In the 1960s and 1970s, Asian urban development policies centered on slowing down the rate of urbanization through controlson the growth of the large metropolitan cities. Satellite towns and greenbelts have been among the most widely adopted means to achieve this. However, on the whole, satellite towns have proved to be ineffectual in meeting original objectives, and those towns built to be self-contained have been most successful. Although the outcomes of the satellite-town building experience in Asia are fairly straightforward, what is less clearly understood is why so many of them, though built from scratch, were planned with a weak economic base. Were the planners unaware of this, or was the planning process circumscribed from the start because of the pulls of different interest groups? This paper reviews the evolution of the satellite town of New Bombay, India, to illustrate the political nature of its planning, the difficulties of plan implementation, and the influence of local interest groups. The development of New Bombay is a reflection of many of the problems that have beset satellite-town building in Asia.