India's Hot Housing Market

"India's construction mania is turning vast tracts into modern boomtowns. The nation's hunger for real estate is also igniting the potential for environmental damage and a property bubble in fast-growing suburbs such as Gurgaon... Even with its modern office buildings and 20-story residential towers, Gurgaon is a work in progress. Construction sites spew dust. Mounds of dug-up earth line roads. Laborers, who often live in tent-like dwellings next to half-completed buildings, move around with bricks and bags of cement balanced on their heads."

"In commercial office space, demand from India's software and call center industries alone is expected to be 110 million square feet in major cities by 2010, up from an estimated 70 million square feet in 2005, according to ICICI Bank Ltd., India's largest lender that's not controlled by the government."