover wants they never had before. They work harder to afford those wants. More malls are built to satisfy them. And after a time, the cycle acquires its own momentum.

In the end, it all comes down to rocking the right pair of jeans:

Vishwas Chaknalwar, a builder, put it this way. “Once you wear Pyramid
clothes,” he said, referring to a new mall here, “you cannot wear
anything else.”

Since college, I always suspected this.  No economic journal will ever be able to explain global economic development more clearly than Biggie Smalls (NSFW).

Full IHT Story