The Unassuming Economist

From The Economist:

“DONALD TRUMP’S popularity may be plummeting in America and around the world, yet India’s appetite for buildings bearing his name remains undiminished. This month a local developer licensing the Trump name announced the details of the latest such project. Promising “every comfort, convenience and indulgence” and spread across two towers of 65 storeys each, it will be the country’s largest Trump-branded property. But those who are expecting to find this monument to the tastes of India’s new rich in high-rise Mumbai, brand-obsessed Delhi or tech-fuelled Bangalore will be disappointed. The home of the newest Trump towers is, surprisingly, Hyderabad.

The capital of the wealthy southern state of Telangana, Hyderabad is little known outside India. Domestically its reputation rests on its distinct culture (it serves as a meeting point for north and south India), wonderful cuisine (it produces the best biryani known to humanity, no matter what those misguided souls in Lucknow tell you) and thriving tech industry (Google, Microsoft and Amazon all have huge offices there). It is not famous for skyscrapers. Yet it has more of them than any Indian city bar Mumbai, which was forced into vertical growth by its island geography.”

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