• Acknowledgments


• Note on translation and transliteration


• Introduction


• 1. World-class city making


• 2. Gentrifying the state: Governing through property


• 3. Nuisance talk: From sensory disgust to urban abjection


• 4. Aesthetic criminalization: The nuisance of slums


• 5. World-class detritus: The sense of unbelonging


• 6. The propriety of property: Resettlement and the pursuit of belonging


• 7. Conclusion


• Notes


• References

D. Asher Ghertner is an interdisciplinary scholar who uses the contemporary politics of slum demolition and urban renewal in India to challenge conventional theories of economic transition, city planning and political rule. He is Assistant Professor in Geography and Director of the South Asian Studies Program at Rutgers University. He previously taught at the London School of Economics.

Rule by Aesthetics draws on extensive fieldwork in Delhi's slums, courtrooms and state offices to shed fresh light on the violent underpinnings of contemporary city making. Presenting a new theory of urban power, Ghertner shows how aesthetic codes replaced conventional city planning tools in Delhi's millennial slum clearance drive.