Agra
Taj Mahal: 20,000 workers, global supply chain (1632-1653), ~$30M annual ticket revenue. 65% of India's footwear made here. Tannery pollution threatens the monument that funds the city. Supreme Court orders reshape economic geography.
The Taj Mahal generates roughly $30 million in annual ticket revenue for a city that otherwise runs on leather goods and shoes—an economic structure so lopsided that removing one building would collapse the tax base. Shah Jahan built the monument between 1632 and 1653 to house his wife Mumtaz Mahal's tomb, employing 20,000 workers and importing marble from Rajasthan, jade from China, turquoise from Tibet, and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. The supply chain was global before globalization existed.
Agra's golden age was brief but intense. As the Mughal capital (intermittently, 1526-1658), it housed a court that spent more than the entire GDP of England. The Red Fort, Fatehpur Sikri, and the Taj represent three emperors' attempts to build permanence in stone. When Aurangzeb moved the capital to Delhi, Agra's political relevance ended overnight—but the buildings remained.
The British developed Agra as a military cantonment and administrative center, but the real modern economy grew from leather. Agra produces roughly 65% of India's footwear and 30% of its leather goods, clustered in small workshops across the city. The leather industry employs hundreds of thousands but operates largely in the informal sector, with environmental consequences: tannery effluent has contributed to the Yamuna River's degradation, which in turn threatens the Taj Mahal's marble through acid rain and insect infestations from the polluted water.
The Yamuna Expressway (2012) connected Agra to Delhi in under three hours, integrating the city into the National Capital Region's economic orbit. The Agra Metro, under construction, aims to ease traffic congestion around monument sites.
Tourism and leather pull in opposite directions: tourists want pristine monuments, leather workers need industrial capacity. The Supreme Court of India has intervened repeatedly, ordering tanneries relocated away from the Taj Mahal zone—a judicial act of urban planning that reshapes the city's economic geography.
Agra's dilemma: the monument that funds the city may be damaged by the industry that employs it.