From river to Riverfront: how meanings and cultural heritage change. The case of the Sabarmati Riverfront project, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

Abstract

With rapid urbanisation has come changes to Ahmedabad’s spatial form, including the decision to transform eleven kilometres of the city’s monsoon river into a Riverfront. The Sabarmati Riverfront project is extensive in scale and ambition, and emerged with strong political support for the ‘environmental improvement … and urban rejuvenation project’. However, exactly how the project has improved and rejuvenated the river is unclear. Mindful of how rivers in India constitute important cultural heritage, in this article we aim to examine how the policy rhetoric behind the Sabarmati Riverfront project was implemented in practice and experienced in real life.