Tech Hubs in Hyderabad: Boon or Bottleneck for Locals?

Hyderabad’s transformation into a global IT hub has brought unprecedented economic growth, but it has also reshaped the lives of those who’ve long called this city home. As glass towers rise in Gachibowli and Madhapur, locals are left navigating the tension between opportunity and displacement. In this collective reflection, longtime residents, small business owners, young professionals, and parents share how development has changed not just their neighbourhoods, but their identities, aspirations, and sense of belonging.

Bridges and Barriers: Belonging in the Shadow of Progress

As Hyderabad’s IT corridor stretches further into neighbourhoods like Gachibowli, Madhapur, and Kondapur, the city’s social fabric is undergoing a quiet yet seismic shift. While the influx of working professionals from across the country has expanded cultural diversity, it has also led to a parallel erosion of local rootedness.

For some residents, these demographic changes bring opportunities. A local restaurant owner, for instance, now serves sadhya meals during Onam thanks to the growing Malayali population in her area. “A lot of Mallus have moved here, so I can serve sadhya and earn well off of it,” she says. What once may have been regionally confined festivals now become shared cultural performances within gated communities.

Even within domestic spaces, cultural exchange is evolving in surprising ways. “Our maid is Marathi, and my son now knows some Marathi words. That might help if he studies in Bombay,” noted one parent, seeing language as a form of urban preparation. But this optimism is counterbalanced by the quiet isolation that often creeps in.

Many long-time residents feel culturally sidelined. “I feel less connected,” shared a woman in her 50s. “Most of the South Indians who’ve moved here from other states only speak English. I grew up in a Telugu-speaking village. I don’t know English, so it’s hard to talk to them.” Language, once a binding thread of neighbourhood life, has now become a dividing line. The very cosmopolitanism that fuels Hyderabad’s economic reputation often marginalises those who lack linguistic and digital fluency.

This cultural alienation is compounded by physical changes in the urban environment. Rapid construction, road expansion, and the proliferation of corporate high-rises have not only transformed the skyline but also intruded into the rhythms of everyday life. “There’s construction all the time. It’s so noisy that my toddler can’t sleep after playschool,” complained one mother. For many, these projects are symbols of progress, but they’re also sources of noise, dust, and disconnection. “They never ask us if we’re comfortable with anything,” she added. “Development just happens to us.”

In a cityscape increasingly designed for tech workers, investors, and expatriates, long-time residents find their surroundings becoming unfamiliar, even unrecognisable. “These tall buildings with offices just keep coming up, one after the other. Our small houses look tiny next to them,” said an older man, watching the horizon shrink beneath glass towers.

Feeling Left Behind: Generational Gaps and Shifting Aspirations

The emotional toll of this transformation is most visible in the way older residents and working-class families speak of generational divides. “Yes, I feel left behind,” said a 60-year-old woman. “These new kids are fast-moving. They know apps and tech that I don’t.” Her son, exposed to a new standard of material aspiration, often compares their old car, handed down from his grandfather, with the sleek vehicles driven by newer families. “He keeps asking why we don’t have a better car like the other kids’ parents,” she explained. “It’s hard to teach him the value of simplicity when the world around him doesn’t.”

Yet even amid alienation, pride persists. “I feel good that Hyderabad is changing. New schools and colleges keep coming up. Maybe my kids can study or work here in the future,” said another parent. This sense of optimism, rooted in opportunity, not nostalgia, is a quiet form of resistance.

Still, integration into this new Hyderabad comes with its emotional barriers. Class and culture continue to mark the limits of social belonging. “Some of my office colleagues are from here, but I moved from Indore. I can’t spend like they do on alcohol, eating out, parties,” explained a young professional. The social rituals of the tech world, from weekend clubbing to cigarette breaks, often alienate those whose upbringing did not normalise such habits. “I was raised in a strict Telugu household. I never smoked or partied,” said one woman. “When my colleagues go for a sutta or make plans to go clubbing, I feel like I’m missing out.”

These seemingly minor exclusions reveal the psychological geography of the IT corridor: it’s not just about infrastructure or employment, but about access to a cultural code. To truly “belong” in the new Hyderabad, one must adopt not just the dress or the language, but also the rhythm of its consumption and leisure.

Whose Hyderabad Is It Anyway?

What emerges from these fragmented but resonant voices is not resistance to development itself, but a longing to be seen and included in it. For many of Hyderabad’s older residents, small business owners, and migrant workers, the IT corridor is both a symbol of promise and a landscape of quiet dislocation. The city’s glass-and-concrete ambitions are undeniably transforming its global stature, but they also raise fundamental questions about who gets to participate in that future. The aspiration is no longer just about upward mobility; it is about not being left behind. As Hyderabad continues to grow, the challenge lies not only in building more infrastructure but in ensuring that its social architecture doesn’t erase the very people who gave the city its heart.