One of the biggest contrasts between Bangalore and places like Shanghai and New York is the lack of a clear “downtown." There are definitely high-rises around—ads for luxury housing in them are pretty common, and there are even ads for the cement companies needed to put them together. But aside from a cluster near the airport, these tall structures seemed to be scattered around nearly at random. This was true even in the area of the hotel we stayed in, which was next door to a tech park.
At the hotel, I did look out the window and find a cluster of about 25 story office towers. That was about it. In contrast, the neighborhoods we spent time exploring—the ones with shopping, restaurants, and such—didn’t have a lot above a few stories tall.
What were present in huge numbers were trees. They helped make the heat (which became severe and problematic shortly after our trip) manageable. You were usually not more than a hundred meters from being able to step out of the sun and under the leaves. The trees were lush, flowering in a lot of cases, and they looked extremely healthy. Unfortunately, one of the local people we talked with said that storms regularly knock down hundreds of these across the city, adding stress to a traffic situation already overburdening the streets.
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