LEARNING FROM MUMBAI

Urban Age Seminar, 29 May - 15 June 2007

Cities Programme, London School of Economics and Political Science

Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Harvard Law School, Harvard University
Contact:

Cities Programme
London School of Economics
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a worldwide investigation into the future of cities

organised by the Cities Programme
the London School of Economics and
Political Science and the Alfred Herrhausen Socety,
the International Forum of Deutsche Bank
Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Seminar Structure and Participants 2

Essays

Governance as Dynamics Examining the Role of Actors in Urban Politics 7

Is the “Rule of Law” Good for Cities? 15

Law As Contestation, Rather Than Creation Of Vulnerability 25

Regeneration Rhetoric: Questions of Good Form for City Making 37

Performing Spaces of Religion 43

Vulnerability and Empowerment 51

Is Scale a Vice? Governing Mumbai’s Millions 59

Human Settlement Development: the Central Role of Cities in our Environment’s Future 75

Street Competence: Notes for a Working Definition 81

Spectacle as replacement – Learning or Unlearning from Asian Olympic cities 89

Why Mumbai’s Slums are Actually Villages 97

Appendix

List of Reader Materials I

Study of Housing Typologies in Mumbai VII

Introduction

Urban Age Seminar: Learning from About Urban Age

Mumbai, 29 May – 15 June 2007
'Learning from Mumbai' was an intensive three Urban Age’s principal aim is to shape the think-
week Urban Age research workshop with faculty ing and practice of urban leaders and sustain-
and postgraduate researchers from the London able urban development. Initiated by the Cities
School of Economics and Political Science, Har- Programme at the London School of Economics
vard Law School, MIT, Partner's for Urban Knowl- and Political Science and Deutsche Bank’s Al-
edge and Action Research (PUKAR) in Mumbai, fred Herrhausen Society, Urban Age is structured
and the Centre for the Study of Culture and So- around international and multidisciplinary events
ciety in Bangalore. Drawing from the data ar- and research supporting the creation of a new ur-
chive and research resources of Urban Age, the ban agenda for global cities. In 2007, Urban Age
workshop analysed various social, economic and will explore urbanisation in India.
environmental factors shaping Mumbai's develop-
ment. A special focus on the city’s Eastern water-
front and Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia, has led
to the creation of an interdisciplinary framework
through which researchers can formulate a social,
legal and spatial brief for advanced urban develop-
ment in the 21st century.

This working draft provides an overview of the

seminar’s structure and methodology and presents
the seminar’s preliminary output, a series of pro-
vocative essays and graphics by workshop partici-
pants that propose new ways that urban discourse
and practice can learn from Mumbai.

Note: The work contained herein is not for citation

of further circulation without the written permis-
sion of the authors.

1
Seminar Structure and Participants

Schedule
29 May Introductions with briefings on each subject and schedule

Day 1 (30 May) Workshop: Street Life

Day 2 (31 May) Workshop: Spatial analysis of Democratic Governance

Urban Age Public Lecture:
Architecture of Justice, Richard Sennett

Day 3 (01 June) Workshop: Urban and Social Integration

Day 4 (04 June) Workshop: Contested Spaces / Religious and ethnic conflicts
Urban Age Public Lecture:
Financing Sustainable Economic Development, Hari Sankaran

Day 5 (05 June) Workshop: Accessibility and Mobility

Urban Age Public Lecture:
Is the Rule of Law Good for Cities, Gerald Frug

Day 6 (06 June) Workshop: Typologies and Permeability of 3D forms

Day 7 (07 June) Workshop: Cultural Industries

Day 8 (08 June) Workshop: Global Environmental Crisis

Day 9 (11 June) Group discussion, writing and production

Urban Age Public Lecture:
Global Warming and the Political Economy of Cities, Saskia Sassen

Day 10 (12 June) Group discussion, writing and production

Day 11 (13 June) Group discussion, writing and production

Day 12 (14 June) Production

Day 13 (15 June) Presentation

2
Participants
Faculty and Staff Guests
a. Ricky Burdett, Director, Urban Age a. Jo Beall, Director, Development Studies
b. Gerald Frug, Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Institute
Law, Harvard Law School b. Philipp Rode, Executive Director, Urban Age
c. Adam Kaasa, London School of Economics c. Hari Sankaran, Managing Director,
d. Pamela Puchalski, London School of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services
Economics Ltd.
f. Richard Sennett, Professor of Sociology, LSE d. Saskia Sassen, Centennial Professor of
and Bemis Professor of Social Sciences, MIT Sociology, London School of Economics and
g. Priya Shankar, Alfred Herrhausen Society Professor, Committee on Global Thought,
h. Fran Tonkiss, Associate Director, Cities Columbia University
Programme, LSE f. Rahul Srivastava, Partners for Urban
Knowledge, Action & Research (PUKAR),
Postgraduate Students Mumbai
a. Zainab Bawa, PhD Candidate: Centre for the
Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore,
b. Rit Chandra, PhD Candidate: Bartlett School
of Planning, University College London
c. Vaidya Gullapalli, JD Candidate: Harvard
Law School
d. Suzi Hall, PhD Candidate: Cities Programme,
LSE
e. Shekhar Krishnan, PhD Candidate: Program
in Science, Technology and Society, MIT
f. Olivia Muñoz-Rojas-Oscarsson, PhD
Candidate: Cities Programme, LSE
g. Iliana Ortega-Alcazar, PhD Candidate: Cities
Programme, LSE
h. Eli Rosenbaum, JD Candidate: Harvard Law
School
i. Torsten Schroeder, PhD Candidate: Cities
Programme, LSE
j. Cassim Shepard, MCP Candidate: MIT,
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
k. Hiro Shirai, PhD Candidate: Cities
Programme, LSE
l. Jayaraj Sundaresan, PhD Candidate: LSE,
Cities Programme

3
4
Essays

5
6
Governance as Dynamics
Examining the Role of Actors in Urban Politics
Zainab Bawa

“They are called pigeons.” and also to define the form of public invest-
ments. Derived from this, is a view of plan-
“Pigeons?” ning not as a unitary non-partisan system but
shaped by claims made by various groups (in-
“Yeah, because they come to London without proper cluding poor ones) to access public resources,
visa and start to live there, in East London. That is land in productive locations, and public inter-
why they are called pigeons.” ventions.

In this paper, I will present fieldwork conducted

in Bangalore and Mumbai to make my case for
The bus was passing through Tower Hamlets. understanding governance as dynamics between
There were stalls on the street, people manning different actors in the city. I will outline the ways
them. An old man, disheveled, was sitting with his in which the lower level bureaucracy in the munic-
legs apart, on the pavement, looking stoned. Two ipal administration i.e., engineers and field staff,
burly men were sitting next to him on the pave- are emerging to subvert the higher level politics of
ment. They looked like miscreants. senior municipal, state and national level bureau-
crats and agencies such as the World Bank and are
This is East London. The bus veered through turning out to be important actors on the scene of
Aldgate and immediately, I was transported into changing urban politics. I will also map the rela-
the more glamorous parts of London City. The tions between municipal councilors, bureaucrats
image of Tower Hamlets has stayed with me since and NGOs and the antagonisms between these
then. I ask myself, how do the poor and the mi- actors which lead to municipal councilors being
grants make claims on the city? How do they get labeled as ‘corrupt’ and ‘rent seeking’. By doing so,
their needs for basic infrastructure, housing and I will question the popular view which suggests
employment fulfilled? I want to suggest that gov- that municipal government is corrupt and ineffi-
ernance must be viewed as dynamics between cient. Rather, municipal government is important
different actors in the city, rather than in terms for poor groups in the city to access basic infra-
of ‘urban management’. These dynamics allow us structure and with municipal governments exiting
to understand tactics and strategies which differ- provision of basic services, poor groups are most
ent groups in the city employ to access various re- affected (Amis 1999; Benjamin and Bhuvaneswari
sources. Such a view enables us to comprehend the 2001).
power relations that play out on the landscape of
the city and most importantly, understand that the In Deep Waters – the role of field level
poor groups have agency and that they can mobi- bureaucracy in water departments in
lize certain forms of politics to fulfill their claims.
municipalities
Benjamin and Bhuvaneswari (2001) suggest that
urban governance needs to be viewed in terms of Urban water is a contested domain. Cities are facing
various types of political/administrative circuits: real water deficits though in public platforms, sen-
ior bureaucrats, agencies such as the World Bank
These involve rich and poor groups who com- (WB) and members of civil society seem to suggest
pete to access productive locations, to attract that it is not water scarcity, but the mismanage-

7
ment of water resources that causes water short- to the activists by the bureaucrats and trade un-
ages. According to the WB, ‘Global Cities’ such as ionists in the Delhi water board. This enabled the
Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi (among Shanghai, activists to inform the citizens and to stop the pro-
London, Tokyo and New York) must receive water gramme from being carried out. Similarly, when
24/7. Benchmarking studies are cited to show how the Greater Bangalore Water Supply and Sanita-
the citizens of Mumbai receive only four hours of tion Project (GBWASP) was proposed for Banga-
water while Paris is serviced with water 24/7. lore city, activists received detailed information
including official documents, file notations and
In 2004, the WB funded a study to examine the correspondences through bureaucrats from the
feasibility of privatizing water distribution to the water board. This allowed the activists to launch a
citizens of Delhi. Following the study, the WB protest to stop the programme from being carried
was to issue a loan of $140 million to supply water out any further. In the case of the K-East Water
in two zones in South Delhi 24/7. WB appointed Distribution Improvement Project (WDIP) which
consultants to carry out a study of how this could proposed contracting of water distribution in the
be achieved. At the end of the study, the Govern- K-East ward in Mumbai, the field engineers and
ment of Delhi was to give a go-ahead to the im- staff of the hydraulic department in the Brihan-
plementation of the project. The project proposal mumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) have been
was flawed. Two water distribution zones of Delhi, actively canvassing against the implementation of
South I & II, were to be handed over to manage- the project, highlighting the negative implications
ment experts under a management contract. The of this programme.
Delhi Government was responsible for providing
the budget and the water for both these zones so In the case of all three cities, the sanctions for the
that the objective of 24x7 water could be met. At privatization programmes came from the Minis-
the start of every financial year, the experts could try of Urban Development (MoUD) in Delhi. The
ask for any amount from the Delhi Government agreements were signed between the MoUD, the
to meet their contractual obligations. The experts government of India and WB (Mumbai and Del-
would draw a monthly salary of Rs. 25 lakhs. The hi) and USAID (Bangalore)1. When decisions are
project did not ensure equity of water distribution made at this level, the local government cannot
but focused solely on the 24x7 objective. Whether question or challenge them. Instead, it must seek
water would be available 24x7 in each home was to subvert these decisions which is what happened
nobody’s responsibility so long as there was 24x7 in the three cities. The law, in this case the RTI
water at the input of every zone. Act, was merely a sanction, legitimating the pass-
ing of information to the activists. In Mumbai, I
This programme was to affect both, the citizens of filed for documents under the RTI Act for the K-
Delhi as well as the staff of the Delhi water board. East WDIP but was refused the documents on the
The water board and the activists were concerned pretext that that this information was intellectual
about the privatization programme in the light of property and could not be given to me under the
the fact that water privatization had failed in Bo- RTI Act following which I had to liason with the
livia, Cochabamaba and other countries across field level bureaucrats to obtain the documents.
the world. Massive tariff hikes were anticipated if
water were to be privatized. But most importantly,
once water is privatized, there is no representa-
tive authority which people can hold accountable 1  It is also important to bear in mind that national gov-
ernments may not have a choice in signing agreements on
when problems in the water supply arise. With infrastructure projects with multilateral agencies such as
these concerns, activists filed applications un- the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB),
der the Right to Information (RTI) Act to obtain USAID, etc. These agreements may have to be signed
documents and file notations of the project so that under conditionalities imposed through WTO and in-
ternational agreements. Therefore the view that national
the facts could be brought out before the public. In
governments have a choice in deciding whether to accept
reality however, the documents, correspondences loans from agencies such as WB, ADB, USAID, etc. or not
and file notations of this project were handed over does not necessarily true in all circumstances.

8
What is of importance in the case of Delhi, Banga- In Bangalore, the Bangalore Municipal Corpora-
lore and Mumbai is the way in which the engineers tion (known as the Bangalore Mahanagar Palike
and the operational staff of the water departments (BMP)) was paying the Bangalore Water Supply
and boards acted in a way to make transparent and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) to provide water to
information which was otherwise opaque. One the slums in the city through public taps and foun-
might argue that the behaviour of the bureauc- tains. Around 2000, due to deficits in municipal
racy can be seen as rent seeking since they would finances, the BMP decided that it would no longer
have lost their jobs under these privatization pro- pay the BWSSB to supply water to the poor. The
grammes. However, this would be too simplistic BMP paid a settlement amount to the BWSSB for
a proposition to make. When the International the arrears on water and left it to the BWSSB to
Finance Corporation (IFC) submitted its report decide whether it subsequently wanted to continue
on the GBWASP, the ex-Chairman of the BWSSB supplying water to public taps and fountains. The
expressed his concerns over the 87.85% hike in the BWSSB decided to initiate a programme of ex-
water tariffs above the base level BWSSB tariffs tending individual metered water connections to
which would take place under the GBWASP and the slum dwellers. This would ensure that the slum
that the appointment of a private management dwellers paid for the water they used and it would
contractor for O&M of water supply and sewerage also help the BWSSB to reduce non-revenue wa-
facilities would not be compatible with the over- ter (NRW). The BWSSB is a para-statal body and
all water administration system. He also stated is not part of the BMP. The BWSSB is headed by
how privatization programmes across the world the Chairman alongwith seven members on the
had failed and in this light, he suggested that the Board, generally five from the Indian Administra-
proposed GBWASP project in Bangalore should tive Services (IAS) and two persons with a techni-
be withdrawn. The Chairman was eventually dis- cal background. Commissioners of the BMP and
missed and replaced with another person2. BDA, the Chairman and the principal secretary
Government of Karnataka (GoK) and the chief
Water is a basic resource. In the city, the poor secretary of the urban development department
must struggle in order to receive water. One of the of Karnataka are also members of the board. The
sources through which the poor can claim access chief engineer of the BWSSB and his assistant
to water is through the councilor. The councilor chief engineers are responsible for the day-to-day
provides public water connections in the form of operations of the water supply in the city. The
shared standposts or public taps to his/her constit- board decided that individual connections would
uency. However, if the councilor does not provide be extended only to slum dwellers who presented
water to his/her constituency, the slum dwellers clear land titles. However, the engineers issued
have to liason with the field staff of the ward to ob- individual connections to anyone who showed a
tain water. A retired engineer of the water depart- clear proof of identity such as a voter ID card, a ra-
ment in Mumbai mentioned to me in an interview tion card, electricity bill etc. Gradually, the board
that his department could not afford to discon- agreed to the decision of the engineers and this al-
nect/not provide water to slum dwellers who did lowed the engineers to extend water connections
not have secure land tenure. “We cannot discon- to more and more slum dwellers.
nect these people just because they don’t have a le-
gal title. Where will they get their water from?” he Agencies such as the WB and private consultants
stated. In Delhi, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) ensured argue that the utility is responsible only for pro-
that it provided water to the slums beyond the Ya- viding services. However, in the case of Bangalore,
muna River. A Ph.D. thesis conducted on the DJB’s Delhi and Mumbai, we can see that the water de-
extending of water to the slums beyond Yamuna partments and boards are not merely utilities, but
showed that if the DJB would have excluded these are operating in strong political contexts. They
slums from water provision, there would have been are faced with decision-making at every level and
communal riots in Delhi. their act of making these decisions is a political
2  As per documents obtained through the Right to Infor- act. An executive engineer of the BWSSB respon-
mation (RTI) Act. sible for managing operations and maintenance in

9
one zone in Bangalore mentioned to me that often On deepening democracy – everyday
slum dwellers from the surrounding areas come to dynamics between councilors,
him asking for his office to clean the choked com-
bureaucrats and NGOs
munity toilets in their slums. Cleaning of toilets
does not fall under the purview of the water depart- I was sitting inside the office of a councilor of a
ment. However, this engineer gets his field staff to ward in Mumbai, talking to him. An old woman
use the jetty sprays and clean up the choked toilets. appeared and asked to talk to him. He asked me
This is a clear instance of how the poor are making to excuse him for a moment while he dealt with
claims for basic services on the local governments the old woman. The old woman praised the lord
and the local governments must resolve the day-to- and said that she had come to him on recom-
day dilemmas at every step. With the introduction mendation of a relative who was known to him.
of privatization programmes and urban renewal The councilor said he knew her relative. She said
programmes, these departments come under the she had come to him with great expectations and
scanner and are faced with tough decisions with hoped that he would help her with the admission
respect to providing services to the poor. During of her granddaughter in the local public school.
interviews with consultants, individuals from civil She said that she had been asked to get more and
society organizations and multilateral aid agen- more documents to complete the admission, but if
cies, a theme which constantly emerged was the the councilor put in a word, the admission would
way in which these groups were irked with the op- be completed. He said he would do so and hand-
erating field staff and labeled them as corrupt. In ed a form to her which he said she should fill out
an interview with a consultant from a prominent while he would make an official letter on his let-
consulting firm, he pointed out that tight controls terhead, recommending the child’s admission. She
should be issued from the top boss so that reform thanked him profusely and told him she was grate-
programmes can be implemented in a more con- ful that he had helped her. She narrated some of
trolled manner. While policies are made at the her troubles to him including a recent foot injury.
top level, their implementation is subverted by the He handed two hundred rupees to her and said he
field level bureaucracy which irks those in power would help her in any way possible. She thanked
and command at the top. him again and left.

Thus, the field level bureaucracy is emerging as After she left, the councilor continued talking to
prominent new actors in the dynamics of urban me. He explained that his constituency consisted
politics. The poor groups operating the levers to of poor and backward Muslims. “These people live
mobilize engineers, valvemen, etc. to access ba- in large families in small little rooms. The family
sic resources. Undoubtedly, there is exchange of keeps extending and so, over time, they build an
bribes in several cases. However, the ‘corruption’ extra floor on the building. Sometimes, the family
that goes on at this level is negligible when com- wants to extend the production unit running in the
pared with the larger transactions at the level of house. So they build an extension to their struc-
senior bureaucracy. The civil society discourse ture. I know that these things happen and they are
on corruption targets everyday practices of petty against the building byelaws of the municipality.
money exchanges. What it does not question is But these should not be demolished. Therefore, at
the exchange of large sums of money in national the beginning of my term, I brought the Assist-
level defence deals and other large infrastructure ant Engineers of my ward, the factory supervisors
projects. This civil society discourse of transpar- and other officers and told them that these build-
ency and accountability is therefore opaque and ings should not be touched and demolished. The
quiet when it comes to larger structures of power. other thing is the hawkers. During the month of
Ramadaan, there are several hawkers in this area
selling food items. They are out to earn their liveli-
hoods. I do not touch these hawkers. Today, if I go
to each one of them and ask them for one lakh ru-

10
pees (about $2380), then the municipality officers projects. Agencies funding large infrastructure
will come to them and ask them for a sum of ten projects dislike councilors because councilors can
rupees to be paid each day. If I ask them to pay me vote against the project in the municipal council
two lakh rupees (about $4760), then the munici- and the project will have to be revoked. Therefore,
pal officials will ask them for twenty rupees each these agencies approach top party bosses who in
day. On the other hand, when a contract is passed turn discipline the councilors. [cite instances from
in my ward and the contractor gives me gifts and the TIDE Mangalore Study] In the case of Mum-
presents (including money), I accept it. I don’t bai, the creation of the MMRDA has added anoth-
refuse. This I will admit openly.” er dimension to the politics. The state government
is interested in vesting more and more powers into
During interviews with councilors from Mumbai, the MMRDA which is now executing large infra-
some of them admitted openly to accepting bribes structure projects. This allows the bureaucrats and
and gifts. The traditional view is that the councilor politicians to make larger sums of money, in turn
is a corrupt entity and he/she exploits the poor. disempowering the municipality and the coun-
While it may be true that the councilor is cor- cilors. The councilors cannot question/challenge
rupt and can be exploitative, it is also important the decisions of the MMRDA because the MMR-
to remember that the poor have agency and they DA is a para-statal body.
can tactically play their councilor to access basic
resources. There is also a clearly political agenda However, it is important to note that the councilor
in labeling the councilor as corrupt. One councilor is not the only source of fulfilling claims for the
stated that traditionally, the higher bureaucrats in poor. In some localities, it is the MLA (member
the municipality, such as the deputy municipal of the state legislative assembly) or the MP (mem-
commissioners (DMC), the additional municipal ber of parliament) who is the actor which helps the
commissioners (AMC) and the municipal com- poor. A famous instance is that of former actor-
missioner have vested interests in labeling the MP Sunil Dutt. Dutt was a film star who was in-
councilor as corrupt. Higher level bureaucrats in volved in several charity works. He contested the
municipalities are perhaps more rent-seeking and state elections from Bharatnagar. Bharatnagar is
corrupt than the councilors. One councilor in an a slum situated opposite the plush Bandra-Kurla
interview mentioned to me that the total budget Complex. Dutt was an MLA from this area for a
of the BMC in Mumbai is 7,000 crores. Of this, long time and was loved by the people. He then
3,500 crores is spent on salaries. In the remain- went on to contest national elections and became
ing 3,500 crores, 5% of the money is laundered the MP, but his constituency as MP had increased.
away. According to this councilor, the notion that He was no longer responsible for Bharatnagar.
the councilor is corrupt is propagated by the bu- Another MLA from the Congress Party (to which
reaucracy because the bureaucracy can earn larger Dutt belonged) took over the seat. The local leader
bribes on large city infrastructure projects, while of Bharatnagar explained to me that even though
the councilor has to contend with taking bribes on Dutt was no longer the MLA, whenever people
smaller contracts such as building toilets, main- faced trouble in the slum, they would straightaway
taining roads, taking bribe from someone who has approach Dutt who was now MP. Dutt would then
built an extra loft on the building, etc. Another put pressure on the MLA to ensure that the situ-
councilor also admitted that councilors are cor- ation is resolved. When the problem was solved,
rupt, but not to the extent that NGOs and civil so- people would say, ‘ah, Dutt solved it!’ even though
ciety organizations (CSOs) make it out to be. it was the MLA who resolved the issue. In this way,
the political dynamics ensured that Dutt was the
Labeling the councilor as corrupt is also a propa- hero for Bharatnagar slum residents and they re-
ganda of party politics. Party members at the state mained loyal to him during the elections.
level, when it comes to large infrastructure projects,
want to discipline the councilors (who rank below There is talk of decentralization in the city and
them) in order to make larger sums from these the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts

11
(CAA) are evoked as the messiah for solving ‘gov- on a commercial basis and develop block E for
ernance problems’ in the city. But these acts have social housing. The building of Block E would af-
not outlined a role for the MLA which makes it fect the residents of Block C in terms of reduced
problematic. sunlight and noise pollution. Angel also stated
that since Block E would be social housing, Angel
Another important dynamic is the emergence of would create a separate gate for entry for residents
NGOs, CSO and residents associations in the city. of Block E. The residents petitioned a plea before
It is well known by now that these groups usually the Southwark Planning Council stating that An-
work through bureaucrats to fulfill their agendas. gel had violated the original commitments and
This in turn disempowers councilors. What is in- that it should stick to its original commitment of
teresting though is that there are conflict of agen- selling apartments in Block D for social housing.
das between residents’ associations, NGOs and They also argued against having a separate entry
CSOs and often, the ways in which these are played for residents of Block E simply because it is social
out affects one group or the other. In one case, an housing. In its argument, Angel pointed out that
NGO named Karmayog in association with the there were amendments to the original plan which
BMC in Mumbai formed the NGO Council. The were approved by the councilor and the plan-
NGO Council was made up of several NGOs. ning commission but were not notified later. The
It was proposed that the NGO Council would councilor representing the citizens of Jam Factory
monitor government projects. The NGO council, supported the residents but also stated that a final
mainly Karmayog, began to take up agendas run solution would have to be attained through a nego-
by other NGOs independently. It took up the is- tiation between Angel and the residents. The Plan-
sue of hawkers which was the agenda of CitiSpace, ning Commission did not make a decision in the
another group in Mumbai. This agitated CitiSpace meeting, but decided to defer to the next cycle. The
which lobbied with other groups to ban the NGO commission was aware that this was a prestigious
Council. Currently, the council is defunct. case and that deciding against the residents, in fa-
vour of the developer, would tarnish the image of
Appadurai’s argument that the claims of the poor the council. At the same time, the council also rec-
can be fulfilled through NGOs is highly contest- ognized the powers of the developer. The decision
able. His notion of deep democracy derives from has still to be made, but this is another instance
the experiences of one NGO, namely SPAARC, of how the power dynamics work between various
which has also recently been criticized in the man- groups in the city, be it London or Mumbai. Ben-
ner in which it carried out rehabilitation of project jamin and Bhuvaneswari (2001) suggest that
affected persons (PAPs) under the World Bank
funded MUTP project. It is vitally important to observe closely the
mechanisms used by poor groups in influenc-
I want to conclude by citing the case of a hear- ing policy or decision making and also the im-
ing that I was witness to very recently in London. plementation process. Our observations reveal
The residents of the Jam Factory neighbourhood two paradoxical (and provocative) aspects.
on Tower Bridge in London issued a case against First, the concept of the Porous Bureaucracy.
the developer of the Jam Factory named Angel be- Here we find that institutions that provide
fore the Southwark Planning Council. The details access to local groups (especially poorer ones)
of the case go like this. Angel is the developer of can on the surface be look like a bureaucratic
Jam Factory, a high real estate complex. As per the mess and seem ‘non-transparent’. These very
original plan, Angel built 146 [confirm number] characteristics can allow influence by local
extra apartments in blocks A, B and C. As per rule groups using their political clout under a par-
106, Angel promised to develop block D for social ticular range of political and social conditions,
housing, but later backed out by saying that since commonly called ‘vote banks politics.’ Politi-
the apartments in Block D had smoke free kitch- cal strategy here is not always explicit, and to
ens and other amenities not necessary for social capture this, we introduce the term Politics by
housing, it would sell the apartments in Block D Stealth. Our main argument is that influenc-

12
ing, subverting official procedures in contra-
diction of planning policy happens not only by
the more visible politics by public protest, but
by a sophisticated knowledge of how to play
the institutional levers of the system. In this
context, it is hardly surprising that the institu-
tional arena where the Politics by Stealth most
effectively happens and where bureaucracies
provide easy access via the Porous Bureauc-
racy.

13
14
Is the “Rule of Law” Good for Cities?
Gerald E. Frug

Everyone hears again and again that the rule of Nowhere does the formal legal system actually
law is a fundamental ingredient in a civilized so- achieve it. Most people see this point most eas-
ciety. But what is the rule of law? And, whatever it ily when they think about the arbitrariness that
is, is it good for cities? The answer to the second derives from the power wielded by governments
question, I shall argue, depends on the answer to – not only by authoritarian governments but by
the first. There is a vast body of literature about democracies too. We see this arbitrariness every
the rule of law – literature ranging from Aristotle day everywhere in the world, including in the U.S.
to Hegel, from Hayek to Rawls, from A.V. Dicey and the U.K. Even there, civil liberties abuses oc-
to Jiang Zemin and beyond. In this chapter, I put cur, markets are improperly regulated, courts step
aside a discussion of this important literature. In- outside their bounds or refuse to act when needed,
stead, I ground my discussion of the rule of law cities are restrained too much on some matters
by concentrating on its meaning for the develop- and too little on others. But government is not
ment of cities, both so-called “world cities,” such the only problem. There are also dangers posed by
as London and New York, and developing cities, the private sector – by employers, business lead-
cities such a Shanghai, Johannesburg, Mumbai, ers and financial institutions. To protect against
and Mexico City. their power, we rely on the government to regulate
financial markets, prohibit employment discrimi-
The core value I associate with the rule of law is the nation, and penalize fraud, to mention only a few
importance of restraining the exercise of arbitrary examples. Arbitrary power is also wielded by other
power – the need to protect the weak against the private individuals – through violence, intimida-
strong. This is task that we want the rule of law to tion, and the refusal to help those in need no mat-
perform. And it is a valuable function. The easiest ter how easy it would be to do. To deal with this
way to recognize its importance is to think about threat, we sometimes impose fines and penalties.
Mogadishu: the endless violence, insecurity, and And sometimes we do nothing. When faced with
corruption there has unleashed the exercise of the these kinds of private exercise of power, the cur-
kind of arbitrary power that we want the rule of rent system is also incomplete.
law to restrain. The same point, however, can be
made everywhere. The immigrant communities in More worrisome than this incompleteness is the
London, Paris and New York, the financial inves- fact that the combination of the two roles that I’ve
tors in Mumbai and Shanghai, the people living in mentioned for the rule of law – the need to restrain
shacks and gated communities in Mexico City and governmental power and the need to restrain pri-
Johannesburg – they too seek protection against vate power – contradict each other. We rely on the
the exercise of arbitrary power. To the extent that government to regulate the market and to punish
the rule of law provides this protection, it is a good anti-social activity, and, at the same time, we seek
thing. And, it is a particularly good thing for cities: to limit governmental power. We seek both to em-
otherwise, it would not be possible for millions of power government and to disempower it. We seek
people to live together in one geographic space. both to empower private discretion and to regu-
late it. And these conflicting assignments are not
The problem with this conception of the rule of the only basic structural problem presented by the
law is that it is utopian. The protection against ar- formal legal system. As every architect and design-
bitrary power is always incomplete and imperfect. er knows, no matter how we work out the details

15
of the rule of law, legal rules can take on a force second is an aspect of city policy that the formal
of their own. Rule-following can itself become a legal system regulates in detail. The example I have
source of arbitrariness rather than a protection for in mind is the way cities organize decisions about
human creativity. That’s why the rule of law should urban economic development. Notwithstanding
not be equated with whatever the formal legal sys- the legal system’s substantial role in urban de-
tem provides at any given moment in time. Even at velopment policy, I shall argue, its fundamental
its best, the formal legal system cannot fully pro- structure can still enable the exercise of power by
tect us against the abuse of power. the strong over the weak rather than the other way
around. I want to offer some ideas about the kinds
It is important, therefore, not to reduce the idea of of institutions that might supplement the efforts
the rule of law to the formal legal system. Instead, of the current legal system in these two contexts,
the rule of law should be understood as an unach- whether the threats of arbitrariness come from the
ieved – and, indeed, an unachievable – ideal. The government or from private individuals.
phrase engraved on the entrance of the Harvard
Law School library – “Not under Man but under Before I turn to this agenda, I want to clarify the
God and Law” -- captures this ideal. This famous connection between the formal legal system and
phrase, following a line that goes from Bracton to city life. When dealing with the development of
Coke to the present day, seeks to place everyone cities, the notion of the rule of law is normally in-
in society, even the king, under law rather than voked in four different ways. First, there’s the rela-
under the power wielded by other human beings. tionship between the rule of law and the develop-
Unfortunately, this is not possible. Unfortunately, ment of the kind of market economy necessary to
laws are man-made. Legislatures can be capri- promote urban economic growth. You can’t have
cious. Administrative agencies can be captured by a market economy without legal rules – indeed,
the very groups they are supposed to regulate. And some insist, without the right kind of legal rules.
even the most honorable courts have their own in- Consultants by the thousands therefore travel the
stitutional role to protect and, staffed by educated world trying to design legal rules to promote their
elites, can fail to see abuses even when they exist. visions of a thriving local economy. Next, there is
The basic question facing cities is what to do about the organization of local democracy. Democracy
these inadequacies. The classic answer is to try can’t mean that city policy should be determined
harder to improve our current formal legal institu- by whatever the majority wants to do. Majorities,
tions. I’m not against this project; in fact I support after all, can invade the rights of minorities – in-
it. But it is not enough. deed, popular passions can generate oppressive
policies of all kinds. A functioning democracy, in
In this chapter, I discuss an additional strategy. other words, has to be subject to the rule of law.
If we are interested in restraining the exercise of Then there is the institutional meaning of the rule
arbitrary power, we need to invent new institu- of law. If the rule of law is essential for the func-
tions to promote the core value of the rule of law tioning of the city economy and city politics, who
not only in cities in developing societies but in the decides what the right legal rules are – the city, the
U.K. and the United States as well. I have in mind national government, international norms, a high-
democratic institutions that would supplement the er source altogether? Decision making about the
current legal system in order to address abuses it rule of law itself requires rules of law. Finally, even
does not now prevent. I can summarize the point after we address the economy, local politics, and
I want to make in this essay in a single sentence: institutional design, there remains the question of
The protection against arbitrary power is too im- the relationship between the rule of law and the
portant a task to be left simply to lawyers. To spell built environment. Planners often complain that
this out, I will focus on two aspects of city life. The decision makers do not pay adequate attention to
first is the part of the city that the formal legal sys- the plans they have worked so hard to draft. For
tem currently does not adequately address – best plans to have meaning, they seem to be saying,
illustrated by the informal economy and informal they have to be inscribed into law.
housing so prevalent in the developing world. The

16
One might think from this account that just about the way we organize government, the roles we al-
everyone agrees that the rule of law is a necessity low it to play and prohibit it from playing, and the
for city life, and that it is a good thing too. Actu- checks and balances we build into the system. The
ally, however, on every one of these points, there relevant legal rules come from the government –
are those who fight against law and legal rules. some from the city government and some from the
Consider the economy. We often hear these days central government, some from popularly-elected
that fostering a market economy should focus on legislative bodies and some from executive agen-
the repeal of legal rules. Deregulation is the word cies. Many derive from courts decisions. This frag-
currently in fashion. Government, people say, mentation of authority is the way we regulate the
should get out of the business of trying to manage market and the way we protect against the possi-
the economy; the organization of society should ble abuse of democratic power. We check the pos-
derive instead from the operation of “the free mar- sible abuse of local democracy by having national
ket.” Next, consider the issue of democracy. The oversight. And we check the possible abuse of na-
idea of relying on legal rules to foster democracy is tional oversight by having local democracy. We
currently very much under attack. What’s in vogue take some matters – like the money supply – out
instead are references to governance, stakeholders, of politics to check against legislative abuse. And
non-governmental organizations, and community we subject other matters to a popular referendum
organizing. A lot of people who defend these al- – in America, establishing the maximum level of
ternatives seem to think that legal rules get in the the property tax – to ensure the carrying out of
way of what they are trying to do. Then, there is the democratic will. We entrust the courts with
the institutional question. Many people claim that an enormous amount of power while, at the same
the way government is organized is now so hope- time, insisting they are doing nothing but imple-
less that there is nothing that can be done to fix it. menting the law, not making it.
If so, modifying legal rules is not going to solve the
problems cities face. The institutional mechanisms As this description suggests, nothing about our
that might address these problems have to be system is completely worked out. Competing ideas
found elsewhere – in public/private partnerships, are always in play, and rules are constantly being
empowering civil society, and privatization. Even revised in light of experience. I emphasize this be-
courts are now being replaced by arbitrators. Fi- cause the alternatives I’m going to propose will be
nally, when thinking about the built environment, equally open and contestable. Readers will not pay
we have all heard architects’ complaints about any attention to my alternatives if they think that
their frustrations with the endlessly complicated the current legal system is predictable and deter-
legal rules that affect their work. Planners often minate – and that any alternative should therefore
say the same thing. As one important Indian Ur- be equally predictable and determinate. One needs
ban Planner said recently, talking about Delhi, “If to see how the rule of law now operates to be open
we want to make this city a peaceful place then we to any proposal for change.
. . . will have to remove the fingers of the state ap-
paratus that have got into the planning processes Consider the popular idea that we need to protect
and we have to restore to planners the legitimacy the operation of “the free market” from govern-
of planning.” Don’t legal rules, he seems to be say- mental intervention. Obviously, this slogan rep-
ing, whoever drafts them, just make things worse? resents at best a half-truth. Market societies need
Shouldn’t architects and designers and planners be legal rules even more than they need to escape
free to do their work without all these lawyers nip- from them. Let’s say that I live next door to you,
ping at their heels? and that I want to develop my property in a way
that will destroy your property values. Does pri-
There is, then, more controversy than one might vate property mean I can do what I want on my
think about the current relationship between cities own property? Or does it protect your ability to do
and the rule of law. In practice, this controversy what you want on your property? Or let’s say that
is resolved in the design of the institutions that I want to sell you my house and that it is riddled
make city policy. The rule of law is inscribed in with termites. Because I want to sell my house at a

17
high price, I don’t tell you about the termites. Am I particularly focused on the judiciary: the goal is to
guilt of fraud – or are you guilty of not protecting ensure, or create, an independent judiciary as the
yourself? Just in the United States, both answers bulwark of protection against government abuse.
to both questions are now accepted as law. These Sometimes, the Rule of Law project also promotes
basic point about property and contract – the kind legal rules that don’t exist in the U.S. and the U.K.
of thing students first learn in law school – are just For example, in their effort to promote human
the beginning of the different kinds of societies rights, world organizations, including the United
that different kinds of legal rules enable. Securities Nations, are seeking to promote rights such as the
regulation provides another example. Different right to housing, the right to education, and the
legal regimes governing securities markets enable right to health.
different level of trust for investors – and, there-
fore, different levels of investment. One problem with this current Rule of Law project
is that it relies almost entirely on the formal legal
There is, in short, no such thing as “the free mar- system to establish the rule of law, even though
ket.” Different definitions of private property and many people in the world’s cities make their living
different definitions of enforceable contracts and in the informal economy, live in informal hous-
different securities laws create different kinds of ing, and rely for survival on informal networks
market societies. There are as many markets as that escape the reach of formal rules. Speaking
they are combinations of possible legal rules. And, recently of an informal neighborhood in Cairo, a
in fact, the rules in the U.K. and the United States New York Times reporter wrote that the residents
have changed dramatically over time, as the nature see government as “an utterly unreliable source of
of the economy and the society has changed. Even help for the average citizen.” This is not surprising,
now, the rules in the U.K. and the U.S. are not the because the informal economy and informal hous-
same. Simply in the United States they vary from ing result from the government’s withdrawal from
state to state. That’s why it is so surprising, at least portions of the economy and the housing sector,
to me, that many people are so confident in our leaving them unregulated, untaxed, and unpro-
existing legal system that the most important rule tected. The informal housing in Johannesburg or
of law project now taking place around the world Mumbai is built without legal permission and is
is the effort to export our system to developing not in compliance with legal standards. The infor-
countries. When President Bush and Prime Min- mal economy includes people engaged in building
ister Blair held their press conference on April 9, the housing, selling food and other commodities,
2003, under the heading Iraq Will Soon Be Liber- and providing services such as transportation by
ated, they said explicitly that one of their principal vans or rickshaws. One form of arbitrary power
goals was to make the rule of law the foundation of threatening these communities is exercised by
Iraqi democracy. the government: large-scale, mass evictions that
drive people from their homes, and, equally im-
What did they mean by that? It’s hard to know ex- portantly, rob them of their economic livelihood.
actly. But perhaps some indication might be gleaned But the government’s intervention is intermittent.
from the countless projects, initiated by the World Sometimes the government adopts the opposite
Bank and many others, designed to bring the Rule policy, seeking instead to improve services to the
of Law to developing countries. What are they try- informal sector rather than eliminating it. The
ing to do? One basic idea is that they are seeking to more pervasive form of arbitrary power is exer-
export the rules we have adopted to structure our cised by landlords taking advantage of those who
market economy to their market economy. The rent housing from them, criminal gangs seeking
Rule of Law project also involves fostering par- to skim money from local vendors, and the police
ticular forms of governmental organization – not and other officials taking payoffs to look the other
just elections but ideas about the way to decentral- way when these abuses occur. The informal sector
ize power, the organization of public-private part- is filled with people who pay money for housing,
nerships, and the creation of public corporations depend for their livelihood on a particular loca-
and quangos. Currently, the Rule of Law project is tion for their stall, and rely on access to transpor-

18
tation and infrastructure. If trouble arises, the for- world, this simply cannot be done. The government
mal legal system is not there to help them. Calling does not have the resources or capacity to create
in the police in not an answer because the police a totally formal world. Indeed, it is because of its
themselves can be the problem. inability to provide housing that informal hous-
ing has become so widespread. And it is because
It is important to recognize that the informal of its inability to create an economic system that
economy and the informal housing sector, as I provides enough jobs that the growth of the infor-
have just described them, are set up in accord- mal economy has been so substantial. This is the
ance with law. By this I mean that the law sets up structure that dominates places like Mumbai and
rules of formality – licenses to operate businesses, Mexico City. But even in the U.K. and the United
building codes for housing, zoning laws, taxation States, bringing every element into the formal sys-
schemes – and these rules define the limit of le- tem – every illegal immigrant working as a maid,
gality. Those outside these limits are by definition every business transaction made off the books,
illegal. For that reason, they are vulnerable both to every building not strictly in compliance with the
public and private power. To understand the role regulatory codes – is unachievable.
that law is playing in the informal sector, it might
be helpful to draw an analogy to a very different Another problem with relying on the formal legal
rule system – criminal law in 18th century Eng- system is that it depends so heavily on lawyers and
land. In a well-known essay, Douglas Hay tells the courts. I’m not one to join in the general chorus
story of the enormous increase in the reliance on of condemnation of lawyers. A lot of lawyers have
the death penalty in England during the 18th cen- made an enormous contribution to values I as-
tury – with capital punishment rising from 50 dif- sociate with the rule of law – in their practice, in
ferent crimes to more than 200 in a little over 100 government service, and on the bench. But even in
years. The story he tells, however, is not of mass the U.S. and the U.K. lawyers can also frustrate the
executions but of non-enforcement. Many people rule of law by endless motions and delays, by clever
who could legally have been executed were saved exploitation of technical problems, and by a kind
– decision makers withheld penalties from those of devotion to a client that frustrates the general
who had been condemned, making them quite welfare. Courts too can be a problem. At the time
understandably grateful. One can see this system, of the Warren Court in the 1960s, many people in
however, not as the gracious exercise of mercy to the United States looked regularly to the courts
criminals but, quite the contrary, as a system that to solve problems of injustice. No longer. Court
gave enormous power to those with the authority decisions, it is now clear, can undermine impor-
to forgive trespasses – those who decided that the tant protections for racial or gender minorities by
penalty would not be imposed. This is the struc- invalidating or narrowly construing protections
ture, I suggest, that those living and working in enacted by national, state and local legislatures.
the informal sector now experience. Having been Besides, reliance on courts and lawyers is unlikely
declared illegal, they are subject at any time to the to be very useful in many cities around the world,
penalties of illegality. These penalties can be and given the limitations of their legal institutions. The
often are withheld. This withholding of sanctions problem now is that the only alternative to relying
is what enables the street peddlers to work and on lawyers and courts is doing nothing: no protec-
those living in the shacks to call them home. But tion either from the arbitrary power of government
officials can change their mind at any time. or from those within the informal neighborhood
who prey on others. We have to come up with a
One response to this situation might be to extend third option.
the formal legal system to everything now in the
informal system. This would mean bringing all The one I would like to suggest is local democracy.
housing and economic transactions within legal The basic idea is to empower neighborhood peo-
requirements – regulating them, bringing them up ple themselves, working collectively, to intervene
to code, subjecting them to taxation, giving them against the power of corrupt police, landlords, and
the rights of property owners. In many parts of the the criminal underworld. This would require the

19
decentralization to the neighborhood level of two outsiders is not just to limit power in the name of
kinds of authority: the ability to make rules that checking abuse. It is also to reinforce neighbor-
limit the current forms of abuse and the ability to hood power by providing assistance in cases that
resolve the disputes that arise under the new rules. the neighborhood can’t handle. Sometimes, neigh-
These are familiar rule of law tasks. But I would borhood residents may be too vulnerable to retri-
not assign them to lawyers, judges or other pro- bution by powerful actors in the community to be
fessionals. I see the establishment of basic rules as able to make a decision. Still, the structure I am
an example of neighborhood self-government: the proposing is not just an addition to the traditional
analogy is to the legislature. I see the application formal legal system. It is also a modification of it:
of the rules as an example of empowering ordinary as I have stressed, the decision makers would be
people to make decisions about disputes in their ordinary people, not lawyers or judges or experts.
own community: the analogy is to the jury. Both No one thinks that setting up this system will be
institutional forms can be vehicles for involving easy. There would not be one model for the world.
ordinary citizens in the experience of protecting But, if a structure can be designed and can begin to
people from the exercise of arbitrary power. More work, there can be a new way for the most vulner-
than that, they can enable ordinary people to as- able people in the world’s cities to limit arbitrary
sert some control over their own lives – control power – arbitrary power that formal legal system
that can begin by limiting the kinds of exposure now either permits or disregards.
imposed by some neighborhood residents over
those who are even more vulnerable. This proc- Let’s turn now to the second situation I want to
ess can then lead to another form of power: it can discuss, one far from the neighborhoods in my
contribute to political organizing so that, when the first example. I am talking about the places where
danger arises from the city or state governments the government and developers are concentrat-
rather than from fellow residents, the neighbor- ing their efforts to further the economic growth
hood would be better prepared to confront it. of cities. I mean places like King’s Cross, White
City and Canary Wharf in London, the Atlantic
A first reaction to this idea may one of alarm: it Yards in New York, the Santa Fe neighborhood in
raises the specter of vigilante justice, of group op- Mexico City, the Mill area in Mumbai. These are
pression, or unleashed prejudice. It could too – un- not places, like the sites for the informal sector,
less, that is, it were subject, as I would subject it, to designed to be marginal. They are to be the heart
the kinds of organizational restraints traditionally of the city economy, and, as a result, they are the
associated with the rule of law. I am not proposing places where the formal legal system is most in evi-
a form of community empowerment disconnect- dence. The way that the current legal system struc-
ed from the legal system. I am proposing a new tures these developments is not the same every-
kind of institution that would fit within and that where, so to discuss the process requires engaging
would strengthen the legal system. Like the rest of in generalization, indeed, over-generalization. But
the legal system, any neighborhood process needs it usually takes the form of three legally-constitut-
to be subject to institutional checks and balances. ed negotiations: one between the city and the de-
No rule of law regime enables a group of people to veloper, another between the two of them and the
exercise unchecked power. The issue here – very surrounding neighborhood, and the third involv-
similar to the one that confronts the formal legal ing efforts by all interested parties to get approvals
system – is how to give the decision makers enough from other regulatory government bodies, often at
authority so that they can be empowered while, the state or national level. These three negotiations
at the same time, limiting the dangers of abuse create an enormously complex process. Legal rules
that they themselves impose. This is the problem affect every part of it. Yet, it seems to me, the most
involved when the legal system subjects city deci- important issue that these developments raise is
sion making to state or national oversight, subjects not addressed by the legal system at all.
jury judgments to judicial and appellate review,
and subjects legislative judgments to declarations To consider what’s left out of this process, I need
of their unconstitutionality. Moreover, the role of to say what’s left in. The focus of the negotiation

20
between the developer and the government is the The overarching question left out of this process is
devising of a formula that allows the developer to whether the current economic development strat-
make enough money to be willing to sign the deal egy embraced by these projects will improve the
and enables the government to accomplish enough lives of the majority of people affected by them.
of its current objectives to be willing to go along. This is not a question to be negotiated with devel-
The government’s focus might be on the accom- opers. It is also not likely to be addressed by the
modation of affordable housing, the size of the detailed technical objections lodged with regula-
buildings, the need for improvements to the infra- tory agencies. And it is not a question appropri-
structure, or other similar matters; the developer is ately answered by the neighborhood where the
likely to be focused principally on the bottom line. development is located. The current assumption in
The deal with the neighborhood is different. The planning circles about popular involvement is that
neighbors have to be persuaded not to try to block the relevant “community” to evaluate development
the project, so enough has to be offered to them in decisions is the neighborhood, and not the larger
terms of local amenities to buy their compliance population. One can understand why people think
(even if, ultimately, they will be forced to move out this. After all, a development is likely to have a very
of the neighborhood). The regulatory authorities significant impact on people living nearby. But
will have still other objectives – very often envi- that is also reason why the neighborhood might
ronmental concerns, but they can involve almost be the wrong focus group. The way neighborhoods
any aspect of regulatory power. These additional evaluate their future is likely to be different than
regulatory requirements are often used strategical- a city-wide evaluation. Change has to take place
ly by opponents of the development to attack a deal somewhere, and if every neighborhood parochi-
they are against on other grounds. One thinks of ally resists it, it will be prevented from happening.
the defeat of Westway, the highway once proposed To be sure, the public sector itself, and not just the
for the west side of Manhattan, torpedoed for its neighborhood, is always one of the negotiating
danger to stripped bass. If these three negotiations parties. Perhaps, then, the overall question of eco-
are concluded successfully, the deal is blessed as nomic policy is handled by it in the negotiations.
consistent with governing law. Often, however, it is not the city that represents the
public. Instead, it is a public authority, public cor-
Does this process allow the exercise of arbitrary poration, or quango that has been carefully organ-
power? I think it does. The source of arbitrariness ized to be less responsive to democratic decision
can vary. Sometime it can come from the govern- making than the city itself. Even when the city is
ment when it interprets the legal rules to allow the involved, the desire for attracting investment can
developer exemptions from standard practice – or overwhelm the Mayor and other executive offi-
when it interprets the law to prohibit the devel- cials. They often feel that the city is so threatened
oper from doing something it might just as easily by competition with other cities, so desperate to
have allowed. Sometimes it is the neighborhood get the deal done, that an examination and debate
organization, operating under the cloak of the about the conception of the city’s future that the
word “community,” that can hold up a project by deal is fostering would seem a distraction.
demands that outsiders would consider unreason-
able. Sometimes, it can come from the architects, Another basic assumption about the current nego-
when they seek to defend the unchallengeable crea- tiation structure embraced by planners and archi-
tivity of their design. Sometimes it can be based on tects is that the focus should be on land use. But
a disputable invocation of environmental or other much more is at stake in development decisions
rules. Since the background legal framework does than how land is to be used. Even more important
not determine the result of any of the negotiations, is the idea of the city that the proposed develop-
there is a considerable amount of individual dis- ment will foster – the kind of population the city
cretion exercised in all of them. The formal rules is trying to attract, retain, and exclude by adopt-
are often crafted precisely to allow this discretion, ing this particular definition of economic growth.
thereby circumventing the popular protest that Most of the major projects I’m thinking about, not
another process might have produced. just in London and New York but also in Mumbai,

21
Shanghai, Mexico City, and Johannesburg, are fo- ess should not be to offer advice and criticism to
cused on pursuing the image of being a global city. experts. The participants should be empowered to
This means attracting finance, high-tech, and in- establish the city’s strategy for economic growth,
ternational investment, and therefore providing the with the experts advising the decision makers
office buildings, high-end shopping, and secluded rather being the decision makers. And, finally, I
housing complexes that these target audiences are don’t see this proposal as a way to open up gov-
thought to demand. Those who are pursuing this ernance decisions to stakeholders. What people
agenda rarely have to defend it before representa- mean by stakeholders is never obvious to me, but it
tives of the city as a whole. They rarely have to ar- usually includes prominent business interests, se-
ticulate how this strategy will improve the lives of lected non-governmental organizations, and civic
most city residents. They rarely even have to spell leaders. I have in mind another group: ordinary
out what “trickle down” means. By defining the is- city residents. The goal is to include the very peo-
sue in terms of land use, the question of the city’s ple left out in the reigning economic development
overall economic policy is not usually even raised. strategy in the decision making about what that
But as long as the larger issue of defining the city’s strategy should be. These are the people who most
future remain unexamined, economic develop- need to be protected by the rule of law.
ment strategies can strengthen the strong over the
weak, not the other way around. As was the case for the neighborhood process for
the informal sector, I see this process as an integral
That’s why we need to open up the contestabiity of part of the existing legal structure, not independ-
economic development policy to a democratically ent of it. It adds new voices to the legal structure.
organized institution. Unlike my proposal for the It too needs to be subject to a system of checks and
informal sector, I think that the institution should balances. To give unrestrained decision making
represent people city-wide, rather than be neigh- power to any particular group would enable arbi-
borhood-focused. In some cities, this can be done trary power, rather than limit it. After all, city-wide
by giving greater authority over this issue to the coalitions can target poor neighborhoods for un-
city’s legislative body – its city council or assembly. desirable uses, thereby perpetuating the power of
In other cities, this institution might not be organ- the strong over the weak. The formal legal system
ized in a way that adequately represents the variety is the way we now organize the democratic process
of people from the very different kinds of neigh- and integrate it into the overall governance struc-
borhoods that have a stake in the outcome. The ef- ture, and I seek to build on this model. It should
fectiveness of the local legislature depends a lot on be clear, in other words, that I consider the formal
its size, whether it is neighborhood-based or elect- legal system an indispensable ingredient in estab-
ed at large, its legally-defined role in city decision lishing the rule of law. But it should be equally clear
making, and the quality of the democratic process that I think that the current system needs revision.
that produces its members. If the local legislature I seek to add more democratic ingredients to it. In
is not now adequate, another organization will the context of the informal sector, the problem I
have to be established. I don’t see this democratic identified was the limits of formality. On the issue
process as one more step in an already too con- of economic development, the problem is the way
voluted development process. I see it as establish- the formal system currently organizes the decision
ing the framework for all development decisions. making process. In both cases, new institutional
I don’t see the goal to be a planning document in structures are needed to empower the people not
the conventional sense. I see as a mechanism that now in the process to be able to make decisions not
structures a continuing struggle over the city’s fu- now adequately addressed.
ture, one that will require constant revision as the
consequences of different projects on the lives of In my view, my proposal dealing with economic
different kinds of residents becomes apparent. I development and my earlier proposal about infor-
don’t see the meetings as like the kind of commu- mal neighborhoods constitute one agenda not two.
nity group meetings so often associated with plan- For me, the most vulnerable residents of major cit-
ning decisions. The role of the democratic proc- ies are threatened today by events in two very dif-

22
ferent parts of town. Some of their vulnerability
derives from the neighborhoods where they live;
some comes from the effect on their lives produced
by the pursuit of development elsewhere in the city.
The changes I propose to the way we now organize
the rule of law in our cities are designed to protect
these people from decisions made regarding either
kind of neighborhood. This is not just a necessity
for the developing world. London and New York
are justly proud of the immigrants who have be-
come a major part of their population. But their
views are rarely represented in the debates about
the city’s future. To address this omission, I pro-
pose a more democratic form of the rule of law.
No doubt my proposals, like the idea of rule of law
itself, will have to be revised as their imperfections
become apparent. Framing the rule of law for cities
is an endless task, not a single model that can be
exported around the world. The way we perform
this task is by designing and redesigning institu-
tions – different institutions in different contexts –
in order to better protect the city’s most vulnerable
residents from the exercise of arbitrary power. If
we do this, the rule of law will be good for cities.

23
24
Law As Contestation, Rather Than Creation Of Vulnerability
Vaidya Gullapalli

Outside the law as it is written down, delivered in meet the needs of more people. The goal here is to
judgments, passed in legislative assemblies and reopen the law as a realm that can absorb, mimic,
in Parliament, are the rules of operation in spac- or correct power differentials in, extralegal nego-
es where the law has given no clear instructions, tiations. It is not always necessary or productive
where it lacks force or where its internal ambi- to vilify the arrangements by which, for example,
guities and contradictions make it necessary or on the street that allow a group of vendors to sell
preferable for people to rely on extralegal arrange- their wares in exchange for support of a particular
ments. The rules as they evolve in these spaces may party. But it is also unnecessary and unproduc-
be regarded as benevolent to the extent that they tive to write off the law as a site of contestation.
make life necessities available to people despite an It should be possible for the working conditions
unresponsive legal system. They may be regarded of street vendors or the living conditions of those
as exploitative to the degree that the socially or who live in slums to be taken into account in the
economically vulnerable can only access these drafting of laws. Indeed, this is the purpose of po-
necessities through the self-interest of those with litical representation.
greater political or economic or social power than
them. The storied decisive vote of the Indian poor has al-
ready shown itself to be source of leverage in the
This chapter is concerned with the laws that gov- daily negotiations on the streets of Mumbai, or
ern access to land in Mumbai, for street vending Kolkata, or Bangalore, or Delhi, with those who
and for housing. The laws that structure access command access to land that is officially out of
place land out of the legal reach of a huge fraction reach. Yet, when must or want to, those with gov-
of residents. Access is then negotiated through ernment authority can still bring the weight of the
informal arrangements, with authorities and be- law crashing down on the heads of those with the
tween residents. Often, the arrangement is simply most to lose. This is an effort to describe some of
a promise not to enforce the law in exchange for the ways in which vulnerability was and is created
money or votes. by laws that operate in Mumbai so that this experi-
ence might be brought into the arena of lawmak-
When the law proscribes activities in which people ing.
have little choice but to engage, it creates vulnera-
bility in them and a corresponding source of power Sites of work
in those who will enforce the law. In the absence of
a strict oversight mechanism, government officials The experience of hawkers in Mumbai, as else-
can translate the threat of law enforcement into op- where in India, have taught them not to fear a
portunities for personal gain. The cost of meeting regulatory state, but a predatory state, a state
their demands will be less than the cost of the legal that constantly demands bribes and threatens
punishment and with this single point in mind, it demolitions – against which a licence or other
might seem that everyone gains. Yet if we can take formal recognition provide security.1
aim at the creation of vulnerability that happens
with the writing of laws that simply do not serve
1  Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria, “Street Hawkers and Public
large sections of a city’s population, we can do Space in Mumbai”, Economic and Political Weekly, May
more for working and living conditions that will 27, 2006.

25
Some visions of public space presume the presence dence from Delhi also suggests that police officers
of those engaged in commercial activity. At least and BMC officials also help themselves to vendors’
one vision of Mumbai’s streets would include the goods adding to the cost of vending.3 Evictions
continued presence of the vendors of fruits, flowers, and demolitions also lead to a loss of goods and
vegetables, appliances and clothing who contrib- income. In one set of estimates, this could amount
ute to the city’s life of commerce, outdoor activity to another Rs 40 crore of lost income (though not
and sensory stimulation. Street vendors, certainly all of that is paid to government functionaries).
(between 20 and 30% of whom have been forced
out of the organized sector) depend on access to Background
public space in order to carry out their profession
and earn their livelihood. Yet this access has be- 93% of workers in India and 65% of workers in
come increasingly threatened in Indian cities and Mumbai are in the “informal” or unorganised sec-
in an urban planning context that sets the “global tor. There are a total of 40 million street vendors
city” as a target to be reached, one which does not in the country. The 1997 survey by the National
include your local chaatwalla. Alliance of Street Vendors India (NASVI) estimat-
ed 250,000 vendors in Mumbai. Estimates by the
Municipal law in Mumbai criminalizes “en- Mumbai Hawkers Union run to 300,000 vendors.
croachments” upon the city pavements. This 30% of those in street vending once worked in the
places all vendors who set up stalls in violation formal sector. Vendors also provide markets for
of law. State law also prohibits obstructions on home-based and small-scale industries. Vendors
the streets. Until recently, neither the municipal typically work days of ten hours or longer. Less
nor state government could authorize vendors’ than 20% of vendors are unionized though they do
presence on the streets. When the city – or state form associations, largely for the purposes of or-
or national or sublocal – government cannot of- ganising to pay local officials for the right to work
ficially sanction access to space, those who depend in a certain location.
for their livelihood on access to public space will
seek informal sanction and protection from pun- More than 75% of street vendors are men. The pres-
ishment. Plainly put, street vendors must pay for ence of women varies between scattered markets
their space and their payments will be less than and established markets. Historically, women have
the cost of a fine or eviction (measured in loss of worked more in the sale of perishable goods, such
goods and income) but more than the government as fish, vegetables and flowers. Due to the tight-
might charge in an official system of licensing or er time constraints inherent in the sale of these
registration. Vendors depend for their space, and goods, vendors are more vulnerable to threats of
in turn, their livelihood, on their ability to directly eviction and demands for bribes. In recent years,
or indirectly influence government officials. Given however, the number of women vendors may be
that most vendors have minimal individual politi- increasing and their presence in non-perishable
cal clout, their “influence” inevitably means their goods growing larger.4
ability to pay authorities or mediating parties to
leave them alone. One survey conducted by the The conflict between the opportunity for residents
National Association of Street Vendors found that to practise their trade on the streets and the op-
vendors spent between 10 and 20% of their daily
earnings on bribes. Given the average street ven- 3  In “Street Vendors and Exploitation by the State”, Shail-
dor only earns between Rs 50 – Rs 1002, this is an ly Arora & Aoneha Tagore estimate that “at a modest aver-
age of Rs 500 per person per month by way of cash bribes
enormous strain on already meagre incomes. Evi- and Rs 300 per month for loss of income due to open rob-
bery of their goods by government servants, the five lac
2  This figure is drawn from Sharit Bhowmik’s article, vendors of Delhi are being fleeced of Rs 40 crore a month,
“Urban Responses to Street Trading: India”. In his arti- which tantamounts to Rs 480 crore a year by the govern-
cle, Dr. Bhowmik also states that the average vendor earns ment functionaries.”
between Rs 40 and Rs 80 each day. For the purpose of il- 4  Pavements of Prosperity, The Hindu Business Line,
lustrating the pressure bribe payments place on vendors, I April 27, 2004, online edition: http://www.hinduonnet.
have used to higher figure here. com/businessline/blbby/stories/2004042700180400.htm

26
portunity for residents to use the streets for travel designated areas as street vending zones, the po-
– whether on foot or bicycle or by car – has driven lice would have the right to evict street vendors in
court decisions in this area. In 1989, the Supreme these zones. Even licensed street vendors can be
Court held that “[t]he right to carry on trade or evicted under this law. The Section reads: “No per-
business…on street pavements, if properly regu- son shall cause obstruction in any street or public
lated[,] cannot be denied on the ground that the place by…exposing anything for sale or setting out
streets are meant exclusively for passing or re- anything for sale in or upon any stall, booth, cask,
passing and no other use.”5 The effect of this deci- and basket or in any other way whatsoever.”
sion has hinged on interpretations of what “prop-
erly regulated” means. Along with their actions against slum dwellers, the
Government of Maharashtra and the BMC have
Legal Framework periodically carried out eviction drives against
street vendors. A massive demolition drive in
Until 1978, the Bombay Municipal Corporation the early 1980s prompted a case in the Supreme
issued vending licenses. The BMC issued a total Court, Bombay Hawkers Union v. BMC. The im-
of 15,000 licenses. A study commissioned by the plementation of its verdict is still being litigated
BMC and conducted by TISS (Tata Institute of So- today. Most conspicuously, the BMC is still in the
cial Sciences) and YUVA (Youth United for Volun- process of creating the hawking and non-hawking
tary Action) in 1997 included a survey of 102,401 zones mandated by that judgment. On February
vendors of whom only 5,653 were licensed. Six of 12, 2007, the Supreme Court issued a temporary
the seven cities included in the NASVI report had order, granting relief to about 24,300 vendors who
provisions for licensing vendors. The exception was will be allowed to continue their business in the
Kolkata, where the Municipal Act was amended to hawking zones, though they are not licensed, un-
make street vending illegal.6 til May 2007. The Court ordered the Maharashtra
government and the BMC to finalise their licens-
The BMC Act prohibits selling goods in a public ing policies by the end of May. The Court also re-
place without a license granted by the Municipal quired that all vendors be moved from the non-
Commissioner. It also prohibits any obstructions hawking zones to the hawking zones, making it
in the streets. This prohibition applies to licensed clear that no vending would be permitted in the
vendors as well, making their licenses insufficient non-hawking zones.7
protection against eviction by the municipal au-
thorities. The BMC Act grants the municipal au- In limbo
thority the “[p]ower to remove without notice
anything erected, deposited or hawked” in con- As the details of the BMC’s licensing scheme have
travention of these two clauses. In effect, the Mu- been worked out over the past few decades, the
nicipal Corporation may evict all street vendors, capacity of the authorities (the State government
whether they have licenses or not, for creating an and the Municipal Corporation) to regulate street
obstruction on the street. In the case of unlicensed vending has been transformed into a relationship
vendors, the Corporation may also remove all the premised on the unauthorized status and constant
sale items and materials in the vendor’s posses- vulnerability of vendors and the consequent power
sion. of government officials over them. Given that ven-
dors have few other occupational options (as men-
Even where the municipality authorises street tioned earlier, a significant minority entered street
vending, the police have the authority to remove vending after having to leave the formal economy),
vendors. Section 34 of the Police Act empow- as long as the government withholds authorization
ers the police to remove any obstructions on the from them, they will do whatever is necessary to
streets. Hence, even if the municipal authorities continue their work.
5  Sodhan Singh versus NDMC, 1989 7  Relief for Mumbai Hawkers till May 2007¸IndLaw.com,
6  See Section 371 of Kolkata Municipal Act. Street vend- February 12, 2007, http://www.indlawnews.com/61EFBE
ing is now a non-bailable offence. B7DA8FF712E7FE383926D2E5D6

27
Between 1987 and 1998, there was a pauti system formal relationship with the unlicensed vendors.
in place. Under this system, the BMC would ex- Vendors attested that the formal revenue collec-
act “unauthorised occupation cum refuse removal tion through pautis was replaced by increased
charges” from vendors, thereby instituting what bribery demands from the BMC and state authori-
approximated a daily fee while maintaining vend- ties. Rather than reducing the number of vendors,
ing outside the bounds of legality. It is unclear the end of the pauti system simply severed any for-
whether the BMC distinguished between licensed mal relationship of authorisation between vendors
and unlicensed vendors for the purposes of the and the BMC.
pauti. Given that even licensed vendors violate the
BMC’s prohibition on obstructions in the streets, In the absence of an official framework created by
it seems possible that pautis were issued regardless the BMC or the State, hawkers organised them-
of licenses. selves throughout the city and in relation to their
location. Groups agitating against the presence
The charges were between Rs.5 and Rs.10 per day. of vendors sometimes characterise their opposi-
The 1997 TISS/YUVA survey found that 22,000 tion as a reaction against the presence of “outsid-
vendors were issued pautis daily and collections ers” and to the entrance of migrants into the city.
amounted to Rs.4 billion annually. An affidavit Interestingly, much of this organised opposition
submitted by the BMC disclosed that the Corpo- seems to happen in the more well off neighbour-
ration collected over Rs.2.7 crores (Rs.27 million) hoods of South Mumbai – exactly the neighbour-
between August 1998 and April 1999. As Anjaria hoods where the most well-established, long-term
has observed, vendors work. These are the neighbourhoods in
which it is most profitable for vendors to operate
This was formal recognition of an informal, and newly arrived migrants are more likely to find
officially unrecognized, yet widespread, activ- space for themselves on the outer fringes in the city,
ity. In effect, this system was official recogni- rather than in the prized wealthy areas. It would
tion of an unofficial practice (“unauthorised be difficult for a new migrant to find space to work
occupation”) – a clever manoeuvre of the state in the neighbourhoods with the best business. The
to collect revenue from an officially illegal pop- ability of vendors to return to the same location
ulation, otherwise outside the purview of state depends on relationships with other vendors and
regulation and control.8 with the officials who sanction their presence.10

The pauti system ended in 1998 after an elite citi- The new legal framework
zens’ group called the Citizen’s Forum for the Pro-
tection of Public Space filed suit against the BMC The framework currently being devised by the
claiming that the Municipal Corporation had tak- BMC and the Maharashtra Government is largely
en no action on the Supreme Court’s 1985 ruling.9 informed by a set of recommendations submitted
The group cited the pauti system as an example of by the Bombay Municipal Commissioner in 1983,
a continuing illegal practice. The High Court con- when the Bombay Hawkers Union v. BMC case was
cluded that the BMC had no legal authorisation for in the High Court. That case affirmed the right to
this system, bringing an end to the practice. carry on trade or business guaranteed in the Con-
10  Anjaria offers another example of the organisation
Rather than reduce street vending, however, the internal to the occupation in Mumbai: For instance,
end of the pauti system led to greater deregula- Ramesh, a hawker actively involved in a hawkers’ union
explains, “There are many hawkers who ply the streets
tion of public space, as the BMC no longer had any on marked handcarts (marked handcarts refer to those
8  Anjaria, 2. owned by non-hawker businessmen, illegally rented out
9  The description of citizens’ groups as “elite” follows of BMC godowns and hence not subject to demolition
from similar descriptions in the literature and from the actions) and are causing problems. Those hawkers who
observation that it is generally middle- and upper-class have worked for years sit next to the building, away from
residents of Mumbai who agitate for the eviction of street the road and the footpath. Those who are plying marked
vendors to make public space available for activities other handcarts set up their business in the middle of the road,
than commercial activity. creating obstructions.”

28
stitution of India, subject to the restrictions of not Space for homes
causing nuisance, annoyance or inconvenience to
other members of the public. The judgment held This section is broadly concerned with the legal
that public streets were meant for the use of the structure that creates or restricts access to land
general public and not to facilitate the carrying on and housing and its relationship with the infor-
of private trade or business. mal negotiations that regulate access to housing
for the majority of Mumbai’s population. The term
Since then, the details of the BMC scheme have “informal housing”, as used here, includes author-
bounced back between the Corporation, citizens’ ised and unauthorised slums, pavement dwellings,
groups, the High Court and the Supreme Court. homes created on the side of railway tracks and
A central feature is the creating of “hawking” homes on airport authority land. There are 5.79
and “non-hawking” zones. A 1996 draft scheme million slum dwellers in Greater Mumbai11 out of
included 488 hawking zones and 28 sites for the a total population of 11.9 million.12 The population
construction of hawkers’ plazas. In 2000, the High density of Dharavi, the largest slum, is 18,000 peo-
Court approved of a modified scheme that includ- ple per acre. Meanwhile, there are swathes of un-
ed 187 hawking zones. The Court also held that occupied, unused land in the most expensive parts
there could be no fixed place of business, as that of the city.
would do away with the distinction between ven-
dors and traders. For this reason, the BMC’s initial The Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement,
proposals to create hawkers’ plazas and one square Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971, states
metre pitches for vending were not allowed on the that the State may designate an area a slum, if:
ground that it would make the right to hawk a
transferable or inheritable right. a) any area is or may be a source of danger to the
health, safety, or convenience of the public of
The High Court ordered the formation of three that area or of its neighbourhood, by reason
3-member committees to select BMC committees of the area having no basic amenities, or be-
have already begun to identify streets as hawking ing unsanitary, squalid, overcrowded or oth-
or non-hawking zones. Even where not yet law, erwise; or
the inclusion of streets in a non-hawking zone by b) the buildings in any area, used or intended to
the committees has had the effect of law on the be used for human habitation are
ground. The installation of non-hawking zone i. in any respect, unfit for human habitation;
signs has been immediately followed by a hike in or
the bribes charged. There are stories, too, of lo- i. by any reason of dilapidation, overcrowd-
cal residents authorities bribing the BMC to erect ing faulty arrangement and design of such
signs in their streets to keep vendors out of their buildings, narrowness or faulty arrange-
neighbourhoods. ment of streets, lack of ventilation light or
sanitation facilities or any combination
The National Taskforce on Street Vendors submit- of these factors, detrimental to the health,
ted its Draft National Policy in 2002, as an effort to safety or convenience.13
“provide and promote a supportive environment
for earning livelihoods to the street vendors, as
well as ensure absence of congestion and mainte-
nance of hygiene in public spaces and streets.” The
daft policy recommends ward-level registration
of vendors rather than a fixed number of licenses.
The recommendation of ward-level registration 11  Economic Survey of Maharashtra, 2003-04, available
has not been incorporated into the orders of the online at http://www.maharashtra.gov.in/english/ecoSur-
vey/ecoSurvey1/esm_e/cha03e.pdf
High Court or Supreme Court.
12  Census of India, 2001, online at http://www.censusin-
dia.net/results/millioncities.html
13  Act XXIII, Chapter IV, Section S.26, p.8864

29
Multiplicity of ownership the city’s pavements. Pavement dwellings typically
house single male migrants, living close to their
Land in Mumbai is a patchwork of municipal, state, place of employment. The 1981 Census identified
central government and private land. People create about 22,600 households in pavement dwellings.
informal settlements on land irrespective of own- SPARC (Society for Promotion of Area Resource
ership. Those who live on the side of railway tracks Centre), an NGO, and Nirmala Niketan College of
are living on central government land. Pavements Social Work, counted 125,000 pavement dwellers
belong, by and large, to the municipal govern- in 1985. The living conditions of pavement dwell-
ment. These and other differences in control and ers is worse than that of squatters as they are not
ownership make for complications in whether set- eligible for improvement schemes and often face
tlements are eligible for State redevelopment and harassment and demolition. Resettlement, when
resettlement plans or, in some instances, whether available, is often not an acceptable option since
the municipal government is allowed to provide proximity to places of employment is of such im-
services. In the case of the settlements on the side portance. It was in a case involving the eviction of
of railway tracks, Indian Railways, a national de- pavement dwellers that the Supreme Court recog-
partment, had long refused permission to the nized that eviction could lead to the deprivation of
state government to implement service provision livelihood, which could amount to a deprivation
schemes on their land. As of January 2007, even of life.
plans of the Integrated Child Development Serv-
ices department of the State government to pro- Status of settlements
vide vaccinations right at the railway station to all
those who enter Mumbai, as an easy way to reach Authorised slums are those that have been recog-
people as soon as they enter the city, were waiting nised as legal settlements by the state government.
on permission from the Railways department to Around 40% of informal settlements in Mumbai
use its property for a table and two staff persons are authorised. Authorisation is not a guarantee
to administer the vaccinations.14 The Railways against demolition but does mean that the state
department and State government were unable to government must resettle residents in the event of
agree on a rental rate for the required land. a demolition. It also means that the municipal gov-
ernment must provide services – water, electricity,
Private land is often scattered throughout public garbage collection, and roads. In 1976, residents of
land. This has the effect of creating pockets that slums who could prove their residence in a loca-
the Municipal Corporation will not provide with tion prior to 1975 received “photopasses” as part of
services. Based on the experience of other cities, the process of authorisation of their slums.
this likely has the effect of lowering the attractive-
ness of these areas and reducing investment in the Unauthorised slums are those that are regarded as
informal housing created here. In some instances, illegal by the state. These slums are not entitled to
the Railways has also refused to allow the munici- municipal government services. They are also vul-
pal government to provide services to those living nerable to demolition and eviction and residents
along railway tracks. In keeping with the multi- are not entitled to resettlement by the state or mu-
ple ownership authorities there are multiple slum nicipal government. Unauthorised slums are peri-
dweller federations, each organised to raise issues odically authorised, often immediately before or
with the proper authority, whether the airport au- after State elections, when incumbents authorise
thority, the railways, or the state government. more slums in an effort to create safe voter banks
and when challengers promise to authorise more
Pavement dwellers are also not covered in the slums if voted into office.
numerous State schemes. At last count, approxi-
mately one million of Mumbai’s residents live on The distinction between authorised and unau-
thorised slums can be blurry. In some cases, it is
14  Conversation with Gokul Devarai, Child Develop-
ment Program Officer of Integrated Child Development residents rather than slums that are authorised.
Services (ICDS), January 4, 2007. A series of governments have enacted laws trying

30
to distinguish between those slum residents who seeking it can be prohibitively expensive, in time
should be entitled to services and housing and and money. Both municipal and state authorities
those who should not be on the basis of date of en- carry out demolitions. However, even when the
try into the city. For instance, one of the Congress municipal authorities order demolitions it can be
party’s election promises in the most recent State at the initiative of the Municipal Commissioner or
election was that they would authorise all those Deputy Commissioners, who are state-appointed
who could show proof of residence in the city be- bureaucrats rather than locally elected representa-
fore 2000, to extend authorisation to more people tives.
than under the existing cut-off date of 1995. The
premise is, despite a right to mobility in the In- It is also the case that proofs of residence in author-
dian Constitution, that certain people’s presence ised settlements, such as the photopasses issued in
is authorised, perhaps instead of the settlement in 1976, can become sources of enormous exchange
which they live. This is why among neighbours, value for the residents who receive them. Residents
some homes might have legal electricity connec- might sell these passes and move to unauthorised
tions and others have to ‘rent’ electricity from the locations in order to pay for weddings, healthcare,
neighbour with the legal connection. or other life needs and necessities. When they
move, they move with the hope that their new lo-
Access to housing is considered a constitutional cation will eventually become authorised.
right within the ambit of the right to life and the
right to livelihood.15 However, the constitutional The 2001 Census was the first time detailed data
right only goes so far as to require adequate no- on slum areas was collected across the country.
tice from the state or municipal government to The Mumbai Sewerage Disposal Project, 2000-01,
residents before demolition and eviction. The Su- studied the availability of services in Mumbai’s
preme Court has explicitly granted that state and slum settlements. As of 2001, Greater Mumbai had
municipal governments have the authority to de- 1,959 slum settlements, with a total population of
molish slum dwellings and evict residents.16 There- 6.25 million. Only 17 per cent of this population
fore, importantly, even authorised slum dwellers was in the Island City while 58 per cent was in the
have no entitlement to the houses they have built inner western suburbs.17 47% of households were
or the housing they rent from others. Their only located on private land. This census also included
right is one to notice and resettlement. pavement dwellers and those in chawls, which are
located on state government, central government
Despite the requirement of notice and the state (including railway), and municipal land.Three
government’s own laws authorising the presence types of housing options available for the poor in
of people who arrived in the city before a certain Mumbai are chawls, which are rental tenements;
date, the state and municipal government fre- zopadpattis, which is squatter housing; and pave-
quently demolish the homes of long-time residents ment dwellings. Only zopadpattis fall within the
with no notice at all. Though redress is possible, legal definition of ‘slum’, though pavement dwell-
ings and chawls also have terrible, slum-like con-
15  See Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation,
ditions.18
1985 (3)SCC 545)
16  The landmark judgment dealing with the rights of
slum dwellers is Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Cor- Chawls were rental tenements constructed for sin-
poration (BMC), brought before the Supreme Court as a gle male migrants by factory owners, landowners,
Public Interest Litigation in 1981. It established both that and some public sector units. As these migrants
“[I]f the right to livelihood is not treated as a part of the
constitutional right to life, the easiest way of depriving a
made their resident permanent, their families
person of his life would be to deprive him of his means joined, increasing the density of housing. The Rent
of livelihood to the point of abrogation” and that only a Control Act froze rents making the building of
deprivation of livelihood which is not “according to the
procedure established by law” would constitute a depriva- 17  Risbud, Neelima. “The case of Mumbai, India,” Un-
tion of law under Article 21. Thus, the right to livelihood derstanding Slums: Case Studies for the Global Report on
established in Olga Tellis is, despite the rhetoric, simply a Human Settlements 2003,
procedural right to notice and hearing. 18  Id.

31
chawls unprofitable or insufficiently profitable for public and back to private (both the first and sec-
landlords and quickly leading to a halt in supply ond step have not happened to the levels desired
by 1950. The lack of investment by owners after the in Mumbai). The three steps in the expansion of
Rent Control Act meant rapid deterioration in the semi-formal and informal housing are scattered
conditions of the chawls. expansion, collective expansion and consolidated
expansion. In the first, informal housing springs
Informality up in close proximity to government housing and
its attendant services on a city’s periphery. In the
The uncertainty of always being vulnerable to second, services and main roads are extended
demolitions seems to be outweighed by the hope of to informal housing and this increases the value
eventual authorisation and lack of other options. of this housing and signals future authorisation,
Many slum dwellers see fit to make improvements drawing low-income residents from the central
on their homes and to add on to the buildings, for city to the periphery, depending on the quality of
space to rent, to use as a workspace, or to use as transportation available. In the consolidated ex-
a shop. Shops in unauthorised settlements may be pansion stage, the number of illegal subdivisions
more profitable than legal ones as owners do not increases. Affordability and availability of services
pay taxes on them. Almost 45 per cent of houses makes these settlements magnets for investments
had two or more stories. 42 per cents of dwellings in housing construction, thereby converting many
had an area of less than 10 m2, 38 per cent having residents from tenants to owners. As the price of
an area between 15 and 20 m2, and only 9 per cent land goes up, more storeys are added on to build-
with an area of more than 20 m2. ings.

Only about 49 per cent of slums have access to wa- Though this description builds on the contested
ter supply from shared standpipes, while 38.3 per assumption that the growth of semi-formal hous-
cent have a supply from more than one source. The ing must happen on the urban periphery, some of
remaining slums get their water from tube wells or its details seem appropriate to informal and semi-
community standpipes. Only 5 per cent have indi- formal settlements throughout Mumbai. The arti-
vidual taps. 17 slums with a population of approxi- cle also describes a newly developed government
mately 0.1 million people have no water supply at posture towards informal and semi-formal settle-
all and have to depend on adjoining settlements. ments, which is to guide their formation on land
Despite 59 per cent of toilet blocks having been which the government would like to see developed
constructed after 1995, residents face inadequate rather than land which it does not wish to develop,
and poorly maintained toilets. Waste collection perhaps to spare the high future cost of providing
and sanitation are also in poor condition in most services to unserviced areas.19
slums. Unauthorized slums, of course, simply re-
ceive no such services. In those authorized slums A survey of residents affected by the evictions from
that do receive services, the lack of an organized Sanjay Gandhi National Park in 1997 provides an
system or information among residents contribute interesting illustration of the variety of ownership
to poor conditions. transfers whereby residents came to be in posses-
19  This point is made by Alan Gilbert in ‘Third World Cit-
In an article about Alexandria, Egypt, Ahmed ies: Housing, Infrastructure and Servicing,” Urban Stud-
Soliman discusses the potential of semi-formal ies, Vol. 29, Nos.3/4, 1992, 435 – 460, 435. Gilbert argues
housing to accommodate low-income groups. The that when government resources are tightly limited, the
state will allow informal housing to spring up because al-
author describes the movement of the urban poor lowing it is less expensive than suppressing land invasions
from the lowest-cost housing to better quality and the like. He states that, though elites stand to benefit
homes in the form of semi-formal housing in three from limited access to land for the poor in a context of
stages. The Egyptian state plays a role in develop- scarce land, the advantages to governments of allowing
this access, at least for its own supporters, outweighs the
ing semi-formal or informal housing by providing
benefits of scarce land availability to land owning elites.
services, through upgradation schemes and with This argument presumes a substantial overlap between
the changing of land ownership from private to the government and elites.

32
sion of their homes. Six percent of those surveyed Tenancies
bought their homes from slumlords. Slumlords
gained control over the land with force and threats Through the 1980s, most cities in the developing
(“muscle power”) and sold individual huts for Rs. world saw a shift from tenancies to ownership of
1,000 to Rs. 60,000. 42% of the sample bought their housing.22 According to a study conducted in Mex-
tenements from older slum dwellers. Many of the ico City, this trend was consistent with the stated
residents had also bought their plots of land from preferences of city residents there.23 In Bombay,
forest officials who reportedly had bushes and there was an increase from 10% owner-occupants
trees cleared to accommodate the people after tak- in 1961 to 39% owner-occupants in 1981.24
ing money for the section of land where the person
was supposed to put up the hut.20 In a similar vein, Nevertheless, tenancies still constitute a large por-
after the floods that washed over the city in 2005, tion of housing arrangements in Mumbai.25 Small-
residents who lived on the banks of the river spoke scale landlords are responsible for a large fraction
of having bought their illegal plots from local of- of housing stock available to the urban poor in
ficials who allowed them to build shacks.21 many cities around the world, particularly in the
developing world.
Relationships with the authorities also percolate
into relationships with other residents. After the Renting a room in a Mumbai slum can be expen-
1992 riots, Muslims residents of a mixed commu- sive, ranging, according to one account, from US
nity in Dharavi put pressure on the local official $10 in more cramped quarters with no access to
to erect a wall between the section of Muslim resi- services, to US $40 for an average room in South
dents and the section of Tamilian Hindu residents. Mumbai. According to this source, an initial de-
The Tamilian residents saw this as evidence of the posit is always required and can range from US
control the Muslim residents wielded over the lo- $200 to $1200. “Rent agreements with 11 month
cal corporator and began to leave the area. Thus, contracts are signed on stamp-paper and even
the security of one group suggested a lack of secu- ratified by two witnesses and renewal depends en-
rity to the other group. tirely on the owner-tenant relationship”. A 25m2
room in a well-placed settlement like Santosh Na-
20  Sanchayeeta Adhikari, “Urban planning and Politics gar could fetch up to US $18,000.
of Slum Demolition in Metropolitan Mumbai”.
21  Mike Davis explores this supply of land for settle-
ments by those wielding local influence: “Slum ecology, In some Indian cities including Mumbai it is the
of course, revolves around the supply of settlement space. case that most tenants are native residents whereas
Winter King, in a recent study published in the Harvard newly arrived immigrants own housing – hinting
Law Review, claims that 85 per cent of the urban residents at the need for networks to rent housing.
of the developing world ‘occupy property illegally’.40
Indeterminacy of land titles and/or lax state ownership,
in the last instance, are the cracks through which a vast A story from after the floods that washed over
humanity has poured into the cities. The modes of slum the city in 2005, when residents of informal set-
settlement vary across a huge spectrum, from highly dis- tlements who lost their homes received cash com-
ciplined land invasions in Mexico City and Lima to in-
pensation, suggests that state and city authorities
tricately organized (but often illegal) rental markets on
the outskirts of Beijing, Karachi and Nairobi. Even in insufficiently understand the nature of tenancies.
cities like Karachi, where the urban periphery is formally In the case of one resident, however, the money
owned by the government, ‘vast profits from land specu- went to his tenant rather than to him because of a
lation . . . continue to accrue to the private sector at the
expense of low-income households’. Indeed national and
local political machines usually acquiesce in informal set- 22  Gilbert, 1.
tlement (and illegal private speculation) as long as they 23  Id. at 440, citing Gilbert, A .G. and Varley, A. (1991)
can control the political complexion of the slums and ex- Landlord and Tenant: Housing the Poor in Urban Mexico.
tract a regular flow of bribes or rents. Without formal land London: Routledge .
titles or home ownership, slumdwellers are forced into 24  Id.
quasi-feudal dependencies upon local officials and party 25  In this account, sharing rooms with relatives is not
bigshots. Disloyalty can mean eviction or even the razing considered a tenancy though that is a set of living ar-
of an entire district.” Planet of Slums, 11. rangements that would be well worth explanation.

33
blanket understanding of the government officials of informal settlements, was hemmed in by the Su-
of which floor of a building went to tenants. preme Court to amount to a right to notice of dem-
olitions but not against demolitions. In the event
Shop No. 59 is across the road from the Mithi that the Municipal Corporation fails to provide
and when the waters rose, most of Mohammed adequate notice, it is not clear whether the avenues
Ashrafali Ansari’s stocks were washed away… of redress open to residents could compensate for
But the situation at home was far worse. Like the loss of home, family possession and work ma-
many slum dwellers, he lives with his family terials. In short, the legal system has failed to cre-
on the first floor of his house. The ground floor, ate rules that satisfactorily address the felt need for
which too he owns, is rented out. When gov- access to land for livelihoods and living.
ernment officials distributing cash compensa-
tion came to his house and gave his tenant The legal system is, of course, created by people –
by elected representatives and nominated judges.
Rs.5,000, Ashrafali Ansari asked for his share but It is not too much to expect that the formal legal
was told he was not eligible since he lived on the rules around and within which people organise
first floor.26 their lives can be brought closer to the daily needs
of a large fraction of city residents. The arrange-
There seems to be, therefore, an official narrative ments at which residents arrive to compensate for
about informal tenancy arrangements that may deficiencies hint at a way forward in understand-
not match the varied agreements on the ground. ing the work that needs to be done in creating in-
stitutions to create and prevent access to land. The
Conclusion threats to which they are subject can also serve
as warnings to keep the law from contributing to
The legal systems of Mumbai – municipal, state their vulnerability.
and national – create spaces within which extral-
egal arrangements flourish. These arrangements
are encouraged or hindered by the legal rules and
structures. Neither vendors nor residents of infor-
mal settlements are entirely free to create relation-
ships with local or state officials or one another as
they are always under the threat of being subject
to government action in the form of evictions or
demolitions. In one sense, police officers and mu-
nicipal officials act as the closest agents of gov-
ernment and hold the power to authorise access
when, seemingly, no one else does. On the other
hand, these threats can create an environment of
coercion and leave vendors and residents with no
leverage over officials except individual appeals to
their individual self-interest.

The legal system with regards to street vendors

has been in a state of flux for several years now,
making “informal” arrangements the de facto in-
stitutions to which vendors and officials must turn
for any common understanding of how to gain or
allow access to space. The right to life and liveli-
hood, which might provide protection to residents
26  After the deluge, Frontline, Volume 22 - Issue 18, Aug
27 - Sep 09, 2005

34
References

Adhikari, Sanchayeeta. “Urban planning and Politics of

Slum Demolition in Metropolitan Mumbai”.
Anjaria, Jonathan Shapiro. “Street Hawkers and Public
Space in Mumbai”, Economic and Political Weekly (May
27, 2006).
Arora, Shailly and Tagore, Aoneha. Street Vendors and
Exploitation by the State. Publication of the Centre for
Civil Society.
Bhowmik, Shanti. “Urban Responses to Street Trading:
India”.
Census of India, 2001.
Davis, Mike. Planet of Slums. London ;  New York.  Ver-
so, 2006.
Economic Survey of Maharashtra, 2003-04, available on-
line at
http://www.maharashtra.gov.in/english/ecoSurvey/eco-
Survey1/esm_e/cha03e.pdf.
Frontline. Slums in the limelight, Volume 21 - Issue 22,
Oct. 23 - Nov. 05, 2004,
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1518/15180190.htm
_______. After the deluge, Volume 22 - Issue 18, Aug 27
- Sep 09, 2005
Gilbert, Alan. ‘Third World Cities: Housing, Infrastruc-
ture and Servicing,” Urban Studies, Vol. 29, Nos.3/4,
(1992).
Gilbert, Alan and Varley, Ann. Landlord and Tenant:
Housing the Poor in Urban Mexico. London: Routledge.
1991.
IndLaw.com , Relief for Mumbai Hawkers till May 2007,
February 12, 2007.
Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act.
Nuewirth, Robert. Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A
Urban New World. New York ; London : Routledge. 2005.
Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corpn. (1985) 3 SCC
545,572.
Risbud, Neelima. “The case of Mumbai, India,” Under-
standing Slums: Case Studies for the Global
Report on Human Settlements 2003, United Nations Hu-
man Settlement Programme, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-
projects/Global_Report/.
Sodhan Singh versus NDMC, (1989) 4 SCC 155
Soliman, Ahmed M, “Legitimizing Informal Housing:
Accomodating Low-Income Groups
in Alexandria, Egypt”, Environment and Urbanization
(Vol. 8, No. 1, April 1996).
The Hindu Business Line, Pavements of Prosperity, April
27, 2004.

35
36
Regeneration Rhetoric: Questions of Good Form for City Making
Suzi Hall

If design is the expansion of what is possible, how today, “ranking first in India in the Human De-
can design be used as an instrument for urban velopment Index”. Transformed by everyday use
transformation? The language of urban regenera- and growing beyond it’s intended capacity, the
tion masks contesting agendas. Under the guise City currently accommodates one million citizens.
of stretchy development principles like ‘sustain- There are many million mark cities in India, the
ability’ and ‘participation’ or equally loose spa- issue of scale having direct bearing on the nature
tial terms such as ‘mixed use’ and ‘public space’, of regeneration strategies.
design language can profess the edict of transfor-
mation but still serve limited or vested interests. The dramatic growth of the modern industrial
In contemporary cities experiencing profound city in the nineteenth century changed our under-
population growth, the stakes between compet- standing of the sheer capacity and impact of cit-
ing claims for regeneration are raised. While the ies. The ‘modern’ city for all its ability to generate
needs of the urban poor expand, the pursuit of opportunities and inability to address lack of op-
economic growth from external investment is of- portunity, is a destination for a perpetual influx of
ten viewed as the trump card. The global outbids would be workers and residents. The idea of new
the local. What then is a suitable understanding of prospects has become inextricably associated with
urban prosperity and how could design deal both the city. The emergence of a Global economy at
the marginal and the powerful into urban regen- the turn of the twentieth century has shifted our
eration? To address this question I fall back on the understanding of the competitive potential of cit-
luxurious caveat of not having conclusive answers. ies. Prospects have become closely associated with
Instead I structure my argument through trying what cities need to do to attract global investment.
to raise the pertinent questions. And the order of competition has expanded from
urban/rural to urban/national to nation/nation.
Retrofit or start from scratch? The weight and measurement of urban prosperity
has become a global matter. The sheer dramatics
Up to the mid-twentieth century the idea of mak- of the contemporary metropolis/megalopolis has
ing a city from scratch was not that implausible. altered the politics and art of city making. New
Marrying a wholesale urban vision to a clean slate priorities and new projects are matched to new de-
was still within the remit of feasibility. Political livery processes. A city ‘from scratch’ has become
and economic will could forge ahead of the con- a more remote possibility – the enormous will and
sequences of large-scale city making. Chandigarh investment required to shift the centre of gravity
exemplifies the act of conjuring up an immediate away from the entrenched urban centres is an op-
city. Evoked by India’s first Prime Minister, Nehru, tion that has become increasingly untenable.
designed by outside experts most prominently
represented by Le Corbusier, and surveyed onto What’s the scale of the regeneration
virgin territory, here was an immense proposi- problem?
tion to symbolise a modern capital for the Pun-
jab. After the devastating effects of the 1947 Parti- What happens in the established mega-cities in
tion, the agenda of reconciliation was grafted onto the developing world, when the city not only con-
a modernist planning vision. The official website tinues to grow, but rapidly grows in on itself? A
for Chandigarh informs us that the city flourishes new kind of mega-congestion emerges out of the

37
extremity and intensity of the urban experience. feet of serviced office space. The offices would be
In spite of how adept the citizens become at cop- let at the staggeringly competitive rate of one dol-
ing, no matter what skills they acquire, prosperity lar per square foot, a direct competition with rental
for the vast percentage of citizens is unattainable. rates of fifty to a hundred dollars per square foot in
The possibilities for transformation are seeming- established financial centres such as New York and
ly out-paced by diminished public resources and London. In no way would such a prestigious un-
accountable and effective instruments to deliver dertaking be easy to vest in the fraught landscape
change. Ironically, the urban intensity simulta- of Mumbai. For starters, how would new large
neously produces a congestion that requires dra- scale infrastructure be superimposed onto an ex-
matic intervention and makes large-scale regen- isting context, and who would have to be shifted
eration extremely difficult. Dramatic intervention out to make space for this alternative undertak-
in occupied cities that seeks not only to partially ing? Although infrastructure such as transport
rectify (city-mending) but to transform the city is is already over extended, intervention of a large
costly in many ways. Retrofitting is expensive to fi- order, such as the Mahim Bay Sea Link, has been
nance, complex to administer and risks significant relegated to intentions. Hari’s proposal is to effec-
displacement of citizens who explicitly depend on tively bypass the constraints imposed by context.
their urban spot to survive. As the city of mega This constitutes a green-field development project
congestion grows, the impacts on all that is vul- led by private investment, apparently requiring
nerable goes unmitigated, and the effects of human only a marginal percentage of financial commit-
and environmental degradation are compounded. ment from government. Is this the vision of Dubai
The question of who has the effective capacity to for Mumbai? If private returns are paramount to
intervene on a large-scale becomes increasingly the viability of these propositions, who will under-
difficult to answer. When city governance is weak, write the public interest? Do we have enough faith
current convention favours the role of public pri- or evidence that the trickle down effect is a route
vate partnerships or private developers, where the to transformation? Is it possible to have a process
highest bidder brings to the regeneration agenda of city making that includes prospects of prosper-
“the bottom line” of maximising investment and ity for the spectrum of citizens, without losing the
return in the short term. But if the goal is a pros- prospects of prestige?
perous city for all of its citizens, then the question
‘what is the priority of intervention?’ becomes in- Is precedent of any use?
creasingly fraught.
Precedent is invariably tied to the particularities
Whose priorities are a priority? of context. I turn to Jaipur as the first panned city
in India to tackle the question of whether prece-
What might be a strategic approach to city-mak- dent offers real directions for the unprecedented
ing in Mumbai – start from scratch or retrofit? nature of growth evidenced in radical contempo-
Hari Sankaran, an executive for a large develop- rary landscapes like Mumbai. The purpose is to
ment bank in India, has a twofold contention. explore the role of design as an effective, inclusive
Mumbai produces, “a deeply dehumanising expe- and meaningful strategy for city making. I state
rience of the city [where] the city is a wearisome some of the limits of the contextual particularities
environment to be in.” When daily efforts of both at the outset. The city of Jaipur was conceptual-
rich and poor, are invested in continual struggles ised in 1727 under the auspices of Maharaja Jai
against the intensity of mega-congestion, prosper- Singh and his Hindu Priest architect, Vidyadhar
ity is curtailed. For this to fundamentally alter, in- Bhattacharya, and was initiated onto a green-field
tervention of a dramatic order is required. Hari’s site. Almost three centuries, the directive role of
proposition is speculative: a new financial centre princely leadership and an unexploited site, sets
for India located in Gujurat. In a seminar discus- a distance between this city and Mumbai. What
sion at the London School of Economics, Hari de- they share is the question of how to plan for large
scribes a vision of high-rise and parkland, under- scale and rapid growth, where there is a scarcity of
pinned by the significant offer of 60 million square resources to effect the plan. In both cases the task

38
of city making in its largest dimensions must face to release a range of investment opportunities for
aspiration and reality. Attending to both prosperi- a spectrum of investors. In this urban paradigm,
ty and need requires a strategy whereby necessary, larger scale or prestigious investment is integral
limited and focused investment is likely to yield to the everyday life of the city. Opportunities are
the maximum impact for the range of its citizens. released for the individual citizen or small-scale
This also requires a far more inclusive strategy, one entrepreneur within the core urban structure.
where the resources and initiatives of citizens are
integral to how the city unfolds. i) Cosmic dimensions
The idea of the city is contained within the struc-
The city making strategies of Jaipur are complex ture of a perfect square. As a starting point for
and depend on a mutli-layered relationship be- planning the city this geometry functions as an
tween values and priorities. I explore six layers em- abstraction of higher order concerns– the con-
bedded in the plan for Jaipur, considering the city nection of the city and the citizen to the cosmos.
as both a formal proposition and a transforming, The square is further divided into a nine square
lived experience. The first set of three layers relate Mandala, signifying the nine planets of the an-
to a spiritual or poetic proposition for urban form. cient zodiac. Aside from its cosmic dimensions
A structure for urban order is ordained by belief the geometry also generates the preconditions for
systems that define what ought to be sacred or of the actual proportions of the urban block. Sacred
highest value in the plan. This ‘higher’ order gen- and secular concerns are therefore integral to the
erates the relationship between the city and earth first order of city making. Something of a super-
and sky, heart and mind, location and place. The block is initiated in the Jaipur grid, where each of
second set of three layers relate to a prosaic propo- the nine squares measure approximately 800 by
sition for urban form, defining where and how to 800 meters. There is an intelligence to this dimen-
distribute public resources. The poetic and prosaic sion that relates cadastral division to the culture
orders effects two inseparable concerns; the mak- of settlement making. The block size and related
ing of a robust, distinctive public structure or fore- morphology connect to a public investment strat-
ground, and the setting up of a legible urban frame egy, where limited resources can be located in a

Layers of city making – Jaipur (From top left to bottom right)

i) Cosmic dimensions; ii) Sacred dimensions; iii) Dimensions of place; iv) Where to focus: the logic of less; v) How to include: the logic of
more; vi) How to include: the logic of collectives/community; i) Cosmic dimensions

39
few prime sites for maximum impact. The Jaipur v) How to include: the logic of more
proportion is radically different to much smaller Along the edges of these great streets the width
planned European grids from the same period, of which span 34 meters, is a system designed to
where prospects for more intensive investments maximise individual entrepreneurial spirit that
were higher (Morales, 1978). is so integral to Indian cities. Small shops, many
no more than two meters wide, line the edges of
ii) Sacred dimensions these prime streets forming an intense crust of
A sacred figure is overlaid on the rhythm of nine trade and manufacture. This edge is oriented to
squares. The combination of the geometric and an- the small-scale entrepreneur, releasing a scale of
thropomorphic layers indicates suitable locations intensity conducting within a legitimate urban
for core urbane functions. This relationship deter- framework. The smallest investor is integrated
mined the best site for the palace complex and its into the city prospects at the outset. By formal in-
great gardens, corresponding to the position of the clusion their activity and urban contribution is le-
heart and soul of the abstracted figure. What fol- gitimised. There is yet another important strategy
lows is the integration and proximity of the most here. By focusing public investment in key public
prestigious elements to the ordinary parts of the sites such as the primary streets and intersections
city. where urban flows are highest, these prime loca-
tions are also the areas into which other scales of
iii) Dimensions of place private investment will invest. These street edg-
The inherited qualities of the landscape are the es are also lined with three, four and five storey
physical attributes of place that distort the purity buildings over the colonnade of street life below.
of the original grid. The relationship of the city to So the highest land value in the city, while incor-
the hillside, and an optimal position for the Na- porating the highest bidders, does not exclude the
hargarh Fort is such that one of the nine squares small operators.
concedes to the presence of place, and is shifted to
the outer south-east corner of the city. This opens vi) How to include: the logic of collectives/com-
up the strong connection of clustered institutions munity
in the central square and of primary streets, to the The primary investment resources and energy are
landscape beyond. focused in the seams of the 800 by 800 meter grids.
When resources are limited, the tradeoffs needs to
iv) Where to focus: the logic of less be integral to the investment strategy. Here the rel-
The 800 by 800 meter grid is a key strategy for how ative trade-off occurs one layer back from the pri-
resources are effectively distributed and released mary structure of the city. At this scale, concerns
through the city. This is a matter of proportion; the of basic services structure public investment. Each
relationship between the available public resourc- super-block could be considered as a ward within
es, the potential private resources and the avail- which land is roughly divided into smaller blocks
able resources of the urban poor. In situations like varying in size and transforming over time. The
Jaipur, where resources are relatively scarce, the smaller blocks could be considered neighbour-
question of where to place primary resources for hoods or communities, so in spatial terms there
greatest effect is critical and this is where the in- is an articulation of potential local organisation.
tersection of the blocks play an exemplary role. By Smaller street run through the super-blocks, and
focusing key public resources within a few limited in contemporary terms these would need to fulfil
but accessible locations, prime sites are distributed the obligation of allowing services to penetrate the
through the city. At the intersection of primary blocks. Once attending to basic service provision,
routes, where flows are most concentrated, these public investment retreats. A more secretive world
intersections release enormous opportunities; the emerges over time, where individuals and groups
possibilities for great market places, the clustering shape and organise neighbourhoods with familiar
of public and private investment, and prestigious vernaculars of chawls and haveli. The issue here is
and lively places all contributing to a framework how to structure smaller housing initiatives to de-
of urban assets. liver collective forms of housing, without absolute

40
state intervention. The role of this housing is not References
primarily that it is ‘affordable’ but that it is genera-
tive. It’s economy stems from the capacity of urban Correa, C. (1996). Charles Correa. Thames And Hudson.
London
housing to look beyond shelter and attend to the
entrepreneurial activities associated with mixed Curtis, W.J.R. (1988). Balkrishna Doshi. An Architecture
use. for India. Rizzoli, New York.
Morales, M de sola. (1978). ‘Dear Leon, Why 22 x 22?’ in
Lotus International. 58. Pp. 38-41
Do we need a multi-lingual language for
http://chandigarh.nic.in.
City-making?
One of the essential lessons of Jaipur is how de-
sign can assist in setting out the preconditions for
a complex urban environment. If design is to be
effective, it needs a layered strategy dependent on
the relationship between structure and process.
The ‘bottom line’ here is the scale and proportion
of public investment relative to the inclusion of a
wide range of actors. Jaipur is more of an adapt-
able frame than a comprehensive plan. Multiple
and layered, it has a complete set of ideas without
a complete prescription for the city. The richness
of the fabric emerges out of many imaginations
released and focused over time. It indicates that
rather than the politically correct but over worked
language of regeneration we need good questions
and good strategies, an order to our intent.

41
42
Performing Spaces of Religion
Olivia Muñoz-Rojas-Oscarsson and Priya Shankar

I. Introduction Perhaps the historical image par excellence of a re-

ligiously contested city is Jerusalem. For centuries,
The compactness of cities plays itself out in the Jews, Christians and Muslims have claimed their
multiple uses and contestations of space. We are right to this ancient city, which holds sacred spaces
looking at the performance of religion in space, for the three religions. Before that, Babylonians,
and the ways in which space is performed through Assyrians, Greeks and Romans successively con-
religion. By religion, we do not mean individual quered the city, often marking their occupation
faith and belief, but religion as a socio-cultural and with the destruction of existing temples and the
political construct. By space, on the other hand, we construction of new places of worship. Hence, ten-
mean not only physical space but space in a more sions, conflicts and transitory peaceful arrange-
abstract sense, as an intangible dimension of the ments among the contenders have followed one
urban collective imaginary, which does not neces- another over the centuries. Today, we witness the
sarily correspond to measurable space. Hence, by city immersed in yet another prolonged period of
locating ourselves in the context of Mumbai, we hostilities. In view of its past history, many wonder
attempt to explore the notions of religion, space, if the possibility exists to create a durable agree-
race and belonging and how they relate to each ment that satisfies the aspirations of the three reli-
other. Among other things, we try to draw paral- gious communities, or perhaps nowadays it would
lels with other historical and contemporary cases be more accurate to refer to the aspirations of the
of religiously diverse and segregated cities, and two political entities involved: Israel and Pales-
also contrast the different implications that reli- tine.
gious and racial diversity and identification seem
to have for a city and its inhabitants, particularly A historical, but contrasting image to Jerusalem is
in terms of freedom of mobility. medieval Toledo in Spain. Although romanticised,
the image of Jewish, Muslim and Christian crafts-
Thus, we begin our essay with a brief introduction men, scholars, and translators peacefully coexist-
that situates the four key notions mentioned above ing and working in this beautiful Castilian town
in a larger geographical and historical perspective. remains a powerful icon of how cultural excel-
This is followed by a historical contextualisation lence can be attained through religious diversity
of the case of Mumbai. After this we examine the and exchange. In 1085 the Christian king, Alfonso
performing spaces of religion in Mumbai through VI, (re)conquered the city through an agreement
the prism of daily practice, the festival and the riot. with the Muslim ruler, but continued to recognise
The latter allows us to compare religious and ra- the rights of the various religious communities.
cial violence. Finally, we reflect on what is distinct It was not until the late fifteenth century, with
about Mumbai as a religiously diverse city which the attempt to build a united and durable politi-
has undergone religious violence, and how this is cal entity (some would say a proto-nation-state)
relevant to a larger understanding of lived experi- by king Fernando of Aragon and queen Isabel of
ence in the urban space. Castile, that this potential for harmonious coex-
istence was fully eliminated and religious homo-
geneity imposed across the territory. By the end of
1492, the royal couple had finalised the military
re-conquest of the Muslim kingdoms, expelled the

43
Jews, and forced the Muslim and Jewish families interesting interaction of different religious cul-
that wanted to remain in the country to convert tures that led to strong syncretic movements, Sufi
to Christendom. Only the Christian families that and Bhakti, from the 14th to the 17th centuries. The
could trace back their roots to the arrival of the same period also saw the emergence of Sikhism, a
Muslims in the ninth century, demonstrating that religion strongly influenced by the interaction of
they had not mixed with either Jews or Muslims, Hinduism and Islam. So most Indian towns of the
had an indisputable right to live in what now be- late Medieval and early modern period, saw a rea-
came the Spanish kingdom. The Holy Inquisition sonably comfortable co-existence between various
was set up to investigate the accurateness of family different religions and sects.2
histories. Religion, race, space and belonging had
suddenly been forged into a single cultural and po- However, Mumbai was not an old Indian town. It
litical identity. was a collection of seven islands, mostly fishing
villages that the Portuguese occupied in the 16th
Five-hundred years later, in December 1992, in a century. This was gifted to the English in the 17th
different part of the world, in a different religious century, and established as a port-settlement by
context, the city of Mumbai experienced violent the English East India Company. Bombay, as the
and bloody riots between its Muslim and Hindu town was named, was a distinctly colonial city es-
communities, which resulted in the loss or seri- tablished by the English. The town expanded in
ous damaging of the multi-religious and cosmo- the 19th century, with the establishment of mills,
politan spirit that traditionally characterised this and railways. As this happened and more migrants
legendary port-city. The alleged trigger of the riots came into the city, Bombay was divided into the
was the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayod- English town and the Indian towns, clearly de-
hya by Hindu nationalists in early December that marcated areas for different inhabitants.3 Bombay
year. As already noted, the destruction of temples also emerged as a centre for the newly emerging
as a means to humiliate and disempower religious western-educated Indian intellegentsia. The first
communities constitutes a millenary practice. Yet, meeting of the Indian National Congress hap-
in order to understand the implications of this act pened in Bombay in 1885.
and the subsequent riots in the context of contem-
porary South Asia it will be necessary to explore This is relevant because Bombay became a centre
how the relationships between religion, race, space in which the forces of nationalism and colonialism
and belonging have played out during the modern played out against each other, and through this
history of the subcontinent. process, there emerged a solidification of religious
identity. Indian society was introduced to forms
II. Historical context of modern, democratic politics. In such politics,
there was a need to form allegiances and alliances,
As in medieval Toledo, most Indian towns had and these were often based on religion and caste.
seen the co-existence of several different religions People from a certain community tried to build
for many centuries. Hinduism, with all its differ- common interests and stances to have greater
ent sects and forms, Buddhism, and Jainism had bargaining power with the government to be able
co-existed during the ancient period. From the to garner more jobs and better positions for their
8th century, the Western coast of India saw the community.
coming of Arab Islamic merchants and Persian
Zoroastrians.1 From the 12th century, many parts
of the country came under Islamic rule with the 2  We are aware that this view is hotly contested in Indian
establishment of the Delhi sultanate under Qutb- historiography, but those debates are beyond the scope of
ud-din Aibak. This period of Islamic rule did not this paper. In our view, this position was by-and-large the
see mass conversions or mass executions, but an case.
3  J. Masselos, ‘Appropriating Urban Space: Social Con-
1  The exact date of the arrival of the Persian Zoroastrians structs of Bombay in the Time of the Raj’ in J. Masselos,
is debated, but is put roughly between the 8th and 10th The City in Action: Bombay Struggles for Power, Oxford
centuries. University Press, New Delhi, 2007

44
In the first decade of the 20th century, as a part of festivals and riots but that the three can be used
the Swadeshi (self-rule) movement, B.G. Tilak, a as categories to analyse the performing spaces of
nationalist leader created the Shivaji festival, in an religion in Mumbai.
example of the ‘invention of tradition’4. Although
not intended for religious purposes, but as a means Mumbai’s population includes Hindus, Muslims,
of gathering crowds as a part of the anti-colonialist Parsis, Christians, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists,
struggle, this festival acquired Hindu overtones. and daily practice varies for each of these reli-
gions, as it does for the a-religious or atheist seg-
In 1909, through the Morley-Minto reforms in the ments of Mumbai’s population. However, there
limited elections to the Bombay Presidency Coun- are certain common themes that can be drawn
cil, the colonial government introduced separate out. Post-independence, official public spaces in
electorates. These separate electorates required Mumbai were not religious but secular, and spaces
people to fix their identity in one religion. Similar- that were symbols of the state or associated with
ly, the process of census classification also brought the state were not meant to express religion. This
a greater fixity to identity. Colonial knowledge, changed by the 1980’s, with religion occupying a
which often informed nationalist knowledge, of- much more prominent place in Mumbai political
ten included religious narratives and viewed reli- rhetoric. Yet the daily spaces of religion mostly re-
gion through clearly demarcated boundaries. The mained the private, the public and the interstices
climax of this process of the emergence of reli- between the two.
gious nationalism can be seen in the Partition of
India and Pakistan in 1947. Even though this event So for example, there was the private altar or place
and the violence that accompanied it did not have for puja or place for the Quran or place for the Bi-
as direct an impact on Bombay as it did on other ble in the house or workplace, as a private space
regions, it left a deep mark on the collective con- for daily prayer. Yet there were also numerous lo-
sciousness of people in Bombay as elsewhere in In- cal street-side shrines whose religious affiliations
dia, so later rhetoric, such as that of the Shiv Sena were often unclear: just small little elevated or box
and BJP5 in the 1990’s, often harks back to what structures where people would light incense or
happened during Partition. offer flowers as a part of their daily rituals. These
structures would often be to a local saint or deity,
III. Daily Practice and their exact significance would be lost on peo-
ple from other areas. However, although the exact
Thus in post-independence Bombay, there were reason for the spot of the shrine varied greatly, the
clearly several strands of religious identity and ways in which prayer was offered was often quite
practice. There were fluid and multiple religious similar so it would be understood as a shrine by
identities, there were more modern territorial re- all. Sometimes, these shrines acquired great fame
ligious identities, and there was the ideology of out of their specific localities as well. The street
secularism of the modern Indian state. It is in this was an important public space for the daily per-
context that we will examine the performing spaces formance of religion. Other than the numerous
of religion in Mumbai. The way religion performs street-shrines discussed above, it also served as the
in and through space can be viewed through the space for buying flowers or incense or head-covers.
prism of daily practice, the festival and the riot. Thus the religious marketplace often occupied the
We are aware that this is a problematic construct, street. The street was often also the space in which
our intention is not to imply that there is some food was distributed after prayer or religious wor-
sort of natural continuum between daily practice, ship on certain ‘auspicious’ days. The interstices
4  E. Hobsbawm, ‘Introduction: Inventing Tradition’ in E. between the private inner-space and the public
Hobsbawm and T. Ranger ed. The Invention of Tradition, street were sometimes also marked by religion.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992 Thus, the courtyard or doorway would be deco-
5  The Shiv Sena and BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) are both
rated in religious symbols or flowers.
Hindu nationalist parties that emerged as strong players
in the 1980’s: the Shiv Sena in the Mumbai and Maharash-
trian context, and the BJP in the pan-Indian context.

45
Other than the street, the home or workplace and tivals will also often see similar joint celebrations
the courtyard or doorway, Mumbai, as any other throughout the city. The Ganapati festival is fa-
city, also has large grand spaces for the daily prac- mous as a specifically Bombay-festival. It involves
tice of religion. There are several churches, temples a massive procession to immerse a huge Ganapati
and mosques. To us, one of the most interesting (elephant-god) idol in the sea. Through festivals
examples of the grand spaces of religion in Mum- such as Ganapati, Moharram and Holi (which also
bai is the Haji Ali Dargah. The Haji Ali Dargah involve massive processions), it is religion that per-
is the shrine of a Muslim merchant and Sufi saint forms space i.e. religion and religious crowds re-
from the 15th century. It is located in the middle formulate the conceptions of space to suit their re-
of the Worli Bay, 500 yards from the coast and quirements. So a road instead of being a space for
connected by a narrow causeway. Today, it acts as transport, is entirely occupied by festival crowds
place of worship for people from many different and becomes a public space for celebration. Jim
religions and massive crowds accumulate to go Masselos sees Mumbai festivals as an indicator of
pray at Haji Ali every Thursday and Friday. This collective accustomed space.6 Festivals perform
multi-religious place of worship is a fitting exam- and occupy a much larger sphere in urban space
ple of the fluid and multiple religious identities than daily practice. Symbols of the festival appear
and interactions. all over the city, on homes, in marketplaces, in
workplaces, and on streets. Festival fetes and fairs
Thus in people’s daily lives, though the daily prac- are set up in parks, squares and on narrow streets.
tice of religion does play a role in both private and They also often spur the commercial activity in the
public spaces, it is certainly not the most important city, with a whole period of commerce based on
part of daily life. Religion is just one segment in a festival-related goods and food-items.
life that places great importance on work, trade,
commerce, finance, success, opportunity and fam- However, as much as festivals act as a mechanism
ily. In daily life, people are not viewed purely in for joint celebration, they also act as a mechanism
terms of their religious identities but also as cli- for gathering people together. When enormous
ents, customers, trading partners, suppliers, pro- crowds of people gather together, then the mood
duces, fathers, sisters, friends, teachers, lawyers, and momentum of the crowd can vary. It can eas-
doctors or other numerous multiple identities. ily switch from celebratory to confrontational,
antagonistic and angry. Thus, festivals and festi-
IV. Festivals val processions can sometimes also be moments
of tension for eg:- when a large Hindu procession
Religion certainly acquires more importance dur- plays music in front of a mosque. For in the crowd
ing festivals, though identity can remain fluid even and mass collection of people together lies a certain
in festivals. Bombay has had several large festivals, spontaneous urban power. So processions through
other than just the pan-Indian ones, there are fes- specific neighbourhoods or streets, are often a way
tivals specifically associated with the city. The pan- of making that power felt in those areas.
Indian festivals celebrated in Mumbai include Di-
wali, Dussehra, Holi, Eid and Moharram. Diwali V. Riots
is the festival of lights that celebrates the return
of the God Ram to his hometown Ayodhya, but We suggest that religious riots constitute another
is also seen as the Hindu New Year, and a time to way of performing religion based on the inflic-
worship Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth. It also tion of overt and systematic violence on other re-
has references to various other gods and goddesses. ligious communities. Through the performance of
In being such a complex festival with a multiplic- violence, members of a particular religious com-
ity of symbolic references, it is relevant for vari- munity, acting in its name, retaliate, defend their
ous segments of the city’s population. Thus, Parsi
6  J. Masselos, ‘Appropriating Urban Space: Social Con-
and Muslim merchants and traders will also often
structs of Bombay in the Time of the Raj’ in J. Masselos,
decorate their shops during Diwali and distribute The City in Action: Bombay Struggles for Power, p. 294,
sweets to their clients. The other pan-Indian fes- Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2007

46
community or assert its superiority. Violent riot- city and the socio-economic spectrum were at-
ing is a way that lies closer to the staging of re- tacked, including slum settlements, working-class
ligion through festivals than to the performance and middle-class neighbourhoods, often under the
of religion through daily practice. It usually needs passive or complicit gaze of the police. Although
encouragement from outside and orchestration the figures remain unclear, between five-hundred
from above. Religious violence in the urban con- and nine-hundred people were killed during the
text covers an array of practices from the exclu- riots and Rs 4000 crore (more than £ 850 million)
sion of the members of other communities from of property were destroyed.7
certain spaces to the destruction of their property,
to their humiliation to ultimately their physical Abdul Mannan, who was hacked with swords and
elimination. then burnt to death by the mob in central Mum-
bai on 11 January 1993 is merely an example of
The modern history of South Asia has witnessed the inexpressible brutality that Mumbayites were
repeated instances of religious violence, often in suddenly capable of. Another example that illus-
relation to interventions from the colonial and trates the perverse and complex nature of the ri-
post-colonial administrations aimed at chang- ots is the case of Haju Abdul Haq Ansari, whose
ing the geographical distribution and political shop was looted and burnt on 7 and 8 December
arrangement of the different religious communi- 1992. Allegedly, instead of detaining the perpetra-
ties that inhabit the subcontinent. The partition tors, whom the victim identified as living in the
of Bengal and Punjab in 1947 in order to create opposite building, the police arrested Ansari, beat
the independent states of India and Pakistan is him and his employers, and pressed false charges
the most important example of such a process. In against him, hence aligning on the Hindus’ side.8
post-independence Mumbai there have been riots
at a smaller scale, usually concentrated to specific The connivance of the state apparatus would be
neighbourhoods, or in nearby towns such as Bhi- one of the aspects that lead some authors to ar-
wandi, where riots occurred in 1984. gue that the 1992-1993 Mumbai riots demonstrate
distinct and very contemporary features, which
In spite of this record of religious violence, the ri- make them different from prior instances of reli-
ots that took place in Mumbai in December 1992 gious violence in the subcontinent. In this sense,
and January 1993 were unprecedented in the city’s Masselos suggests that the riots were the result of a
multi-religious and cosmopolitan history. As al- typically postmodern combination of elements in
ready noted, the symbolic trigger of the conflict a perhaps characteristically global city: “the politi-
was the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayo- cization of religion, events elsewhere in India, the
dhya by Hindu nationalists, yet, the event took communalization of politics, slum gangs fighting
place in an already tension-laden atmosphere, very for control of slums and control of hutments that
much the result of persistent anti-Muslim instiga- represented real monetary value, criminal gangs
tions by the Hindu right represented by the politi- fighting for dominance between themselves, and
cal party Shiv Sena (literally the Army of Shiva). landlords trying to regain control of their land.”9
The increasingly strong rhetoric of religious and
messianic taints that the Shiv Sena, and specifi- Does the acknowledgement of the impact of this
cally its leader Bal Thackeray, had begun to deploy intricate network of power groups and different
from the 1980s had proved a successful vote-gath- agendas do away with the possibility of portray-
ering instrument, reaching particular momentum ing riots as another way of performing spaces of
in the early 1990s. In this context, the perceived religion? We don’t think so. Without ignoring the
aggressive reaction of the Muslim community to multiple causes and effects of the Mumbai riots,
the Babri Mosque event, including rumours ac-
cusing Muslim rioters of killing Hindu workers in 7  J. Masselos, op. cit., p.363; citation needed.
8  See http://www.indiarightsonline.com/Sabrang/com-
the southern part of the city, led agitated Hindu
bat.nsf/38b852a8345861dd65256a980059289d/3ad278fb0
groups to burst out on the streets seeking for re- 8fe1204e5256d1200405d8c?OpenDocument
taliation. Muslim homes and businesses across the 9  Masselos, op. cit., p.382

47
the use of religious profiling and practices de- economically underprivileged sectors of the city
rived from the collective imaginaries of religious as the ultimate cause for the violence. The racial
violence indicate that riots still constitute a means profile of the enemy whom the rioters fought turns
to perform religion and mark space. Moreover, is out to be less identifiable from this point of view,
there anything distinct about religious violence in and consequently the violence seems more ran-
the urban context that makes it different from, for domly distributed.
example, racial violence?
Although cities that have undergone riots are very
Incidentally, 1992 was also the year that violent specifically located in their historical and cultural
racial riots took place in Los Angeles ultimately context, there are certain features that all such cit-
leading the state and federal authorities to bring ies share i.e. the existence of a varied population
in the National Guard and federal troops to put in very close proximity. Although there are dif-
an end to rioting, killing and looting. In this case, ferences between race and religion as markers of
the triggers were the perceived unjust conviction identity, there are also fundamental similarities.
of Rodney King, an African-American citizen, In situations of conflict, there is usually a clear
whose detention involved violent police behav- demarcation of the Self (racial or religious group)
iour; and the mild sentence given to the Korean as opposed to the Other (religion or race). Beyond
shop-owner that shot a young African-American this demarcation, in modern urban conflicts there
citizen in March 1991. is often an element of struggle for space and power
through territorial demarcation, making certain
The LAPD had been repeatedly accused of corrup- space exclusive for the Self. In both racial and re-
tion and racial profiling and the two events turned ligious rhetoric, there is also a great significance
into catalysts for the violent expression of accumu- attached to gender and purity as markers of iden-
lated sentiments of injustice within the African- tity. Intermixture is considered polluting or unde-
American community. Most people were killed sirable, women being seen as symbols of honour
by fire-arms, although two of the cases that were for the community. Furthermore, in riots, racial or
more profusely covered by the media, Reignald religious, there often exists a paradoxical mixture
Denny (a white truck-driver) and Fidel López (a of both carefully planned and spontaneous acts of
Latin American construction-worker), entailed violence. Also, catalysing events and rumours of-
more ritualised, if not spectacle-oriented perform- ten play a large role in the outbreak and spread of
ances of violence.10 riots.

In the end, the majority of death victims were Afri- Finally, it should be emphasised that the cost of
can-Americans and Hispanics, but not white Cau- riots for a city is extremely high, regardless of
casians. The Korean and Asian minorities suffered their religious or racial nature. The individual and
significant material losses as many of their stores collective experiences of trauma, along with the
were looted and even burnt down. One explana- physical destruction and material loss, are bound
tion for this situation is that the riots prevailed in to painfully damage the city’s social fabric. More
the less well-off neighbourhoods where minority often than not, the recovery from violence and ri-
communities tend to concentrate.11 This explana- ots is a long process that takes years or even dec-
tion leaves the idea of black violence aiming at a ades. Indeed, cities, together with the state or na-
white, repressive State somewhat on the side, in- tional authorities, have formal means to intervene
stead emphasising inter-racial tensions within the in the processes of reconciliation through, among
10  In the first case, the victim was dragged out of his
other things, the provision of financial compensa-
truck, beaten and his skull crushed with fragments of tions to the victims and their families, emergency
concrete. In the second, he was beaten, his ear almost torn psychological aid, long-term therapy, but also the
off, and his upper body and genitals sprayed with black organisation of symbolic acts of reconciliation. It
paint.
is worth noting that many believe these initiatives
11  It should also be kept in mind that in their attempt to
subdue the rioters, police and military forces also caused need to be sensitive to the natural mourning proc-
victims. esses that individuals and collectives go through,

48
especially symbolic initiatives. In this sense, some city in terms of human, social and material costs.
would even argue that the absence of formal in- We have seen the seeming suddenness with which
terventions is preferable, and that it is better to let such a process can occur. Spatial and neighbour-
the city and its different communities, find their hood segregation can be both a means and effect
balance again simply relying on daily practice as a of the process of religious politicisation. However,
powerful healing liniment. the impact of neighbourhood segregation along re-
ligious lines in Mumbai is different from the usual
VI. Learning from Mumbai conception of racial segregation, for example in
American cities. The visible markers of religion in
What parallels and lessons does Mumbai hold for Mumbai are not as perceivable as the visible mark-
other cities with multi-religious or multi-ethnic ers of race. In daily life, it is possible for a person
societies? What can Mumbai say about Baghdad to be visibly religiously anonymous. If one sees an
or Los Angeles? We think that there are two pos- anonymous person on the street or in the train, it
sible ways in which we can approach this issue i.e. is not easy to tell from their physical appearance
to look at what is helpful and to look at what is whether they are Hindu, Muslim, or Jain. Only
harmful for heterogeneous urban communities. In by asking for a person’s name, can their religion
Mumbai, one sees an almost bizarre mix of both be identified. Of course, there are also people who
these tendencies. wear markers of their religion through attire. Nev-
ertheless, as a Mumbayite, it is possible to leave
What is helpful is the fluidity and multiplicity of ones religious identity aside, and move through
identity one can find in the city. For heterogene- the spaces of the city as an anonymous citizen. 12
ous urban living, it is important to not construct This is very different from the experience of racial
and foment singular monolithic and essentialised identification in cities such as L.A. In making this
identities. Thus, the Hindu student who goes to statement, we do not want to diminish the prob-
the Haji Ali Dargah mosque to pray for good exam lems of religious identification in Mumbai, but to
results, or the Muslim merchant who distributes emphasise that it leaves greater room for ambigu-
sweets on Diwali are symbols of what we can ity, fluidity and mobility than is possible in racially
learn from Mumbai’s daily practices. In Mumbai segregated cities.
there are numerous examples of a Muslim factory-
owner employing Hindu workers or a Jain jeweller Essentially, we have observed the potential of re-
having long-standing relationships with his Parsi ligious anonymity for the peaceful coexistence of
customers. The ties of commerce bind separate different religions in a city. It is perhaps the pos-
communities and provide platforms for interac- sibility of moving freely through a city without be-
tion and understanding. As a result, trust and tol- ing identified that may form a basis for harmoni-
erance emerge. ous city life. So could that potential exist in a city
that has been religiously contested through history
What we can also learn from Mumbai is its resil- such as Jerusalem?
ience and capacity to cope with violence and dis-
aster, and the way in which the logic of economic
opportunity operates in helping the city do this.
Whatever the calamities that confront them, peo-
ple seem to get on with their daily lives of working
and making money in a spirit of survival rather
than resignation.

But it is clear that despite these positive tenden-

cies, we have also observed terribly harmful trends 12  We are not suggesting that Mumbai is easy for reli-
gious minorities. We are aware that they face enormous
in Mumbai. These trends relate to the ways in
discrimination in the city. We are only suggesting that it
which cynical populist politics can aid in forging is possible to have moments of anonymity when they do
monolithic identities and the consequences for a not face discrimination. For eg:- on the train

49
50
Vulnerability and Empowerment
Iliana Ortega-Alcázar

Popular settlements represent approximately 60% Popular settlements as sites of

of the housing stock of cities in the developing vulnerability
world. Historically, popular settlements have been
either largely disregarded by urban theory or have Legal vulnerability
been depicted as an exceptional and problematic
phenomenon that needs to be eradicated. The wide The major source of vulnerability lies in the inse-
variety of habitats that this 60% comprises are cure legal status of the settlements. The contradic-
generally conflated into the very vague and pejora- tions inherent in the legal system place the dwell-
tive word “slum”. What the term “slum” indicates ers of popular settlements in a particularly dire
is the existence of low-quality housing with inap- position. The case of India serves as a good exam-
propriate ventilation, no hygiene and high levels ple of the legal vulnerability to which the residents
of overcrowding. Slum conditions are thus to be of these settlements are subject. Unauthorised set-
found both in formal housing such as inner city tlements are defined as slums and are regarded as
tenements or in popular settlements. Disregard- illegal by the state. They are not entitled to mu-
ing the complexity of popular settlements, their nicipal government services, which means that the
varied levels or informality and consolidation, provision of services has to be solved by residents
popular settlements have been conflated with the themselves. Unauthorised settlements are highly
term slum. As a result, popular settlements are au- vulnerable to demolition and eviction and, unlike
tomatically portrayed as sites of squalor that bring the situation in the authorised ones, in the event of
nothing but vulnerability. In this depiction, vul- demolition or eviction taking place residents are
nerability is equated with poor material conditions not entitled to resettlement by the state or the mu-
and consequently simplified, and de-politicised. In nicipal government.
this essay, I will move beyond material conditions
– which are actually greatly varied – to explore The fact that even the authorised settlements are
further the notion of popular settlements as sites vulnerable to arbitrary power reveals the extent
of vulnerability. With the aim of bringing com- of the vulnerability of the urban poor. In Mumbai
plexity back to the investigation of popular settle- around 40% of all popular settlements are author-
ments, the second part of the essay will explore the ised, meaning that they have been recognised as
notion of popular settlements as sites of empower- legal settlements by the state government. Author-
ment. Such an exploration, it is hoped, will move isation, however, is not a guarantee against demoli-
us beyond the false dilemma of choosing between tion. It simply entitles the residents of these settle-
eradicating popular settlements or leaving them as ments to be re-housed in the event of demolition.
they are. What can be learnt from these complex Moreover, though having the right to be resettled
environments? residents lack the power to decide over the location
or quality of their new housing (Gullapalli 2007).

One of the more salient contradictions of the legal

system acting as a source of vulnerability relates
to the right to housing. Access to housing is con-
sidered a constitutional right within the ambit of
the right to life and the right to livelihood. This

51
right to housing, however, does not protect urban cancelled every time a new president or new city
residents from having their housing declared ille- government comes along. They are then subject to
gal. The constitutional right only goes so far as to re-negotiating the regularisation, having to pay for
require adequate notice from the state or munici- their land titles again, and “owing a favour” to the
pal government to residents before demolition and administration in turn.
eviction. The Supreme Court has explicitly grant-
ed that state and municipal governments have the In Mexico City, the common development of ir-
authority to demolish “slum” dwellings and evict regular settlements in communal and ejido lands
residents. Therefore, importantly, even authorised adds yet another layer of vulnerability. The inher-
dwellers have no entitlement to the houses they ent complexity and lack of transparency as regards
have built or the housing they rent from others. land ownership of these lands means that it often
Their only right is one to notice and resettlement happens that, years after a settlement has been
(Gullapalli 2007). Thus, even after they have been regularised and the alleged owners compensated,
regularised residents of popular settlements are someone else comes along claiming ownership
not allowed to forget that they have no stable legal to the land and requiring the process of regulari-
status. As the case of Dharavi exemplifies, when sation to the repeated. The land has to be re-ex-
the land on which slums are located becomes valu- propriated by the state, the new purported owner
able property, people are prone to be pushed out to compensated, and new land titles sold to the resi-
another slum, to another “illegal” settlement. And dents. Residents thus find themselves having to
so the cycle repeats itself. pay repeatedly for their land titles with no guaran-
tee that they will be recognised in the future.
Clientelistic relationships
Based on extensive research carried out in Mexico
Aside from the inherent contradictions of the legal City, Ward (1989) demonstrates how, in the con-
system, vulnerability also stems from the position text of popular urbanisation, land policy has been
popular settlements hold in the political game. used by successive governments to achieve politi-
Whether a settlement is authorised or unauthor- cal mediation and control. “The state has sought
ised is conditional on the unpredictability of the to use the issue of land as a means of extending its
political circumstances. Rather than depending influence over the poor and of maintaining their
on the fulfilment of particular requisites over quiescence” (Ward 1989: 151). The precarious con-
which the residents have some control, regularisa- ditions of popular settlements meant that its in-
tion is dependant on the will, or lack of it, of those habitants needed to constantly negotiate with the
with power over the legal status of the settlements. government for the provision of services, and for
Because of this, unauthorised slums are periodi- an effective land regularisation process. The state
cally authorised, often immediately before or after used this situation to build patron-client relations
elections. Settlements regularisation is thus used that would guarantee the political support of the
as a means to secure voter banks. During electoral urban poor in exchange of a solution to their de-
campaigns political contenders promise to author- mands.
ise more settlements if voted into office.
Reproduction of structural poverty
Land regularisation is thus highly unstable, count-
ing with official papers attesting to the legal au- Though providing a temporary housing solution
thorisation of the land is no guarantee as settle- for the urban poor, popular settlements do not con-
ments are often unauthorised by newly elected tribute to break the structural poverty from which
governments discarding previous authorisation. they stem. Burgess (1982) argued that although it
In Mexico City, for example, it is common to find is important to recognise the use value of hous-
residents who have two or three different regulari- ing in these settlements, it is crucial to bring to the
sation papers each one coinciding with the coming fore the fact that this housing solution is a result
to power of a new set of government officials. Resi- of deep structural poverty, and that this structural
dents are thus vulnerable to having their papers poverty is not challenged but actually reproduced.

52
The inherent contradictions of the legal system, ation for the inhabitants (Turner 1976). “Middle-
the organisation of land invasion movements and income households… can afford the diseconomies
of popular settlements in general by institution- of unsuitable housing and can often compensate
alised political forces, the penetration of squatter for them by means of alternative expenditures. If
organisations by institutional forces whose specif- the only dwelling available to middle-class users
ic purpose is to diffuse revolt, and the manipula- is poorly located, for example, they can compen-
tion of squatter groups for vote-catching purposes sate through the use of automobiles or telephones,
(Burgess 1982) means that the urban poor remain while these luxuries are far beyond the reach of the
trapped in a cycle of structural poverty which the vast majority of countries with very low median
vulnerability of their settlements only increases. incomes. The lower the income level, therefore, the
better the match must be between the demand and
Following the same line of argument, Connolly’s the housing process, if both the household and the
(1982) research has highlighted that housing pro- housing economies are to be maintained”. (Turner
duction in popular settlements represents an af- 1972: 162). When compared to the bulk of afford-
fordable housing solution due to the many hours of able housing provided by the state, in spite of their
unpaid labour its inhabitants invest. Furthermore, poor material qualities, popular settlements put
she states that the relatively low costs are possible their residents in a relatively less vulnerable posi-
mainly due to: “a reduction in the use-value of the tion because of their ability to provide housing at
house produced, that is, in the reduction of the liv- almost no cost, access to work and to social net-
ing conditions of the population” (Connolly 1982: works of mutual support.
160). Thus, housing production in popular settle-
ments is, in the long term, an altogether economi- House as site for income generating
cally more profitable solution for the State than for activities
its inhabitants.
Housing in popular settlements around the globe
Popular settlements as sites of provides not only sites of residence but also im-
empowerment portant sites of income generating activities. The
complex linkage between home and work enables
What housing does for people low-income communities to simultaneously guar-
antee a livelihood and a home. The adaptability of
Although the above cited vulnerabilities are not to self-help housing means that minimal resources
be underestimated, I will now move beyond this can be used very effectively. With only minimal
level of analysis to explore the potential of popular costs, adaptations can be made to incorporate in-
settlements as sources of empowerment. Towards come generating activities in the home. Except for
this end, housing ought to be understood as more cases in which dwellings are already very small,
than a set of services and material qualities, a good home-based enterprises occupy little space within
house also has to provide social benefits that can the home and have little negative impact on do-
be as fundamental. Following this premise Turner mestic space (Tipple 2004:378). Thus, domestic
suggests that some materially poor dwellings are activities coexist with income generating activities
preferable in social terms especially when com- maximizing productive time. On the whole, home-
pared to mass produced affordable housing. His- based enterprises bring about positive benefits in
torically, social housing built by the state has not terms of the income they represent. Though work-
responded to the dwellers’ needs in terms of ac- ing conditions are often dire - specially in manu-
cess to jobs, and social networks. A further prob- facturing – and though home-based enterprises
lem is that it has tended to provide housing at a often entail exploitation of low-income workers
relatively high price, leaving its residents with little and in particular of women, they represent an im-
remaining money for other needs. Although the portant livelihood for the urban poor in the con-
material characteristics of the houses are better text of increased unemployment and impossibility
than in many popular settlements, they create a to enter the formal economy.
socially and economically more vulnerable situ-

53
“Throughout the world, there is a clear trend to- ban poor are compelled to find solutions for their
wards radical economic restructuring leading most basic needs by themselves. In this process,
to greater privatisation and reliance on the free they confront material and legal difficulties that
market. Such processes are recognised as having a motivate them to undertake organised political
devastating impact on large portions of the urban action (Holston 1991:453). Thus, they emerge as
poor which, combined with the continuing in- important political actors with a limited negotiat-
crease in urban populations, must inevitably mean ing power vis-à-vis the state. Through their politi-
that more and more low-income urban households cal organisation they cease to be merely vulnerable
will have little option but to generate income from individuals and become active citizens that enjoy
within their own resources and networks.” (Kellett a limited self-government with respect to their
and Tipple 2000:212). immediate urban surroundings. As Gutmann de-
scribes of an irregular settlement in Mexico City:
Low-income households that have a home-based “In stark contrast to residents of middle- and up-
enterprise are able to secure a higher income than per- class neighbourhoods in the capital, people
those which do not (Tipple 2004:374). Tipple dem- in Colonia Santo Domingo are accustomed to the
onstrates that home-based enterprises signifi- regular exercise of limited self-government with
cantly increase the employment opportunities of respect to matters like building roads and ensur-
low-income households, especially for women. “At ing citizens’ safety in the colonia” (Gutmann 2002:
least 50% more women work in HBE [home-based 177-178).
enterprises] operating households than in those
without an HBE [home-based enterprise].” (Tip- The main limitation to the political empowerment
ple 2004: 374). Aside from the provision of jobs for that emerges in popular settlements is that, in most
low-income populations home-based enterprises cases, political organisation and activism dies out
have a positive impact for the neighbourhood as after the settlement is consolidated. Once the basic
a whole. In providing goods and services at an material needs, such as the introduction of urban
arms reach, neighbours are able to save time and services, are in place, and once the settlement has
resources that would otherwise be spent travelling. been regularised, the need to organise decreases
Cutting on transport cost is a great advantage for, and, with it, their political power and capacity
when present, transport represents a significant to subvert the structural vulnerabilities to which
portion of the earnings of a low-income house- they are subject. In these situations, though struc-
hold. tural conditions remain unchallenged, the urban
poor undergo an important process of politicisa-
Redevelopment projects and relocation pro- tion that is a source of empowerment.
grammes have a negative impact on this source of
livelihood. The same is not true of neighbourhood Based on research carried out in the autocon-
upgrading and consolidation which improves the structed settlements of Brazil, Holston argues
productivity and operation of home-based enter- that when “people come to conceive of their resi-
prises, and promotes further investment as a result dential struggles in terms of a right to rights, the
of tenure security. (Tipple 2004:372). politicisation of daily life leads from an expanded
sense of the field of politics to one of citizenship
Political empowerment and limited self- founded on radically new understandings of self
government and society” (Holston 1991: 454). In these cases the
political empowerment resulting from irregular
Though entangled in the complex web of clien- settlements can be strong enough to challenge the
telistic relations described in the first section of structural sources of vulnerability to which the
this essay, and not escaping the contradictions of urban poor are subject.
the legal system which place residents in an unsta-
ble position, popular settlements are also sites of
political empowerment. Finding no support from
the state to respond to their basic needs, the ur-

54
Women’s empowerment and politicisation tlements people must develop social skills so as to
be able to live and rely on one another. Whilst resi-
Though the precarious material and legal condi- dents of mass housing projects are often alienated
tions of irregular settlements drive the bulk of its from their surroundings, popular settlements are
residents to organise, research from a variety of characterised by a strong feelings of belonging and
cities around the world suggests that it is women place attachment. Contrary to generalised views
who undergo a more profound process of politici- in urban literature that claim place attachment
sation and empowerment. They are the ones who is dependant on long term residence in a place,
carry out the bulk of the administrative and nego- in popular settlements strong attachment to the
tiation work with the authorities throughout the neighbourhood results from actively choosing and
self-help process. Aside from the extra work this building this place for themselves. On one level,
entails, Massolo argues that, “[t]he positive side attachment results from the neighbours’ shared
of these experiences of tiring negotiations is that work and productive effort put on the urbanising
women acquire knowledge on the institutional of the area. On another, it stems from each family’s
workings, and develop practices of communica- effort and productive engagement with their hous-
tion and negotiation with the public powers as es. As the settlement consolidates and social net-
social subjects-actors of a social housing project works and political organisation tends to weaken,
and not as objects of an official housing policy” attachment becomes more centred on the strong
(Massolo 1991:310). These practices not only em- feelings of appropriation and possession that stem
power women with relation to the state but also from having actively produced the house. Both in
significantly alter their position at home. Being the early decades of the urbanisation and in the
the ones more often engaged in the day-to-day po- latter state of consolidation, the strong attachment
litical organisation and activism of the irregular to place characteristic of popular settlements re-
settlements, “they become more knowledgeable sults from people’s active production of the neigh-
than men about public political affairs in general” bourhood and its houses and not from long term
(Elizabeth Jelin cited in Gutmann 2002: 180). In residence in the area. People’s practical engage-
this process women become more articulate, self- ment with space is the source of attachment and
confident and count with a network of support belonging. The attachment to place characteristic
which enables them to improve their position at of popular settlements stands in stark opposition
home. Though the patriarchal system as a whole to the alienated environments of mass produced
is generally not challenged directly, women’s rela- affordable housing where feelings of disenchant-
tive empowerment has meant that issues such as ment and frustration prevail.
domestic violence are constantly addressed.
Conclusion
Alienation vs. place attachment
Recent developments in cities throughout the world
Popular settlements are sites of strong social net- urge us to re-think the potentials of popular settle-
works. Political organisation and the necessary in- ments. There is a growing drive towards the eradi-
volvement of all residents with the matters of their cation of popular settlements and their replace-
neighbourhood result in a constant interaction ment by formal mass-produced social housing.
amongst neighbours. Poverty and the lack of insti- In Santiago de Chile, as from the 1990s the state
tutional support from the state induce individuals has built large amounts of mass social housing in
to rely on others. In these contexts, the family and which a significant portion of the urban poor has
other social networks are fundamental resources been relocated. In the context of alleged economic
for their survival (González de la Rocha 1994). growth and the drive toward ”good quality” hous-
Popular settlements are not inhabited by residents ing the urban poor have significantly improved
leading their lives behind closed doors. Residents their material conditions. In spite of this, Tironi
are required to interact constantly with each other. (2003) argues that there is a widespread discontent
Compared to other contexts of poverty such as in and generalised feeling of deterioration amongst
mass affordable housing projects, in popular set- the urban poor. Chile’s new poverty, says Tironi, is

55
less about material needs than about social exclu- real estate developers. The existing redevelopment
sion and urban segregation. Feelings of deteriora- proposal for Dharavi suggests that the majority of
tion result from the ghettoisation brought about the settlement be developed for commercial and
by the new mass social housing developments. The office use and the rest for housing. Only a portion
social housing of the 1990-2000 is an isolated, so- of today’s residents will be re-housed in the area
cially homogenous, deteriorated and highly stig- and the rest will be relocated on marginal lands,
matised environment. far away from their present location (Mahadevia).
Though the exact nature of the proposed housing
Similarly, in Mexico City, the scarcity of land for Dharavi’s current residents is as yet unclear, it
available for urbanisation, strict control over land seems the future will be akin to what is happening
invasions, the rising costs of construction mate- in cities like Santiago de Chile and Mexico City
rials, and a persistent economic crisis mean that where mass-produced low-quality housing are the
popular urbanisation is no longer a solution for new landscapes for the urban poor. The tendency
the urban poor. The alternatives are thus to over- is to remove the urban poor from popular settle-
crowd in the existing popular settlements or move ments and re-house them in some sort of mass so-
to one of the massive subdivisions of low quality cial housing, publicly or privately developed. What
affordable housing. At present a large sector of the these developments have in common is their ill-
population has been pushed to remote areas where location in relation to access to employment, ina-
commercial builders are developing massive sub- bility to enable home-based enterprises to develop,
divisions of low quality affordable housing. Al- dissolution of social networks, and the creation
though in quantitative terms these commercial of homogenous, highly stigmatised spaces where
developments have provided access to “affordable” alienation results from resident’s incapacity to ac-
legal home-ownership to a significant number of tively appropriate their surroundings.
Mexicans, they are also the source of considerable
problems. They represent a highly problematic These recent trends call for the development of
segregation pattern and ghettoisation. In addition, more socially sustainable alternatives for the ur-
their remote location is an important source of ban poor. Though a return to the popular settle-
vulnerability in that access to employment is se- ment and the adoption of a “leave things as they
verely hindered, costly and time consuming. are” approach represents both an unviable and
problematic alternative, clealry there is something
As in Latin America, in other cities of the devel- to be learnt form these complex environments.
oping world popular settlements are increasingly We should strive for the reduction of the impor-
seen as a problem and are being replaced by new tant vulnerabilities present in the vast expanses of
habitats for the urban poor. In the context of India’s popular settlements throughout the world. But in
ambition to become a central player in the global reducing these vulnerabilities the equally signifi-
economy, the government of Mumbai and its cor- cant sources of empowerment that are facilitated
porate sector are pushing to develop Mumbai into by these environments should not be forgotten.
a World-Class City along the lines of Shanghai’s
latest developments. With more than half of the
city’s population living in popular settlements, the
future of this environment is central to the dis-
cussion around Mumbai’s future developments.
Slums are seen as obstacles for development. This
view has brought an unprecedented wave of demo-
litions and evictions, which are often referred to by
the press as “Operation Shanghai”. In this context,
the city is currently debating the future of Dharavi,
usually referred to as Asia’s largest slum. Dharavi
is located in what is now the city’s business district,
thus becoming a prime location and a target for

56
References

Burgess, R. 1982. Self-help housing advocacy: a curious

form of radicalism. A critique of the work of John F. C.
Turner. In Self help housing : a critique. Edited by Peter
Ward. London : Mansell Publishing.
Connolly, P. 1982. Uncontrolled settlements and self-
build: what kind of solution? The Mexico City case. In
Self-help housing. A critique. Edited by P. Ward. London:
Mansell Publishing.
González de la Rocha, M. 1994. The resources of poverty.
Women and survival in a Mexican city. Oxford, Cam-
bridge: Blackwell Publishers.
Gullapalli, V. 2007. Formal and Informal access to Land.
Paper presented at the Urban Age seminar: Learning from
Mumbai. London School of Economics, 29 May- 15 June
2007
Gutmann, M. 2002. The romance of democracy. Compli-
ant defiance in Contemporary Mexico. Berkeley, Los An-
geles: University of California Press.
Holston, J. 1991 Autoconstruccion in working-class Bra-
zil. In Cultural Anthropology,.Vol. 6, No. 4 pp.447-465
Kellett, P. and Tipple, G. 2000. The home as workplace: a
study of income-generating activities within the domestic
setting. Environments and Urbanization. Vol. 12, No. 1
Mahadevia, D. Shanghaing Mumbai: Visions, displace-
ments, and politics of a globalising city. Retrieved 7 June,
2007, from http://www.idpad.org/pdf/DARSHINI%20
MAHADEVIA%20-Paper%2016.pdf
Massolo, A. 1991. Mujer y vivienda popular. In Espacio
y vivienda en la Ciudad de México. Edited by Martha
Schteingart. Mexico City: El Colegio de México.
Tipple, G. 2004. Settlement upgrading and home-based
enterprises: discussions from empirical data. Cities. Vol.
21, No. 5, pp. 371- 379
Tironi, M. 2003. Nueva pobreza urbana. Vivienda y capi-
tal social en Santiago de Chile, 1985-2001. Santiago de
Chile: Universidad de Chile, Ril Editores.
Turner, J. F. 1972. Freedom to build: dweller control of the
housing process. New York: Macmillan.
Turner, J. F. 1976. Housing by people : towards autonomy
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Ward, P. 1989. In search of a home: social and economic
characteristics of squatter settlements and the role of self-
help housing in Mexico City. Liverpool: University of Liv-
erpool.

57
58
Is Scale a Vice?
Governing Mumbai’s Millions
Eli Rosenbaum

To begin this essay on government with an analogy to know your neighbor, yet there are many fewer
to built form, levels of administration can perhaps of them to know. For some, the smaller scale is a
be seen as equivalent to differently-sized buildings. virtue, for others it may be a vice.
In this (admittedly imperfect) metaphor, national
and state governments are the hulking skyscrap- Government operates much the same way: na-
ers, encompassing masses and towering into the tional and state government has the same osten-
sky; more local and neighborhood authorities are sible mission as local government—to represent
in contrast the walk-up flats, the two-, three- and and provide services to citizens—yet the scale on
five-deckers, close to ground level, but nowhere which authorities are created still matters greatly.
near as vast. Most simply, Mumbai’s population varies widely
depending on where the boundaries of “the city”
A bolder or more generalizing theorist might are drawn. More to the point, the scale on which
find more at work in this metaphor than a simple Mumbai is to be governed will differ greatly de-
physical stand-in for scale, and argue that larger pending on where the lines are drawn—and how
levels of government may be more likely to build the city and its citizens are represented will depend
one type of structure than the other—that, to put on how many other interests are included.
it bluntly, larger governing systems are not just the
size of skyscrapers, but may prefer them, both for In other words, if Mumbai is conceived of as a
themselves, and for their citizens, when it comes to chawl—as a small physical entity such as the island
housing and planning workspaces and communi- city, or just the current territory of the Municipal
ties. Yet such an argument is beyond the scope of Corporation—then the desires and preferences of
this paper, which instead aims much more hum- the individuals in that area will be translated into
bly: to examine how structures of representation policy through significantly different channels
and legal authority are set up for the massive—and than if the city is governed as a skyscraper—as a
massively growing—population and economy of vast “metropolitan region,” or as just one part of
Mumbai, and in particular how the scale on which an even more massive state. Scale, then, is every-
formal planning and decision-making takes place thing: it determines who governs, whom is gov-
may serve to include or exclude certain of the city’s erned, and how.
groups.
The Structure of Local Government in
At this point the comparison to skyscrapers and Mumbai
walk-ups—in the context of Mumbai, perhaps
chawls or wadis is the more appropriate term— To begin, the starting point for this paper is the
may take on some meaning: to illustrate that while misperception that there is a single “Government”
both types of built form serve the same basic pur- of Mumbai, or that the city’s structure can be repre-
pose—containing human activity indoors—they sented with a list of agencies and functions.1 As will
do so at vastly different scales, with effects which be seen, power to both make and implement policy
may be good, bad, or both. The skyscraper houses
1  See the well-known McKinsey report, which uses such
more people per square meter, yet its construction
language. McKinsey and Bombay First, Vision Mumbai:
and maintenance may pose disproportionate envi- Transforming Mumbai into a world-class city. Mumbai:
ronmental risks; in the chawl, you are more likely Bombay First, 2003.

59
in Mumbai is indeed divided between a number of elections are under state control: under the terms
actors: some, such as the Municipal Commission- of 1992’s 74th Constitutional Amendment, gener-
er, are appointed by the state of Maharashtra; oth- ally viewed as enhancing local government power,
ers, like the councilors on the Municipal Corpora- elections for the Corporation are now conducted
tion, are locally elected; some, such as the Mumbai by the State Election Commission.3
Port Trust, are Mumbai-specific entities created
by state or federal government; and still others are The Mayor
broad state agencies which operate both in Mum- Official drawn from the 227 councilors and elected
bai and in the rest of Maharashtra. Even in schol- by them for a one-year term. He is viewed as the
arly literature, descriptions of these bodies’ formal ceremonial leader of the city, its “First Citizen,”
duties are often ambiguous and confusing, both and as the chair of the Corporation, heads all of
due to the sheer number of organizations, as well its meetings. Yet the precarious position of the
as the rapid pace of legislation and other activity to Mayor was evident as recently as 1998, when the
create, re-name, and merge agency activity. Maharashtra government created a new form of
mayoral council, only to abandon this effort and
As such, the goal of this paper is to begin to show revert to the previously existing structure within a
the significance of the city’s idiosyncratic division year. Scholars tend to view this episode as having
of power, and in the process to demonstrate how enhanced the power of the Commissioner, making
the scale on which the government operates may the Mayor more of a figurehead.
not have ideal representational results—in other
words, it may be a democratic vice. To wit, this Corporation Committees
piece will argue that, in spite of intended and for- Much of the deliberative and policy-making work
mal devolution to the democratic local governing of the Corporation takes place on a variety of per-
body of Mumbai, the most significant decisions manent and ad hoc committees, which decentralize
and actions on the city’s shape and future are made the technical work of legislation, and on the whole
at the regional and state levels, often in consulta- are comprised entirely of elected Corporation
tion with private and multinational interests, and members. While they are “[t]heoretically answer-
usually at the expense of meaningful participation able to the Council,” they “sometimes extend their
by those within the city limits. First, however, this boundaries at the expense of the Council [and] be-
section will provide an outline of the basic govern- come powerful centres of decision-making and de-
ing bodies.2 velop strong linkages with the [Commissioner].”4

“Local” Institutions First is the 27-member Standing Committee,

elected by and from the councilors, which is a
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation “microcosm of the Corporation and a bridge be-
Legislative body charged with approving all policy tween the Corporation and the Commissioner,”
for Mumbai. Membership is fixed at 227 elected with “executive, supervisory, financial and per-
representatives, with five-year terms. Corporators sonnel powers…to a great extent independent
(or councilors) serve part-time, as the body meets of the [Corporation].”5 It nominally oversees the
once a month. Ostensibly, this is the policy-making Commissioner’s administration and its decisions
arm of the city government, yet the Commissioner on day-to-day civic affairs, while they must be ap-
and other state entities play an enormous role in proved by the Corporation, generally are as a mat-
policy formulation. Indeed, the state government ter of course.6
retains the power to overrule any action of the
Corporation, and the state may even dissolve and
supersede the entire body (although this has only
happened in Mumbai once, in 1984). Even local 3  Marina R. Pinto, Metropolitan City Governance in In-
dia. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000, 102.
2  See generally David A. and Marina R. Pinto, Municipal 4  Id., 103.
Corporation of Greater Mumbai and Ward Administra- 5  Id., 103.
tion, Delhi: Kovark Publishers, 2005. 6  Id., 104.

60
Other examples include the Education Com- Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Au-
mittee, with oversight of primary education; the thority
Electric Supply and Transport Committee, which At times one of the more powerful bodies in
oversees electrical lines as well as buses, but not Mumbai, yet—significantly—it does not fit easily
railways, and the General Manager of which is into the Mumbai-specific category, as it has juris-
state-appointed; and the Improvements Commit- diction over an area almost 10 times the size of the
tee, which votes on redevelopment. Also, in the 437.71-square-kilometer Municipal Corporation.
wake of the 74th Amendment, the city now has This authority was created in 1975 and charged
“Wards Committees,” with oversight of particular with implementing a state-devised and approved
geographic areas, and made up of both govern- redevelopment plan, which for the first time de-
mental and non-governmental officials. However, lineated a 4355-square-kilometer “Metropolitan
to date the city has only formed 16 of its allotted Region.”7 In this capacity, the Authority directly
25 committees. funds and partially implements many of Mum-
bai’s recent major “Projects,” including Transport
State Institutions—Mumbai-Specific and Urban Development, and is the direct recipi-
ent of World Bank funding.8 This means it has the
Municipal Commissioner power to not just coordinate regional planning
This official serves as the chief executive and high- across jurisdictions, but also can itself build roads,
est administrative official of the Corporation, and rails, and other infrastructure, and even manage
is appointed by the Maharashtra government for traffic.9
a renewable term of three years. In the traditional
scholarly view, the Commissioner is seen as imple- As such, an agency under the direct control of the
menting the policy which the Corporation makes, Maharashtra chief minister, who is also the Au-
and so his significant actions—notably preparing thority’s formal head, has jurisdiction over ter-
the budget—must be approved by the councilors. ritory including but also well beyond Mumbai’s
Corporation itself, and so outside of any purely
However, as this post directly oversees and staffs local entity’s legal reach. Given the 74th Amend-
the city’s vast administration, in the form of ment’s explicit delegation of urban planning pow-
a bureaucratic hierarchy including 14 Deputy ers to local government corporations, notably
Commissioners (eight in charge of administra- through Mumbai’s Improvements Committee,
tive units, and six overseeing groups of electoral itself charged with devising redevelopment plans,
wards), the office—and, through it, the state—has the Authority gives cursory respect to the idea of
huge functional power over the city. Indeed, the local autonomy: thus, one section of the body’s
functions usually cited as “local”—administering governing statute states that it may not take any
the electrical lines and buses, issuing food and action within the purview of the local Corpora-
beverage licenses, overseeing the sewage system— tion. Significantly, though, another section gives
are performed by the Commissioner’s full-time, the agency power to override any local authority.10
professional staff. If and when the Corporation is
7  Neelima Risbud, “The case of Mumbai, India,” Under-
“superseded” by the state, the Commissioner be-
standing Slums: Case Studies for the Global Report on
comes the sole administrator. Human Settlements 2003, United Nations Human Set-
tlement Programme, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ dpu-projects/
In addition to exercising direct authority in Mum- Global_Report/.
bai through the Commissioner, Maharashtra has 8  The Mumbai Urban Infrastructure Project, however, is
its own independent entity. Pinto and Pinto 497.
also created a large number of uni-functional bod- 9  India Business Insight, “MMRDA Gets RS2,444 Crore
ies for the city, which exercise at times unilateral in Its Kitty (For 2007-2008),” Apr. 10, 2007. Funding was
control over huge policy areas. These include: also included for conversion of a Vikrant warship into a
floating museum.
10  Pinto and Pinto 497: “When the state government per-
mitted [the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development
Authority] to undertake infrastructure projects in Mum-
bai, it had to placate the [Corporation] by stating…that

61
Mumbai Police struction of tenements for the dislocated residents.
Police in India operate under both federal and While the agency nominally has sole authority
state authority. They are part of the Indian Police to approve any development regarding slums in
Service, one of three national civil service depart- Mumbai, its authority may be functionally by-
ments, and the Mumbai Commissioner is also di- passed, and it tends to work in conjunction with
rectly subordinate to the Maharashtra police chief, other state agencies.13
himself a subordinate of the Indian Home Min-
ister. The practical consequence of this is that the State Industrial and Investment Corporation of
city cannot evict residents or demolish property Maharashtra
without state support.11
The Maharashtra government has a long history
State Institutions—Statewide of using its agencies to promote industrial devel-
opment and relocation within the state. One early,
A wide variety of state bodies operating through- and still-existent, organization is the Maharashtra
out Maharashtra have significant dealings in Industrial Development Corporation, which pro-
Mumbai. For instance, the state operates all sec- moted industrial uses of land and today supplies
ondary schools in the city, despite the fact that the water to much of the state. This agency, the State In-
Municipal Corporation has responsibility for pub- dustrial and Investment Corporation, was formed
lic primary schooling (though not the generally several years later, and provides tangible assistance
higher-quality private schools). While the state and funding to companies trying to locate in the
agencies involved in Mumbai are far too numer- state. Moreover, it is also the parent organization
ous to list, four important ones are: of the City and Industrial Development Corpora-
tion, the unitary body which plans, develops, and
Maharashtra Housing and Area Development governs the “new town” of Navi Mumbai. Much
Authority of its economic and industrial policy—notably the
Agency with authority for maintenance and reno- use of special economic zones—is unique to Navi
vation of a variety of public and private buildings, Mumbai, and is not used in Mumbai itself.
tasks which had previously been split amongst
agencies. Also provides physical infrastructure Federal Institutions
and improvements for slums, including toilets and
retaining walls, and is the main provider of pub- The federal government exercises little direct au-
lic housing in the city.12 The Authority purchases thority over cities, as it is legally prohibited from
land, administers its personnel, and works with making policy on urbanization, with that power
other agencies, notably the Region Development reserved to the states.14 However, several federal
Authority and the Municipal Corporation. entities operate within and about Mumbai, includ-
ing:
Slum Rehabilitation Authority
Powerful state body, set up in 1995, with broad Mumbai Port Trust
authority to formulate plans for impoverished Independent federal agency responsible for ad-
areas, and work with developers and other agen- ministration of the main port facilities in Mumbai.
cies to coordinate implementation. For instance, This goes beyond managing shipping day-to-day,
this agency was involved in an infamous scheme also including contracting with private developers
wherein developers were able to build commercial for operations and infrastructure, and even devis-
properties on slum lands, in exchange for the con- ing plans to convert portions of the city’s water-
front into a shopping, entertainment, and cruise
[the Authority’] actions would be in consultation with
the Municipal Commissioner.” Id. Note that there was no 13  Sudha Mohan, Urban Development and New Local-
requirement of consultation with Mumbai’s elected offi- ism, Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2005, 235-240.
cials. 14  Annapurna Shaw, “The Planning and Development of
11  Id., 498. New Bombay,” Modern Asian Studies, 33:4, 951-988 (Oct.
12  Risbud. 1999), 954.

62
complex.15 As the agency is independent and fed- This section will look at how intended decentraliza-
erally-appointed, its interests do not always align tion diverges from the actual operation of the city.
with those of the state administration. For in- The picture that emerges is one of continued dom-
stance, the agency actively opposed state plans to inance of urban policy by the Maharashtra state
privately develop the port of Rewas, 10 miles south government. This is evident from the part-time
of Mumbai.16 status of the Municipal Corporation, the largely
ceremonial role of the Mayor, and the large power
Under national law, the board includes federally- of regional and statewide entities to formulate and
appointed representatives of the shipping industry, implement policy. There are also a number of for-
labor, and state government.17 It employs around mal and practical constraints on local actors. And
55,000 people, and many of these workers and there is even dispute between actors within state
their families live on slums that occupy large por- government, notably those representing Mumbai
tions of the Port Trust’s lands. 18 Its holdings, along itself, such as the Commissioner, and those con-
with those of the military, airport, and railways, cerned with the region, much of it about resource
makes the Indian federal government the largest allocation, and reflecting what many scholars see
single landowner in the city. as an anti-urban policy bias.19

Indian Rail/Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation Overall, these constraints and conflicts—indeed,
A joint venture of the federal Ministry of Railways the very scale on which governing the city takes
and the Maharashtra government, which runs place—can be seen to minimize opportunities for
Mumbai’s trains. Notable in that the Municipal meaningful mass participation by Mumbai’s citi-
Corporation is responsible for public transpor- zens in policy-making or implementation, espe-
tation in the form of buses, but not railways. As cially with regards to planning and development.
mentioned above, the federal government also Instead, the legal and political prevalence of state
owns and runs the city’s airport. agencies, and the financial dependence of the city
on state and private money, gives the “real” power
Conflicts, Tensions, and Constraints to other interests—state, national, and corporate.

As can be seen, “local” government in Mumbai Weakness of Indian Local Government

is a complex web of agencies. Yet what is signifi-
cant for the present study is not so much how the There is a long history of disempowered local
city is organized, as it is how this complexity ad- institutions in India, with them generally seen
vantages particular interests, levels, and forms of as “the weakest link in the political fabric of the
government, and simultaneously places significant country.”20 Scholars cite a number of cultural and
constraints on the power of Mumbai’s more dem- historical explanations for this dynamic, finding
ocratic and decentralized institutions. Indeed, a roots in British society, in the imperial adminis-
number of scholars have begun to argue that, in tration of India, and even parallels between the
spite of the intentions of the 74th Amendment, Indian class system and its relatively hierarchical
municipal self-government in India, including in system of federalism.21 Until the 74th Amendment
Mumbai, is today still more formality than real- in 1992, municipal governments were not just
ity. functionally weak, but also legal creatures of their
states, and as a result local institutions tended
15  India Business Insight, “MPT to Develop Cruise Ter- not to focus on transparency or accountability: as
minal at Mumbai,” Apr. 3, 2007.
16  Indian Express, “Maharashtra’s Private Port Plan Runs 19  For instance, the recent Urban Transportation Project
Into Rough Weather,” Nov. 15, 2005. experienced serious delays due to wrangling between the
17  Department of Shipping, Government of India, “Ma- Regional Development Authority and other state agen-
jor Port Trusts Act, 1963,” http://shipping.nic.in/ wri- cies. Gurbir Singh and Rajesh Unnikrishnan, “MMRDA’s
tereaddata/linkimages/THE%20MAJOR%20PORT%20 Caught in a Layrinth [sic],” Economic Times of India,
TRUSTS%20ACT,%2019636813785592.htm Sept. 5, 2005.
18  Economic Times, “Port Property Can Give City an 20  Pinto, 61.
Uplift, Say Architects,” Feb. 25, 2004. 21  Id.

63
“extension[s] of the state, they were based on bu- result, “empowerment of [urban local bodies] has
reaucratic structure, and failed to become demo- more or less remained a matter of discussion for
cratic institutions.”22 scholars.”28

Today, the status of local governments is not aided “Anti-Urban” Bias in Maharashtra
by their reputation for inefficiency, and even cor-
ruption. One survey of Mumbai councilors found Adding to this already weak nature of local gov-
that over half felt the Municipal Corporation is ernment is the fact that, at least since the 1960s,
“permeated” with corruption.23 Elected mem- India and in particular Maharashtra has pursued
bers of the Corporation have even been involved a development strategy focused less on existing
in other criminal activity: one 1994 report by the center cities, and more on promoting rural de-
Times of India found over a dozen Mumbai cor- velopment and new urbanization.29 This political
porators involved in crimes including robbery, economic bias, at least with regard to Mumbai, can
kidnapping, and murder; one scholar estimated perhaps be traced to the city’s historical role as a
that by 1999, councilors were being arrested at a center of colonial activity, and the attendant desire
rate of one per week, and approximately 10 percent by modern politicians to share the wealth of the
of the city’s government had a criminal record.24 central city with the less-developed surrounding
Even lawfully elected and serving politicians often areas. Whatever the origin, this dynamic serves to
lack legitimacy, as the sheer number of candidates constrain not just the elected municipal represent-
means that many win election with less than a ma- atives, but also the state appointees and agencies
jority of votes. Overall, municipal election turnout concerned only with Mumbai, which may lack the
is low and declining.25 clout of statewide departments. For instance, the
state has in the past few decades devoted signifi-
Notably, many scholars feel that even the intro- cant resources to developing the “magnet” city of
duction of the 74th Amendment has not altered Navi Mumbai, directly east of Mumbai itself.
the underlying political weakness of local gov-
ernment. In spite of its strong legal language, it Today, with the population in Mumbai’s suburbs
must still be “operationalised meaningfully to be growing much faster than within the city limits,
effective.”26 In particular, even though the amend- the pressure to focus on the metropolitan region
ment expanded the list of duties which may be broadly defined will no doubt increase. Already,
exercised by democratic municipal bodies, “what the state of Maharashtra allocates its federal grants
functions and responsibilities should actually be at an 88:12 ratio favoring rural over urban areas,
assigned to the municipalities in place of or in ad- even less favorable to municipalities than the fed-
dition to what they already have is still left to the eral government’s recommended 80:20 split.30 The
state legislatures.”27 In Mumbai, the elected branch state’s Department of Urban Development admits
of local government remains part-time, with the it does not place a high priority on the problems
services within local jurisdiction still adminis- of existing cities, which one scholar directly cites
tered by the state-appointed Commissioner. As a as “one of the major reasons for the burgeon-
ing growth of the urban slums and the marginal
22  Bharat Dahiya, “Democracy, Governance and Envi-
ronmental Management in Contemporary Urban India,” groups in the city.”31
presented at 16th European Conference on Modern South
Asian Studies, Edinburgh, UK, Sept. 6-9, 2000, www.soci-
ology.ed.ac.uk/sas/papers/panel44_ dahiya.rtf
23  Pinto, 115-116.
24  J.B. D’Souza, “Local Self-Government and Citizens,”
Economic and Political Weekly, 34:42-43, 2984-2986 (Oct.
1999).
25  Id.
26  Mohan, 76. 28  Id.
27  Soumen Bagchi, “Myth of Empowering Urban Lo- 29  See generally Shaw, 952-955.
cal Bodies,” Economic and Political Weekly, 34:37, 2637 30  Mohan, 101.
(Sept. 1999), emphasis added. 31  Id., 6.

64
Constraints on Mumbai’s Fiscal Powers well-off.35 Almost all other tax revenues—includ-
ing sales taxes, vehicle registration fees, and lux-
One of the most significant limits on Mumbai’s lo- ury taxes—goes directly to the state: for instance,
cal self-governance is its weak financial position, “Maharashtra has steadily refused to countenance
in particular its minimal revenue-raising pow- a municipal surcharge on the sales tax it gets from
ers, and its consequent dependence on state and the city… Mumbai has a tiny municipal vehicle tax
private grants to fill the gap in its budget—this for maintenance of its roads[, yet] it is a negligible
despite its status as the most affluent and one of fraction of the motor vehicle tax the state collects
the most efficient municipal corporations in the from the city, and itself retains.” 36
nation. Most tax revenues collected in Mumbai
go to the state, and of local taxes, the octroi (tax Another, related consequence of the city’s limited
on goods entering or leaving the territory) is set revenue-raising power has been to increase its reli-
to expire, while the property tax is both insuffi- ance on private sector and capital market sources
cient to cover expenditures, as well as functionally of funding. However, many scholars argue that this
regressive. As a result, much municipal funding, can only exacerbate the already-existing structural
especially for large development projects, tends to dynamics which favor well-off areas and interests
focus on already-well-off areas, and is structured in the formulation of policy. With private corpora-
so as to appeal to businesses and investors. tion or financial market funding, “better-off colo-
nies will tend to get more attention and a larger
First, while the 74th Amendment theoretically share of investable income,” as “the projects that
devolved certain powers to the cities, it “more or are likely to be financed through the credit market
less succeeded in keeping the financial powers would, by their very logic, be commercially viable
of the local bodies within the jurisdiction of the and ensure profitability to the investors and other
state governments,” such that the “ultimate deci- stakeholders.”37 Even if the motive is not pure prof-
sion of authorising and assigning selective taxes to it, scholar still argue that cities such as Mumbai
the local bodies continues to reside with the state with many options for development may not tend
legislature.”32 The consequence of this continued to focus on “economically unattractive” sectors.38
restriction on revenue-raising powers is that cities
have remained dependent on intergovernmental Even when funding for municipal projects comes
transfers. If states continue to devolve authority from non-profit, non-governmental organiza-
over expenditure policy without giving cities cor- tions, such as the World Bank, this may still limit
responding tax powers, municipal fiscal depend- the autonomy of the local democratic process. For
ence on the state will persist.33 instance, in order to qualify for a World Bank loan
to maintain its water and sewer system, Mumbai’s
In point of fact, Mumbai is heavily dependent on Municipal Corporation had to agree to keep its fi-
property taxes, and will become even more so giv- nancial records for this system in double-entry, ac-
en that the collection of octroi must be abolished crual format, as opposed to the rest of its accounts,
by 2010.34 This is problematic in itself, both since which it records on a single-entry cash basis.39
collection rates at the local level tend to be alarm-
ingly low, and also because the existence of rent
control and other limits on the taxable property
base put its burden disproportionately on the less 35  Pinto and Pinto, 208. The authors state that “it would
not be wrong to surmise that in many situations the poor-
32  Bagchi. er sections of the population…subsidise the richer sec-
33  Ajit Karnik and Ala Lalvani, “Urban Local Govern- tions and affluent neighborhoods.”
ment and the Flypaper Effect: Evidence from Maharash- 36  J. D’Souza.
tra, India,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 35(2): 273- 37  Amitabh Kundu, “Institutional innovations for ur-
295 (2005). ban infrastructural development: the Indian scenario,”
34  Press Trust of India, “Industry expects plan for phase Development and Cities, ed. David Westendorff, Oxford:
out of octroi in state budget,” Mar. 21, 2007. Today, Ma- Oxfam 2002, 62.
harashtra is one of only two states in India that still per- 38  Id., 48.
mits this tax. 39  Id., 46.

65
Finally, devolving more authority to cities without processes.”43 Another argues that, by excluding the
concomitantly improving their revenue-raising popular branch of municipal government from
powers also risks increasing their use of private development policy, and maintaining primary au-
companies for basic civil services. Already, Mum- thority at the regional and state level, “the voices
bai has used private contractors for trash collec- of the poor…get muted as they are filtered through
tion and disposal and the maintenance of public different layers of authority as they traverse the
spaces, while other large cities including Banga- terrain from the slum to the seat of power.”44 One
lore and Jaipur outsource for duties including road consequence is that zoning rules, notably density
maintenance, and Navi Mumbai has used contrac- regulations, often disadvantage the poor, by de-
tors for duties as integral as the city’s sewage and pressing housing availability and affordability.45
sanitation system.40 To the extent that devolution
on expenditures outpaces municipal revenue pow- The development of the city’s docklands is a good
ers, it may become the exclusive domain of far less case study in the politics of development initia-
accountable private contractors. tives. First, it is notable that there are industry rep-
resentatives on the government-appointed task
The Limited Local Role in Development force in charge of redevelopment plans.46 Also,
the project is complicated in that the port itself
The constraints on local democratic participation is controlled by a federal agency, yet an early task
in Mumbai’s governance are perhaps most evident force was appointed by the state government. State
with regard to land and building development pol- officials have thus had to present their proposals
icy. This is in turn particularly striking since plan- to the federal Minister of Shipping, and all plans
ning, land use, and slum rehabilitation power were must proceed subject to the terms of federal coast-
among the primary local delegations included in al zone regulations.47 Plans for the cruise ship ter-
the 74th Amendment. Yet many scholars argue minal had to receive approval from both the Port
that Maharashtra has relinquished little if any of Trust and the national government itself.48
this authority.
Industry presence on the waterfront task force
To begin, the national government has always is not an anomaly. Numerous studies note the
been, and today remains, involved in develop- prominent role of private developers in shaping
ment, as a federal Planning Commission comes and implementing land use policy. Even without
up with five-year plans for India’s cities. The most participation on planning boards, policy is often
recent gives explicit mention of “democratisation tailored with corporate interests in mind, such
from below”—yet the plan “revolve[s] around the as one notorious plan that allowed developers to
strengthening of the democratic structure, with build commercially on former slum lands, in ex-
the assistance of the very agencies—state govern- change for erecting tenements on small portions of
ments, and the urban development authorities,” the sites. The consequence of this policy was that
such as Mumbai’s Region Development Authority, only a select few neighborhoods, in areas well-
“who have continued to take over the functions suited to commercial development, experienced
that rightly belong to the [urban local bodies].”41 improvements. A subsequent government investi-
gation found that state development agencies had
Even to the extent that local authorities such as
the Mumbai Improvements Committee have the 43  Pinto, 123.
authority to regulate land use and implement the 44  Mohan, 200.
45  Ramakrishna Nallathiga, “An Evaluation of the Im-
city’s development plan, all of this activity is done pact of Density Regulation on Land Markets in Mumbai,”
subject to the terms of state legislation.42 This leads International Real Estate Review, 9:1, 132-152 (2006).
one scholar to point to “above all, [a] lack of popu- 46  Economic Times, “Task Force Appointed to Look Into
lar participation in the planning and development Plans for Eastern Waterfront,” Nov. 8, 2002.
47  Economic Times, “Plan for Trade Centres on Water-
40  Id., 51. front Remains in Limbo,” Nov. 20, 2003.
41  Mohan, 66. 48  India Business Insight, “Cruise Terminal Plan Gets
42  Pinto and Pinto, 175-183. MbPT Push,” Feb. 26, 2007.

66
worked without community or non-governmental one small part of a “metropolitan region,” and a
organization input, and instead the plan had been constituent of vast state bureaucracies.
“designed to enrich Mumbai’s powerful construc-
tion lobby.”49 For this reason, in approaching policy decisions,
practitioners and researchers must be careful to
The policy literature lacks many instances of de- connect specific issue and action areas with spe-
velopment and slum rehabilitation activities which cific institutions, and to recognize whose interests
took place with significant community participa- are represented by the responsible agencies. For
tion. One oft-cited example involved the relocation instance, development and slum research must fo-
of 60,000 individuals to make way for a railway ex- cus on key state institutions, notably the commis-
tension, in a joint effort of state, local, and federal sioner, police, and Maharashtra planning authori-
governments.50 Yet this situation was unique, ow- ties. In general, democratic and local actors tend
ing to a combination of conflict between the state not to play a large role in these areas, and even the
and federal agencies, an unusual degree of organi- numerous activist groups in the city are often un-
zation by slum-dwellers’ groups and NGOs. Nota- able to influence decisions city- or region-wide.
bly, none of the community interfacing took place
through Mumbai’s democratic council. Indeed, Most of all, in terms of learning from Mumbai’s
advocacy groups note that demolition and relo- experience with government, it is important to rec-
cation efforts are often carried out with no input ognize the impact of the sheer size of the city and
from the Mayor, elected council, or decentralized its metropolitan region, and the scale on which
ward committees.51 this allows for government operation. Indeed, it is
possible to imagine a very different set of policies
Conclusion and outcomes for the fourteen million living with-
in the 437-sq-km of the Municipal Corporation,
As such, before Mumbai can formulate a strategy were the Corporation and its elected members to
for governance “reform,” there must be a clear actually wield real power, in particular in terms of
understanding of the current context of local revenue-raising, transportation, and planning and
political institutions in India and Maharashtra. development authority. Instead, with the central
Scholars must realize that intended and formal de- city dependent on the state for funding, and with
centralization often does not bear out in practice— decision-making on physical development and in-
Mumbai cannot be represented in a flow chart, frastructure largely made out of state offices and
or understood as a compilation of agencies shar- skyscrapers—many of which view Mumbai as but
ing authority, or even working together. Instead, one part of a region ten times its size—the con-
the institutions with “real” power—the ability to cerns of particular neighborhoods, of individual
devise and implement master plans, the right to wadis and chawls, may become victims of scale.
overrule or subsume other bodies, and the means
to raise and spend money—are overwhelmingly
those appointed or controlled by the state and na-
tional governments. Mumbai’s elected council has
always been limited in its resources and functional
power, and now the entire city finds itself as just

49  Mohan, 241-2.

50  Sheela Patel, et al. “Beyond evictions in a global city:
people-managed resettlement in Mumbai,” Environment
and Urbanization, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2002,
http://eau.sagepub.com/cgi/content /abstract/14/1/159;
also Mohan, 194-256.
51  Deepika D’Souza, et al., Bulldozing Rights: A Report
on the Forced Evictions and Housing Policies for the Poor
in Mumbai, Mumbai: Indian People’s Tribunal on Envi-
ronment and Human Rights, 2005.

67
68
69
70
71
Mumbai Government Glossary References

BMC: Brihanmumbai (Greater Mumbai) Municipal Bagchi, Soumen. “Myth of Empowering Urban Local
Corporation – Name for the official 437 km city limits Bodies.” Economic and Political Weekly. 34:37, 2637 (Sep-
of Mumbai, including the so-called “island city” and the tember 1999).
suburbs incorporated up to 1957; proper name of the offi-
D’Souza, Deepika, et al., Bulldozing Rights: A Report on
cial local government, including the Mayor, council, com-
the Forced Evictions and Housing Policies for the Poor in
mittees and Commissioner; and also used to refer to only
Mumbai, Mumbai: Indian People’s Tribunal on Environ-
the elected council, the democratically elected “legislative
ment and Human Rights, 2005.
branch” of the city government
D’Souza, J.B. “Local Self-Government and Citizens.” Eco-
Mayor: Councilor elected by fellow legislators as the city’s
nomic and Political Weekly. 34:42-43, 2984-2986 (Octo-
ceremonial “First Citizen”
ber1999).
Commissioner: State-appointed chief executive and day-
Dahiya, Bharat. “Democracy, Governance and Environ-
to-day manager of the BMC
mental Management in Contemporary Urban India,”
Standing Committee: Most active and powerful of the presented at 16th European Conference on Modern South
BMC’s committees, made up of elected councilors and Asian Studies, Edinburgh, UK, Sept. 6-9, 2000, www.so-
formally responsible for approving most policy ciology.ed.ac.uk/
MMRDA: Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Department of Shipping, Government of India. “Ma-
Authority – State-appointed planning body for the 4355 jor Port Trusts Act, 1963.” http://shipping.nic.in/wri-
km, state-designated metropolitan region, which in- tereaddata/linkimages/THE%20MAJOR%20PORT%20
cludes the new town of Navi (“new”) Mumbai, other ur- TRUSTS%20ACT,%2019636813785592.htm
banized areas, and much rural land
Economic Times. “Port Property Can Give City an Uplift,
MHADA: Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Say Architects.” February 24, 2004.
Authority – State agency which builds and maintains
——————. “Plan for Trade Centres on Waterfront Re-
most public housing in Mumbai and the rest of the state
mains in Limbo.” November 20, 2003.
SRA: Slum Rehabilitation Authority – State agency with
——————. “Task Force Appointed to Look Into Plans
power to build and demolish areas with housing typolo-
for Eastern Waterfront.” November 8, 2002.
gies officially designated as slums, in Mumbai and be-
yond India Business Insight. “MMRDA Gets RS2,444 Crore in
Its Kitty (For 2007-2008).” April 10, 2007.
MPT: Mumbai Port Trust – Federally-appointed author-
ity which owns and runs the land and facilities on the ——————. “Cruise Terminal Plan Gets MbPT Push.”
city’s docklands, now also referred to as the “Eastern Wa- February 26, 2007.
terfront”
——————. “MPT to Develop Cruise Terminal at
SICOM: State Industrial and Investment Corporation – Mumbai.” April 3, 2007.
Maharashtra authority which encourages industrial de-
Indian Express. “Maharashtra’s Private Port Plan Runs
velopment and investment; also the parent entity of CI-
Into Rough Weather.” November 15, 2005.
DCO
Karnik, Ajit and Ala Lalvani. “Urban Local Government
CIDCO: City and Industrial Development Corporation
and the Flypaper Effect: Evidence from Maharashtra, In-
– State-created entity which planned, constructed and to-
dia.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism. 35(2): 273-295
day governs the “satellite” city of Navi Mumbai
(2005).
Kundu, Amitabh. “Institutional innovations for urban
infrastructural development: the Indian scenario.” De-
velopment and Cities. ed. David Westendorff. Oxford:
Oxfam 2002.
McKinsey and Bombay First. Vision Mumbai: Trans-
forming Mumbai into a world-class city. Mumbai: Bom-
bay First, 2003.
Mohan, Sudha. Urban Development and New Localism.
Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2005.
Nallathiga, Ramakrishna. “An Evaluation of the Impact
of Density Regulation on Land Markets in Mumbai.” In-
ternational Real Estate Review. 9:1, 132-152 (2006).

72
Patel, Sheela, et al. “Beyond evictions in a global city: peo-
ple-managed resettlement in Mumbai.” Environment and
Urbanization. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2002. http://
eau.sagepub.com/cgi/content /abstract/14/1/159
Pinto, David A. and Marina R. Pinto. Municipal Corpora-
tion of Greater Mumbai and Ward Administration. Delhi:
Kovark Publishers, 2005.
Pinto, Marina R. Metropolitan City Governance in India.
New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000.
Press Trust of India. “Industry expects plan for phase out
of octroi in state budget.” March 21, 2007.
Risbud, Neelima. “The case of Mumbai, India.” Under-
standing Slums: Case Studies for the Global Report on
Human Settlements 2003. United Nations Human Set-
tlement Programme, 2003. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ dpu-
projects/Global_Report/
sas/papers/panel44_ dahiya.rtf
Shaw, Annapurna. “The Planning and Development of
New Bombay.” Modern Asian Studies. 33:4, 951-988 (Oc-
tober1999).
Singh, Gurbir and Rajesh Unnikrishnan. “MMRDA’s
Caught in a Layrinth [sic].” Economic Times of India.
September 5, 2005.

73
74
Human Settlement Development: the Central Role of Cities in
our Environment’s Future – Constraints and Possibilities
Saskia Sassen, Columbia University
and Torsten Schroeder, LSE

The massive processes of urbanization under way Through this enormously distinctive presence that
today are inevitably at the center of the environ- is urbanization, we are changing a growing range
mental future. Yet they have largely not been at the of ecological systems from the climate to species
center of environmental research. It is through cit- diversity and ocean purity and we are creating
ies and vast urban agglomerations that humankind new environmental conditions of heat islands, de-
is increasingly present in the world and through sertification, and water pollution. We have entered
which it mediates its relation to the various stocks a new phase in human ecological history. For the
and flows of environmental capital. The urban first time humankind is the major ecological fac-
hinterland, once a mostly confined geographic tor on the planet, in a way it was not in the past.
zone, is today a global hinterland. This represents Massive urbanization over the last few decades
a radical transformation in the relation between has created a set of global ecological conditions
humans and the rest of the planet. never seen before. But is it urbanization per se or
the particular types of urban systems and indus-
Having a large number of cities with multimillion trial processes we have instituted? That is to say,
populations is a new condition in our history, as are these global ecological conditions the result of
is the urbanization of over half the people in the urban agglomeration and density or are they the
world. Urban agglomerations are today the en- result of the urban systems for transport, waste
gines of consumption of the world’s environment: disposal, heating and cooling, food provision, and
they occupy only 2% of the world’s land surface, the industrial process through which we extract,
but use over 75% of the world’s resources. Humans grow, make, package, distribute, and dispose of all
now consume nearly half of the world’s total pho- the foods and services we use?
tosynthetic capacity, and cities are the major factor
in this. Cities in the North require an average of 4 We can begin by conceptualizing the urban condi-
to 5 hectares of ecologically productive land per tion as a socio-ecological system in that it creates
inhabitant. Further, much economic activity that a whole new set of interrelations between, on the
takes place outside cities is geared towards cities. one hand, its constructed features and material
With the expansion of the global economy we have practices and, on the other, various ecological sys-
raised our capability to annex growing portions of tems. In the current stage, the systemic character-
the world to support a limited number of indus- istics of this inter-relation are mostly in the form
tries and places. Cities also have a pronounced of environmental damage. A growing number of
effect on traditional rural economies and their researchers today are calling for the need to use
long-standing cultural adaptation to biological and build upon those features of cities that can
diversity. Rural populations increasingly become make cities into a socio-ecological system with
consumers of products produced in the industrial positive outcomes. Specific features of cities with
economy, one much less sensitive to biological di- such positive potential are economies of scale,
versity. The rural condition has evolved into a new density and the associated potential for greater
system of social relations, one that does not work efficiency in resource use and lower priced op-
with biodiversity. These developments all signal tions, and dense networks of communication that
that the urban condition is a major factor in any can serve as facilitators to institute new practices.
environmental future. More theoretically, one can say that in so far as cit-
ies are constituted through various processes that

75
produce space, time, place and nature, cities also ing accountability about environmental damage.
contain the transformative possibilities embedded It is precisely because the global economic system
in these same processes. is characterized by enormous concentration of
power in a limited number of large multinational
Because they are at the center of the environmen- corporations and global financial markets that
tal future, urbanization and the city also must be makes for concentrated (rather than widely dis-
understood and used as potentially containing persed) sites for accountability and for changing
the solutions to many of these problems. As has investment criteria. This leaves out a whole range
been much documented, cities have long been sites of less central and powerful economic actors re-
for innovation and for developing and instituting sponsible for much environmental damage, but
complex physical and organizational systems. It is are more likely to be controllable through national
within the complexity of the city that we must find level regulatory interventions.
the solutions to much environmental damage and
the formulas for reconfiguring the socio-ecologi- A crucial issue raised by all the above is the ques-
cal system that is urbanization. Cities contain the tion of the scales at which damage is produced and
networks and information loops that may facili- intervention or change should occur. These may in
tate communicating, informing, and persuading turn differ from the levels and sites for responsibil-
households, governments, and firms to support ity and accountability. The city is, in this regard,
and participate in environmentally sensitive pro- an enormously complex entity. Cities are multi-
grams and in radically transformative institution scalar systems where many of the environmental
building. dynamics that concern us are constituted and in
turn constitute what we call the city, and where
Urban systems also entail systems of social rela- different policy levels, from the supra- to the sub-
tions that support the current configuration. Be- national, get implemented. Further, specific net-
yond adoption of practices such as waste recycling, works of mostly global cities, also constitute a key
it will take a change in this system of social rela- component of the global scale and hence can be
tions itself to achieve greater environmental sensi- thought of as a network of sites for accountability
tivity and efficiency. For instance, a crucial issue is of global economic actors.
the massive investment around the world promot-
ing large projects that damage the environment. In this brief report we focus on the building and
Deforestation and construction of large dams are the building process, a key source of environmen-
perhaps among the best known cases. The scale tal damage. The work of connecting the micro-
and the increasingly global and private character processes of building with the scale of the urban
of these investments suggest that citizens, govern- is not developed here, but will be available in the
ments, NGOs, all lack the power to alter these in- larger report. We also focus briefly on the juxta-
vestments patterns. But, as discussed later in this position of geographies of destructuon and the
chapter, there are possibilities for acting on these geographies of accountability they entail –specifi-
deeply damaging economic operations. The geog- cally, the location of the headquarters of some of
raphy of economic globalization is strategic rather the most destructive mining operations; we focus
than all-encompassing and this is especially so on mines, but this is clearly an analysis that can be
when it comes to the managing, coordinating, replicated for many diverse sectors. We argue that
servicing and financing of global economic op- both the building process and these geographies
erations. The fact that it is strategic is significant of accountability are part of the larger politics of
for a discussion about the possibilities of regulat- achieving ecologically sound cities.
ing and governing the global economy. There are
Note: The following slides are excerpts from the Urban
sites in this strategic geography where the density
Age Public Lecture, Global Warming and the Politi-
of economic transactions and top-level manage- cal Economy of Cities. These materials are not meant to
ment functions come together and represent a serve as final conclusions. A further report synthesizing
strategic geography of decision-making. We can the ideas contained in this essay and lecture will be forth-
see this also as a strategic geography for demand- coming.

76
Energy and Environment

Between 1970 and 2004 global greenhouse gas

Regions: share in green house gas emissions
emissions have increased by 70%

source: IPCC source: Sassen and Schröder based on IPCC

All sectors and regions have the potential to

World energy consumption projections
contribute

source: Ed Mazria based on U.S. Energy Information Agency Statistics Center source: IPCC

Many different models,

all predict temperature will rise

1000 1500 2000

source: Sassen and Schröder based on IPCC

77
Buildings: An Environmentally Destructive Force

1996 to 2050 (UK):

20 Million dwellings to be refurbished
10 Million dwellings to be built
The energy consumption of
buildings depends on their
geographical location
(climate), their building
standards, their function and
the behaviour of users

source: Sassen and Schröder based on Environmental Change Institute Oxford

A common energy diagram (UK):

Average energy consumption for service sector buildings (UK)
Does not say anything about buildings

14%
30%

34%
22%

source: Sassen and Schröder based on DTI

source: Sassen and Schröder based on Building Research Establishment

„Mitigation technologies“ recommended by

Bringing in buildings (UK)
IPCC for the building sector
Agriculture
1%
17% currently commercially projected to be
available commercialized before 2030
32%
• efficient lighting and • Integrated intelligent
daylighting meters that provide
• efficient electrical feedback and control
appliances • Solar Photovoltaics
• improved insulation
29 % • passive and active solar
design for heating and
21% cooling

source: Sassen and Schröder based on Building Research Establishment

78
Geographies of Accountability

Network of Global Cities

BHP Billiton

HQ
LONDON

HQ
HOUSTON

HQ
JOHANNESBURG
HQ
MELBOURNE

source: Sassen and Schröder based on BHP Billiton source: Sassen and Schröder

A minor number of TNCs operating from this Network

Rio Tinto account for the majority of global investments

HQ
LONDON

HQ
MELBOURNE

source: Sassen and Schröder based Rio Tinto

source: Sassen and Schröder

79
80
Street Competence: Notes for a Working Definition
Cassim Shepard

Put on your masks; the goodness of cities, while Jane Jacobs’ classic
you are again among your brothers. formulation of “eyes on the street” has become a
– José Rizal in Noli Me Tangere mantra. The usefulness of terms like mixed-use
disintegrates immediately upon introduction
to the Mumbai context, where the proscription
against specific activities – such as hawking or
When observers, Indians and foreigners alike, de- pavement-dwelling – is unenforceable and every
scribe Mumbai with words like “teeming” or “con- space has many uses. Mumbai’s overwhelming
gested” or even “vibrant”, the image they conjure density does not allow for any space to be wasted,
is of the city’s streets. Mumbai’s complexity – its on trains, under bridges, between buildings. Cer-
economic dynamism, its ethno-linguistic and re- tainly, the city’s overcrowding demands informed
ligious diversity, its socio-economic polarity, its intervention, and must not be romanticized. But
crush of humanity – is visible on the street. But nor should the rationale of flyovers, ring roads and
within a zone of seemingly infinite possibilities securitized malls be allowed to seduce Mumbai
of social interaction and co-presence, this com- away from the productive potential of the specific
plexity remains incomprehensible. Obviously, the modes of street competence practiced, both indi-
street in this context is more than a thoroughfare: vidually and collectively, by its residents.
it is a space of transaction, dwelling, eating, work-
ing, gathering and recreation as well as transpor- According to Allan Jacobs, in Great Streets,
tation. And it performs none of these functions ex- “Streets more than anything else are what make
clusively. The same place changes identities many the public realm… If we do right by our streets
times across various periods and geographies of
time. And so must its users. This essay will begin
to interrogate how street-users navigate this com-
plexity.

The competence required of most Mumbaikars

who engage daily the reality of their streets con-
tains valuable insights into how we might chart a
new vision for the city that seeks an alternative to
the spatial segregation of the street’s uses and us-
ers. The attempt to characterize some of the fea-
tures of this competence emerges from a position
that prioritizes learning from the city’s existing
modes of social and spatial organization rather
than imposing external models.

Urbanists in the Western tradition tend to fet-

ishize active streets. The land use designation of
‘mixed-use’ has migrated into popular discourse
as a normative goal in the search for articulating

81
we can in large measure do right by the city as a When King John IV of Portugal gave the seven
whole – and, therefore and most importantly, by islands of Bombay to King Edward of England as
its inhabitants” (96:314). The first person plural in part of his daughter’s dowry in 1661, the islands’
his proposition is the community of designers he population numbered about twenty thousand. In
views as his audience. But the experience of any the early twentieth century, the population within
street is not exclusively a function of its form. To Mumbai’s administrative limits is nearing twen-
be sure, its form enables, enhances and inhibits ty million. Exponential growth is certainly not
certain uses. But the actors who determine and unique to Mumbai, but the combination of its eco-
constantly reorganize the life of the street are its nomic history and physical geography has posed
users. The co-dependence of built form and social particular challenges to the management of this
practice is immanent in the street. And this inex- growth.
tricability ramifies in ways specific to each street
condition, for the street is, in Mumbai as else- At no point in the modern history of the city has
where, an irreducible aspect of the physical design an adequate number of officially recognized jobs or
and the human experience of cities. officially recognized housing units been available
to Mumbai’s residents. For many, the street is the
Octavio Paz, upon landing in Bombay en route only place to do business or to live. Coupled with
to his diplomatic post in Delhi in the late 1950s, an extreme residential density, the resulting con-
records his poetic confrontation with the streets gestion has consistently remained the most cited
of Bombay, with these “streets animated by the urban problem to affect the city. While Mumbai’s
twin fevers of vice and money,” as an undeniable insular and longitudinal physical geography is the
attraction to the concert of stimuli that appears at primary determinant of its spatial development,
first a cacophony, only to eventually reveal its in- the urban morphology does not emerge from
ternal and ineffable rhythmic logic. He reflects on this geography innocently. Rather, it is inscribed
the many hours he has spent walking the streets of within political and economic processes of colo-
Bombay, trying “to make an inventory of all [he] nization and decolonization. Indeed, “Bombay’s
had seen, heard, smelled and felt: dizziness, hor- spatial pattern during the early 20th century was a
ror, stupor, astonishment, joy, enthusiasm, nau- continuation of the basic, Indo-British pattern that
sea, inescapable attraction.” He asks himself what had already been laid out by the late nineteenth
facet of the city’s sensory experience had attracted century” (Jacquemin 1999:79).
him and concludes, “Human kind cannot bear that
much reality. Yes, the excess of reality had become The city’s infrastructure corresponds to its north-
an unreality, but that unreality had turned sud- south axis, and this infrastructure has provided
denly into a balcony from which I peered into – an armature for settlement, both formal and in-
what? Into that which is beyond and still has no formal, over the past two hundred years. The main
name … “ (1995:12; emphasis in text). His gaze is Central Business District has remained firmly in
self-consciously that of an outsider staring, agape, the southern tip of Bombay island, resulting in
at Bombay’s complexity. But his fascination bears south-north commutes along a narrow corridor of
a potent relationship to the meditative proposi- congested roads. For much of the city’s history, the
tion of a more recent chronicler of this city, Suketu port has been responsible for the city’s explosive
Mehta, who concludes, ending his tale among the growth. When the first Industrial Revolution be-
masses of Churchgate Station, that “the crowd is gan in England, Bombay was the closest seaport
the self.” To deal with the extreme condition of ex- to the cotton growing areas of what is now Gu-
periential congestion that the streets of Mumbai jarat. When American cotton production fell to a
present requires negotiating between individual standstill during the American Civil War, Bombay
and collective forms of identity and embodying became the world’s leading cotton exporter and
legible aspects of the city’s history. trading market. And when the Suez Canal was
completed in 1869, Bombay’s seaport became one
of the largest on the Indian Ocean (see Jacquemin
1999; Dossal 1991).

82
83
The rapid urban development of the mid-nine- any more industry into the city. At the national
teenth century, coupled with the formal consoli- level, post-Independence industrial policy took on
dation of a governmental (as opposed to corpo- an autarkic slant (see Sujata and Masselos 2003),
rate) imperial order after the First War of Indian promoting import-substitution manufacturing
Independence in 1857, led to the establishment of capacity instead of relying exclusively on trade.
an elected city council and the Bombay Municipal How that manufacturing capacity should be lo-
Corporation (BMC) in 1873. Even as the Munici- cated was largely left to the state governments to
pal Corporation has grown in the past sixty years determine, but, needless to say, it attracted still
to include the entirety of Bombay and Salsette is- more migrants to the city. The policy discourse of-
lands, its jurisdiction does not cross Thane Creek ten casts Mumbai’s problems as symptoms of rural
to the mainland. Economically, Mumbai has economic hardship more than of perceived urban
grown into a vast city-region that extends across economic opportunity. (Indeed, “the theme that
large swaths of Maharashtra on the mainland to the State is obliged to make all efforts to provide
the north and east. Politically, however, Mumbai work for the rural unemployed is an older one in
remains as much an island city as it was in 1873. Indian economic literature than that of the need
to curb urban growth”) (Harris 1978:49). In other
1873 also marks the year from which overseas words, legislators considered the migrants to have
trade, Bombay’s most important commercial func- been pushed from underdeveloped hinterlands,
tion, became completely controlled by the Bombay not just pulled by Mumbai.
Ports Trust, a largely autonomous and extremely
powerful state entity. The trade-based nature of But immigrants to Mumbai are not exclusively
the city’s economy is the reason that urban-rural jobseekers. In 1947, India’s independence meant its
inequality in this part of India has always been Partition and the birth of Pakistan. Hundreds of
more extreme than in other city-regions. Trade thousands of refugees from what became Pakistan
concentrated all economic prosperity in the city arrived in Mumbai, and the city’s multi-ethnic
itself to the exclusion of developing the hinterland population grew and diversified further. Indeed,
(see Jacquemin 1999). The disparities between eco- many of the city’s immigrants bear the trauma
nomic opportunity in the urban as opposed to ru- of exile, but many others are drawn to this city of
ral areas therefore accelerated rural-urban migra- dreams by social opportunities: Mumbai manages
tion more quickly than in other Indian cities. The to project an emancipatory image. It does this de-
result of constant in-migration bears repeating: spite the severity of the economic hardships that
at no point in Mumbai’s history has a sufficient manifest themselves socially and spatially.
amount of housing been available. The first census
in 1872 states, “The houses of Bombay are really Arguably, overcrowded housing units present a
far too few in number to afford proper accommo- more dangerous symptom of overpopulation than
dation for its inhabitants” (Harris 1978:73). crowded streets. However the problem is defined
though, certain profound crises can remain invisi-
The 1872 census is one of the only times that the ble and absent from the collective image of the city
challenge posed by Mumbai’s rapid growth is ar- while the congestion of the street overwhelms the
ticulated as a service deficit rather than a popu- urban experience and cannot be ignored. And the
lation surplus. Most official literature that seeks a various scales of governance that bring their power
corrective to Mumbai’s primary problem refers to to bear on the street have very few ideas about how
‘too many people’ rather than, say, ‘too few houses’ to treat the street as a social and physical system.
or ‘not enough infrastructure.’ The state-level leg- Perhaps looking at the skill with which Mumba-
islation intended to redress this problem reflects ikars navigate this complex system can provoke
this characterization: if migrants are flooding the new ways to create a vision for Mumbai that builds
city because of an inflated perception of job op- on the specificities of the socio-spatial practices
portunity, then the agglomeration of those oppor- that have evolved from experiencing the city.
tunities in urban areas should be curbed. In other
words, if the city has too many people, don’t let

84
Learning the social code of the street involves more mature adult, whereby “although an adult feels
than inuring oneself to its experiential congestion. no longer wholly the manipulator of the world
The spatial and interpersonal negotiation apparent around him he also feels that that world cannot
in crowded market streets of South Mumbai offers in turn wholly manipulate him. A certain kind
a profound example. In a condition of extreme of self-sufficient aloneness and singleness is born,
density, what enables an individual to feel she will paradoxically, at the moment when a man sees he
be alright? Does this capacity arise from a selec- is not going to be able to be the master of all that
tive admission and rejection of sensory inputs? occurs in his life” (Sennett 1970: 117). While this
Does it come from a sense of assimilation into the self-sufficiency confers power on the individual, it
crowd? Or from the maintenance of one’s identity arises from his awareness of the complexity of the
and related associations to various individuals and social world around him. In the context of street
groups amidst a field of otherness? In other words, life, one of the key practices of this power involves
is it submission to the crowd or mastery over it? reading that complexity.

The first time I visited Bombay, I was six years old. As we have seen, the built environment sediments
My grandmother never let go of my hand. Even and registers historical forms such that it can be
then, I was amazed at her ability to navigate the read as a text, rendering movement through the
city, switching between languages I did not under- city as a mode of experiencing history and illumi-
stand to haggle over prices, issue commands to cab nating socio-spatial relations. In any urban con-
drivers, or ask strangers for directions. She was al- text, a city will provide signs of danger or safety.
ready elderly and frail, but she was more confident Being street-smart requires knowing where you
in the streets of her native city than she ever was can go and where you can’t. Therefore, does street
in the American suburb in which she raised me. competence refer exclusively to familiar spaces or
Forty years after Partition had wrested her from customary times of day? Does feeling comfortable
Bombay and delivered her to Karachi, the energy in an unfamiliar space or time refer to an advanced
she drew relied on more than familiarity or nos- state of the same social skill, or an altogether dif-
talgia. Rather, the skill with which she managed ferent one?
the urban scene gave her power. I will never pos-
sess her knowledge or memories of Bombay, but When I returned to (what was now) Mumbai on
when I walk its streets now I realize that this skill my own as a teenager, I had my chance to walk
arose from neither submission nor mastery, but the streets with no one holding my hand. The pa-
from something in between. The realization that rental injunction to be “street-smart” reverberated
the application of an isolated, individuated logic through my head. In the Indian context, I under-
to the social life of the street is futile is a vital step stood such admonitions to refer to a paranoid (and
towards the ability to navigate its collective logic. overblown) familial fear that my Urdu-inflected
This realization resonates with the seeming con- vocabulary would give away the fact that I was
tradiction of psychological ego-strength in the Muslim or, worse, Pakistani. A simple solution

85
would have been to speak only English, but I had to the universality of wanting to ‘fit in’. This desire
an adolescent impulse to ‘pass.’ This desire was is not unique to outsiders like myself who want to
anything but street-smart. But perhaps it reflects a try to experience from within the porous but dis-
reality of the cultural diversity of Mumbai. What crete world of the city’s infinite pluralism and the
are the signs that Mumbaikars use to know when surprising semblance of its cohesiveness. Assimi-
to speak Marathi or Gujarati or Tamil or Hindi lating into a parallel social order is an old theme in
in the street? Exploring this question in the field Indian literatures – from pre-colonial kings dress-
forces us to problematize the benefits of establish- ing up as their subjects and walking among them
ing a linguistic commonality with a stranger—a to the Anglo-Indian boy-spy of Kipling’s Kim
special favor, perhaps, or a better bargain. Does double-crossing cultures and empires – and refers
acknowledging the parochial tendencies within to a specific social power (much as it does, in An-
a heterogeneous society threaten to reduce street glophone literatures, for Shakespeare’s Henry V or
competence by reifying sameness and difference? the upwardly mobile bootblacks of Horatio Alger).
Or does it celebrate the ways in which Mumbai, But ‘passing’ as someone different than oneself is
as a singular social universe, allows its citizens to a misleading way to characterize this power. For
move between identities as they move through the no one would survive the streets of Mumbai with
city’s spaces and overlapping cultural formations? only one disguise. The poses that make up the
Perhaps allowing oneself to identify with a range city’s choreography of spatial and social negotia-
of spatial and cultural scales – mohalla or galli, tions involve multiple and partial masks that re-
neighborhood, province of origin, mother tongue, veal as much as they hide.
profession, caste, sect, religion, class – is crucial
to the social competencies manifest in Mumbai’s Phrases such as ‘negotiating otherness’ risk collaps-
street life. Indeed, the interstices and multiple cor- ing street competence under this lens of identity.
relations of identity in the Mumbai context is the Another inroad to this complex sociological skill
essence of its particular habitus. is ‘managing proximity’, which introduces the em-
bodied materiality of the city, its visual, physical
While Bourdieu refined his classic formulation of form. Moreover, the metaphor of the mask evokes
the habitus over the course of his career, one of his social estrangement more than complex networks
earliest definitions of the term is the most useful of intimacy. Yet the presumption of a dichotomy
for this discussion, wherein the habitus refers to: between these modes, too, is false. The seminal
urban theorist, Georg Simmel, shows us that self-
A system of lasting, transposable dispositions revelation and self-restraint are qualities equally
which, integrating past experiences, functions vital to all social relationships; they are not as dis-
at every moment as a matrix of perceptions, crete categories exclusively applicable to certain
appreciations, and actions and makes possible categories of relationships and not to others.
the achievement of infinitely diversified tasks,
thanks to analogical transfers of schemes per- Simmel was instrumental in charting a theoretical
mitting the solution of similarly shaped prob- space for urbanism as a legitimate field of study
lems. (1977:95; emphasis in text) (See Frisby 2002). In “The Metropolis and Mental
Life” (1903), Georg Simmel links the mental con-
On the streets of Mumbai, these ‘similarly shaped dition of the urban citizen to a density of diverse
problems’ emerge from having to negotiate other- experiences, juxtaposed. While Simmel’s phenom-
ness constantly. But otherness is too monolithic enology of the urban condition refers to all man-
a word to describe the nonself that confronts the ner of sensory inputs, he articulates his argument
walker, buyer, seller or dweller in her infinite inter- in visual terms. He discusses experience via its
actions on Mumbai’s streets. If the social process visual metonyms, ‘the image’ and ‘the glance’, and
of moving between identities is part of what com- its psychological one, ‘the impression’:
prises street competence, the explanatory power of
the self/other binary is limited. My own nonrep- Man is a differentiating creature. His mind
resentative experiences on Mumbai’s streets attest is stimulated by the difference between a mo-

86
 mentary impression and the one which pre- References
ceded it. [Habitual] impressions use up, so to
speak, less consciousness than does the rapid Dossal, Mariam Imperial Designs and Indian Realities.
The Planning of Bombay City 1845-1875 Delhi: Oxford
crowding of changing images, the sharp dis-
University Press. 1991
continuity in the grasp of a single glance, and
the unexpectedness of onrushing conditions Harris, Nigel Economic Development, Cities and Plan-
ning: the Case of Bombay Mumbai: Oxford Univeristy
which the metropolis creates (Simmel in Miles Press. 1978
et al 2000:12; emphasis added).
Jacobs, Allan Great Streets Cambridge: MIT Press. 1995

Simmel goes on to relate the metropolitan mental Jacobs, Jane The Death and Life of Great American Cities
New York: Vintage Books 1992 [1961]
condition to the pecuniary culture of urban life.
But the risks and opportunities that the capital- Jacquemin, Alain Urban Development and New Towns in
the Third World Aldershot: Ashgate 1999
ist order concentrates in cities continue to mani-
fest themselves, in Simmel’s view, through the Mehta, Suketu Maximum City New York: Alfred A Knopf
2004
juxtaposition of impressions related to different
rhythms of activity, different networks of econom- Patel, Sujata and Masselos, Jim (eds), Bombay and Mum-
bai. The City in Transition London: Oxford University
ic and cultural transaction, and different images
Press. 2003
presenting themselves in unexpected ways.
Paz, Octavio In Light of India New York: Harvest Books
1995
Accommodating the unexpected is as ubiquitous a
feature of urban life in Mumbai as accommodat- Simmel, Georg “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (1950
[1903]) in The City Cultures Reader Malcolm Miles, Iain
ing ‘the other.’ It is part of the competence required Borden, and Tim Hall, Eds. London: Routledge, 2000
of most Mumbaikars who engage the street on a
daily basis. But while unforeseen circumstances
can interrupt the urban rhythm at any point, the
presence and persistence of that rhythm must not
be ignored.

How can observation and analysis of that rhythm

inform a new ethics of street life? Learning from
Mumbai demands the difficult analytical task of
gleaning affirmative practices from a condition of-
ten portrayed as a crisis without romanticizing or
normalizing extreme hardships and difficulties. If
we take, as our point of departure, Suketu Mehta’s
claim “the crowd is the self” then we have more
work to do, as urbanists and city residents, to il-
luminate the ways in which the street is the city.
Identifying the rhythm, the hidden core logic, that
underscores the constant negotiations between in-
dividual and collective forms of identity, between
spatial proximity and social distance or intimacy,
is a productive first step to finding that city. By city,
I mean the aspirational image of a space of prac-
ticed citizenship, a space that can marshal the po-
tential energies of a population to its greater good.
Mumbai is a good place to start to look.

87
88
Spectacle as replacement –
Learning or Unlearning from Asian Olympic cities
Hiromasa Shirai

Spectacles for the city 3. A thing seen or capable of being seen; some-
thing presented to the view, especially, of a
Cities are in competition. In order to attract tour- striking or unusual character; a sight.
ists and investments into their realm, cities are 4. A sight, show, or exhibition of a specified char-
seeking the opportunity to obtain a compelling acter or description.
position on the global stage. This is the common
theme for the city in either developed country Seeing from the above definition of “spectacle”,
or developing country. What kind of compelling the city needs a kind of uniqueness or unusual-
“weapon” the city should have to enter such a glo- ness in order to create spectacular space in urban
bal urban competition is important strategy for space. Uniqueness or unusualness is the impor-
the city. Against this backdrop, creating a cultural tant essence for the city to join the inter-urban
spectacle in the urban space has become an attrac- competition and attract the tourist into the city.
tive tool for cities to promote their positive images Such uniqueness or unusualness can be found in
and attract tourists and investments floating in the city space as a permanent phenomenon, and it
global market. Harvey (1988) describes that “im- is also possible to create such a feature in the city
aging a city through the organisation of spectacu- as a temporary phenomenon. Spectacle at Times
lar urban space by, for example, hosting hallmark Square in New York City or at Piccadilly Circus in
event, is a mechanism for attracting capital and London are created permanently by their unique
people (of the right sort) in a period of inter-urban urban environments on one hand, and other hand
competition and urban entrepreneurialism.”1 hallmark event such as international Expo and the
Olympic Games, is a temporary spectacle created
What is needed for the city to obtain a spectacle? in the city. Today, the uniqueness or unusualness
In order to find the essence of the spectacle for required for the creation of urban spectacle need
the city, let us look at the definition of the word, to be more identical or to be more extreme. This
“spectacle”. It defines the meaning of “spectacle” comes from the current condition in which the
as follows:2 city has to deal with the highly competitive tour-
ism market. As one example of such a severe condi-
1. A specially prepared or arranged display of a tion, the economist, Preuss (2004) refers the city’s
more or less public nature (especially. one on a aspiration of obtaining the uniqueness in order to
large scale), forming an impressive or interest- win the right of hosting the Olympics Games. He
ing show or entertainment for those viewing argues that such a competition forces the bid cities
it. into “the prisoner’s dilemma”.
2. A person or thing exhibited to, or set before,
the public gaze as an object either (a) of curios- “The high competition of bid cities forces them
ity or contempt, or (b) of marvel or admira- to follow all requirements the IOC sets….it
tion. forces the bid cities into so called ‘prisoner’s
dilemma’. That means the cities offer ever
more to the Olympic Movement and increase
their costs without gaining an advanced posi-
1  D. Harvey “ The condition of Postmodernity “, 1989
2  Oxford University press, “Oxford English Dictionary”,
2007

89
 tion due to the fact that all bid cities offer the ceeded to put their names in the destination list
same. “ 3 of world tourists. For example, Barcelona changed
their global position as the tourist destination af-
There is no doubt that creating spectacle in urban ter the Games.
space is the powerful tool for the city to promote
its positive images and attract tourists and invest- Experiences from three Asian Olympic
ments into its realm, but we have to consider its cities, Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing
negative impacts on the city. In particular, creating
spectacle for the global targets, it may cause some There are three Asian cities that hosted or is host-
frictions in the city, that is, the crash between glo- ing the summer Olympic games; Tokyo in 1964,
bal aspiration and local reality. In other words, by Seoul in 1988 and Beijing in 2008. The big differ-
creating spectacle in urban space, we may have to ence between these three Asian cities and other
replace something that has existed in local area for cities is a “maturity of the city”. When they won
long time. the right to stage the Olympics, all of the three
cities under developed their fundamental urban
Many cities in the world have experienced such a structures and there were still slum conditions
discrepancy between global aspiration and local in the city. For theses cities, hosting the Olympic
reality when they have created a kind of spectacle brought the great opportunity to transform to the
towards the global audience or tourists. In partic- modernised city. Therefore, three Olympic cites in
ular, some experiences by the Olympic cities show Asia, Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing invested relatively
such a dilemma clearly. Even though the Olympics high proportion of the money in non-Olympic fa-
is one-off event for the host city, the extreme ex- cilities, compared to the other Olympic cities. (To-
perience of staging the Olympic Games will give kyo spent 97.25%, Seoul spent 63.03% and Beijing
critical suggestions for the city. This will also con- spent 64.73% on non-Olympic related construc-
tribute in considering the critical issue for Mum- tion.
bai to develop its spectacle further to the global
market. What the city should do and what the city
should not do?

Olympic city as a global spectacle city

As widely known, the Olympics have been playing
the important role to create the spectacle in the city
and more and more cities are interested in staging
this world’s biggest sports event. By hosting the
Olympics, the host city can have a opportunity to
promote its positive images to the world viewers
Investment in Olympic construction, Tokyo 1964 to Beijing 2008.
because the city can be exposed largely to the glo- (Source: Liao, H. and A. Pitts (2006))
bal media, not only during the Olympic Games but
also prior to the opening ceremony of the event, At
the same time, the host city also has a risk to ex- As a result of hosting the Olympics, they achieved
pose its negative images to the world. (Sometimes significant urban changes in a short period and
this is more important for the city.) The spectacle succeeded to promote their positive images to
that the host city can create is not only the sports the world. At the same time, the city had to face
spectacles for just 2 weeks. But also the city can serious problems, which I would describe as “the
have a great possibility to enhance its existing ur- crush between the global aspiration and local re-
ban spectacles for longer period. Looking back the ality” by creating urban spectacle. In the follow-
history of the Olympic cities, many cities have suc- ing chapter, I will describe the following aspects of
3  H. Preuss, ”the economic of staging the Olympics”, each Olympic city.
p.290 ,2004

90
1. Replacement of the scale, Tokyo in 1964 the necessary land for the construction of the ex-
2. Controlling (in) visibility of the city, Seoul in pressway and eventually the route of the express-
1988 way was designed not by the planning ideal but the
3. Dismissing the locality, Beijing in 2008 conditions of available lands. (Therefore, curves in
the expressway are so shape and there have been
The above issues are observed in the Olympic cit- many traffic accidents on this expressway.)
ies but I would consider the same issue for broader
discourse on urban spectacle in the global age.

Replacement of scale, Tokyo, 1964

One of the biggest challenges for the city to host
the global hallmark event, such as the Olympic
Games is that the city has to prepare for the enor-
mous scale of urban structures for the mage-event.
The city needs urban structures which can carry
a huge number of athletes, visitors and media at-
tendances. The scale of the global spectacle is so
different from the local needs that most of the city
has to consider how to deal with this scale discrep-
ancy.

When Tokyo won the right to stage the Olym-

pic Games in 1959, 5 years prior to the opening,
there were two significant urban conditions in
the city. One is the city was under reconstruc-
tion after the city infrastructures were completely
destroyed during the World War Two. Another
aspect is that the inherited urban scale in Tokyo
was relatively small urban scales surrounded by
many rivers. The question for Tokyo to prepare ur-
ban structures of the Olympics was how the city
should prepare the infrastructures for the mega-
event and how such a mega scale should be coor- The expressway constructed during the preparation for the Olym-
dinated with existing smaller scale. Constructing pic Games in Tokyo (source: The official report, the Tokyo Olympic
(top), unknown (bottom))
the mega-scale expressway was already planned
before the Olympics. Therefore, regardless staging
the Olympic Games, it had to be built in the city It is true that this newly built expressway contrib-
and the Olympics just pushed forward its comple- uted smooth and massive transportation for the
tion. However, the tragedy for Tokyo was that the Olympics Games operation. Even after the Games
city had only five years to construct this massive was over, the expressway running between the
amount of infrastructures. The time limitation left buildings are the one of the most impressive spec-
the unchangeable consequence(failure) in Tokyo. tacle in the city. However, the beauty of the water
The city simply destroyed the existing urban fab- scape in Tokyo was completely destroyed and hope
ric and built the massive infrastructures on “tab- for co-existing the mega and small urban scale was
ula rasa”. Many rivers were filled with concrete totally ignored. There is one question to be asked
in order to make the foundation for the express- for Tokyo: if Tokyo has enough time to deliberate
way. Otherwise the highway was built just above more appropriate way to co-exist different scale,
the existing rivers. Furthermore, 5 years of time could the city come with up the solutions?
limitation made it extremely difficult to obtain all

91
Controlling (in)visibility of the city, contrary, the city try to avoid express its negative
Seoul, 1988 images to the world. As a result, in the city, there
is a clear categorisation of which area(s) should be
It is not feasible to make all the part of the city visible and should not be visible to the world view-
“spectacular”. It is more effective and rationale ers.
for the city designates certain part(s) of the city
“spectacular” from urban management point of The problem of urban visibility emerged in the
view. Then, each area is designated to show differ- Seoul Olympics in 1988. As a part of urban re-
ent spectacle. In the case of the Olympics, some furbishment, “Conventional sales stands were re-
area are dedicated for the place of sports spectacle, placed with showcases at 92 markets and arcade
where the sports venues are located and other area locations with a high potential for use by foreign
are expected to express other cultural spectacles. shoppers.” 5 They are inherent agents in urban
Rosch (2000) describes that Olympic city creates space but during the Games they are moved out
the condition of “city within a city”. 4 From the ur- of visible public spaces, because they are consid-
ban management side, this seems to be rationale ered as improper figures for the beautification of
and effective strategy in order to define where the the city. Furthermore, for the city, the visibility of
city should invest. However, from local commu- the torch relay and marathon course was a criti-
nity side, it seems to be un-fair because they can- cal agenda for their Imagineering the spectacle.
not feel that they can obtain the equal benefit from The torch relay and marathon creates one of the
these changes. Regarding the unequal geography most enthusiastic spectacles among the Olympic
of spectacularisation, there is quite different opin- Games, huge number of the people in the world
ion between the management and user side in the witness the scene. For the organizing committee
city. Furthermore, the Olympic city, as a spectacle of the Olympic Games, it is ideal that the city’s rep-
city, is highly connected with global media and resentative architecture or landscape creates the
promote its positive images to the world. On the background of the spectacular scene. This is the
4  M.Roche, “Mega-Event and Modernity, Olympics and 5  The Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee, “Official
Expo in the Growth of Global Culutre ”, 2000 Report, Organization and Planning, Volume 1”, 1989

City scape in Seoul (source: unknown)

92
opportunity for the city to advertise its images to Beijing and see its urban transition as well as its
the world viewers with free of charge. However, In historical heritages. Along with the preparation
the case of the Seoul Olympics, there existed slums of the sports venues for the Games, Beijing is re-
and poor housings in the course of torch relay and furbishing its historical part of the city. It is the
marathon course. According to Hill (1992), the action to make the areas more spectacular for for-
city built the wall in order to hide these areas.6 eign tourists but these areas also shows dismissing
This wall was not effective for attendances in the true locality in Beijing. We can see this phenom-
city because the could see it in real space, but it enon in different types of historical area. One is
could work well as the scenery for global viewers the Beijing’s historical palace, the Forbidden City
watching the scene by television. It is the quite and another one is the traditional old residence
modern phenomenon that the urban visibility or area called Hutong.
invisibility is manipulated according to the media
coverage. For the city dwellers, it is quite horrified Forbidden City and Starbucks – the Forbidden
if their physical environment is designed primary City is the one of the most famous world heritage
for the media instead of for real experience of the in the word and is one of the most attractive tour-
city. ist’s destinations in Beijing. This is the place where
tourists can feel true Chinese-ness; Chinese style
Dismissing the locality, Beijing, towards
2008
Creating spectacle needs a kind of locality, which
is something identical or unusual. (This is also true
for the global event, such as the Olympics.) In or-
der to attract global tourists into its realm, the city
needs “something exists only in the place”. If it is
available in anyplace in the world, it cannot trigger
a motivation for tourists to decide their destina-
tion. It can be historical or cutting-edge architec-
ture, landscape, entertainment, foods etc. How-
ever, when such a locality is exposed to the global
tourism market, its locality seems to dismiss grad-
ually. The spectacle in the city is not created for
the city habitants but mainly for the people from
outside the city. They don’t need too-much locality
and they need locality within their capability. This
is quite cynical situation, because it needs strong
locality to be compelling in the global market on
the one hand, the other hand, such as strong local-
ity may be rejected by the global visitors.

Since the Olympics Games has not staged yet at

this time, we don’t know how Beijing will show its
spectacle to the world. However, it is obvious that
winning the right to stage the Olympics in 2008
turned Beijing as a one of the most attractive tour-
ist destinations. As same as previous Olympic cit-
ies, attracting more tourists is one of the important
aspects to stage the Olympics. Even before staging
the Games, more and more visitors are coming to Starbucks in the Forbidden City in Beijing (source, CNN (top)
6  C.R.Hill, “Olympic Politics”, 1992 Nikkei BP (bottom))

93
of architecture, Chinese garden, Chinese shop living space. The tour visiting to Hutong is famous
, Chinese scale etc. The area is highly secured to for tourists and they can get on Riki-shya(tricycle)
protect “Chinese-ness” and there is restricted law and run through streets in Hutong. However, there
to prohibit building any types of architecture in- are the fundamental problems in this tour. First,
side the Forbidden City. Nevertheless, in 2000(this this tour is undertaken in certain area of Hutongs.
is before Beijing won the competition for the 2008 The city has been massively destroyed the Hutong
Olympics), Strarbucks opened in such a sacred areas in order to make the space for large develop-
place. Inevitably opening of Starbucks triggered ment and the city preserved certain Hutong(s) in
huge controversy inside and outside Beijing. Peo- the city, which can be dedicated for the tourist at-
ple have argued about either Beijing should keep traction area. Second, in such selected Hutong(s),
its historical atmosphere or it should increase “the the spaces for tourist route are cleaned and organ-
service” for visitors? This is also the battle between ized well for visitors. That is, true locality is disap-
the globalisation and localisation. The city wants peared and the environment offered to the tour-
to make spectacle out of its local heritage and at- ist is almost a “castrated wildness”. Furthermore,
tract global tourists. However, inevitably, the glo- there is not sense of smell in the area. (In tradi-
bal visitors are comfortable with the global prod- tional Hutong, since residents used public toilets,
ucts. sometimes there is the strong smell in the street)

When Staarbucks opened its shop in the Forbidden Spectacles for Mumbai
City in 2000, it showed its typical billboard outside
the shop(left image) but it was removed quickly In Mumbai, there are several tourists’ destinations
and today there is no such a big gesture(right im- such as colonial heritage, Bollywood site, slums…
age). These local areas can provide certain spectacles for
the tourist and there is a great potential that these
Hutong – Another example of dismissing the local- spectacles will become more spectacular. In par-
ity can be found in the local areas called Hutong. ticular, the colonial heritage area is becoming a fa-
(it means “street” in Chinese.) Hutong is the tra- mous tourist destination and attracting more and
ditional residential area consisted of one story more people from outside city. Then, here again
courtyard houses. The street in Hutong is narrow the questions emerged, how the site can maintain
and forms complicated space like labyrinth. In its locality? True locality doesn’t mean preserv-
this street, people talk, eat, drink and sometimes ing only colonial architecture but also maintain
watch television. For residents, the street works as its surroundings. If only architectural substances
both the public space and the extension of their are preserved and the surrounding changes com-

Hutong area in Beijing (source, “Big Ban Beijing” Shirai&Schmidt (left&right))

94
pletely, is looking at the heritage architecture in such diverse scales in the city are destroyed in or-
the atmosphere that is familiar to the tourist, same der to pave a way to the global spectacular space(s),
experience as looking at archaeological treasures Mumbai will loses one of the most important fea-
in Museum? Why do need to go the city? It is also tures in the city and it is hard to bring back such a
true for slum tours. The slum tours in Mumbai scale. It is easy to replace from small scale to mega-
give the sense of the urban scale and the energy of scale but not other way around.
habitant’s daily life. One could say that this is the
most spectacular experience for tourist in the city The above issues about the spectacle in Mumbai
but if this spectacle becomes much more famous are almost same as what we can see from the ex-
than today and much more tourists join this tour, periences by three Asian Olympic Cities, which is
can it be same as today’s experience in the tour? It the difficulty or failure of co-existing the global
may lose its true locality. aspiration and local reality. Using the Olympic op-
portunity, all of the three cities, Tokyo, Seoul and
Another critical issue about the spectacle is that the Beijing, tried to express the impressive spectacles
city has to consider the relationship between spec- towards global audiences. In this respect, the
tacle space and other space. When the certain area Olympics turned the city into “showcase”. How-
becomes spectacular space, how it can coordinate ever, in the process of creating such a “showcase”,
with other parts of the city? This may trigger un- the city has lost many things and it is difficult to
even economic distribution and create economic bring them back. For these cities, creating “spec-
polarisation and the spectacle become completely tacle” to the global stage and replacing inherited
isolated phenomena physically and psychologically localities were undertaken simultaneously. Tokyo
for the city habitants, because it cannot contribute lost its inherited human scale and mega-scale in-
their life, even It may make their life worse. frastructures has become dominant in the cen-
tre of the city after the Olympics. Whilst making
Furthermore, when Mumbai expand the scale of “spectacle” city, Tokyo has lost the connection
current spectacle in the city or radically bring the with the past in terms of the physical scale. The
hallmark event to the city, to what extend can the experience that Seoul had during the Olympics
city maintain the today’s inherited scale? Will the shows the City elite’s aspiration of what the city
slum disappear from the city? We know that slums should show and should be not (or hidden). This
have various problem in terms of living condi- causes geographical inequality in the city towards
tions, health conditions etc, but it is true that the the spectacularisation. Beijing has been cynical
scale of the slum contributes to the Mumbai as a situations that the city has been losing true local-
collection of the diverse scales in urban spaces. If ity in order to promote the locality to the global

Slums in Mumbai (source BBC)

95
visitors. This can be the common agenda for the
city to create spectacles for their better images and
further development. Then, the city should learn
from the past experiences of other cities. Urban
knowledge should be transferred from the city to
city. Mumbai has opportunity to learn from the
past and to overcome the gap between the global
aspiration and local reality, Furthermore, the new
experience of Mumbai can be the model for the
following cities in the future. I believe that the one
of the mission and advantages of “Urban Age” is
enhance such a transfer of urban knowledge.

96
Why Mumbai’s Slums are Actually Villages
Rahul Srivastava

Mumbai’s history reflects two distinct phases. urban – especially in the realm beyond built-forms
One is the south-oriented story that starts with – this paper restricts its discussions to the physical
the development of the docks by the British in the dimension of urbanism.
seventeenth century. The other is an older, north-
ern-bound story that starts with the Portuguese When the Portuguese empire handed over islands
conquest and domination of the regions around in the southern end of the region to the East In-
Vasai village in the fifteenth and sixteenth centu- dia Company they did not see this cluster of is-
ries. The essay argues that the point of intersection lands as valuable. They were more interested in
of these histories is one that can potentially explain the rich fertile lands of the north that supported
the overwhelming presence of poor, infrastructure their trading activities connecting Daman, Vasai,
deprived habitats - often referred to as slums – that Goa and Calicut. These lands were dotted with vil-
dominate the landscape of the city. lages that went all the way to Mahim and Bandra,
perceived to be the southern borders of the Por-
Mumbai’s slums occupy an unusually large scale tuguese sphere of influence. The social structure
– even when compared to other Indian metropo- of this space was dominated by a combination of
lises, with similar economic and political con- feudal and mercantile practices subsidized by low-
straints. The essay proposes that the scale and caste labour. Large parts of the population were
depth of the phenomenon requires a special in- converted to Christianity, a process that preserved
quiry into its history. The essay does this by focus- the caste divisions by allowing for the emergence
ing on the story of a small habitat – called Kho- of upper caste land-lords and low-caste labour and
tachiwadi - that encapsulates many of the issues artisanal groups.
being debated. Khotachiwadi eventually however,
becomes a springboard to discuss other issues to When the East India Company took charge of the
do with the political economy of built-forms in the southern islands, they forcefully integrated Ban-
city – especially with regard to the dialectic of the dra and Mahim, which they saw as the northern
slum and the village. borders of their territory. As the influence of the
company increased through the development of
It also asserts that a critical examination of the the docks, many groups migrated from the Gu-
category ‘slum’ – and its relationship with the ‘vil- jarat and Maharashtra regions all through the
lage’ – can challenge take-for-granted notions of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Parsee,
urbanism and urban futures for labour-surplus Hindu and Muslim Gujarathi merchants, shop-
countries like India that have old agrarian histo- keepers and businessmen moved in and around
ries. the Fort areas and brought in their urban tradi-
tions of built-forms from their city of origin – Su-
These notions usually render village-like habitats rat - an architectural legacy that is still evident in
as being inappropriate for modern urban spaces. some neighbourhoods of south Mumbai – espe-
These spaces are viewed as having a certain kind of cially Kalbadevi. On the other hand, the low-caste
density that can only be absorbed by the high-rise predominantly labour communities found them-
form, which, in turn, is presented as antithetical to selves being absorbed by the villages that existed,
the village. While critiques of these notions have in what was then perceived to be, the peripheral
the potential of moving into radical ideas of the regions of the north. The lands were mostly owned

97
by Christian landlords or occasionally by a mem- Mumbai was really a cluster of villages that had
ber of the Pathare Prabhu community – an old become outsize settlements. Even today, the larg-
courtly caste that linked its existence to a thir- est slums of Mumbai in that region - Dharavi and
teenth century kingdom nearby. Jari-Mari - reflect this village like legacy with their
land ownership patterns revealing this quite clear-
All through the nineteenth century, poorer mi- ly.
grant groups would pay rents to landlords to set
up hamlets that became their homes. Interesting- However – villages do not simply become slums
ly, richer rural communities, mostly upper caste because of an awkward growth in population. It
Catholics, who happened to be educated and got helps a certain political economy to view them as
skilled jobs in the docks also reproduced similar slums and this is the main argument being made
hamlets – referred to as wadis. These expressed in the essay. The attempt is to understand the
themselves in newer villages like Khotachiwadi – deeper historical basis of slum formation in Mum-
a hamlet of cottages in Girgaum or a similar one in bai and see it as much as a story of habitats and
Matharpakadi at Mazagaon. They looked like the perceptions about habitats, as about the political
older upper-caste landed villages of Bandra, Ma- economy of scarcity of infrastructure.
him, Gorai and Vasai but had actually been built
afresh in the nineteenth century. To explicate this point – I focus on a small village
– called Khotachiwadi in Girgaum.
On the other hand, swampy land around Mahim,
particularly in a village called Dharavi (that was Khotachiwadi is a cluster of about twenty-eight
occupied primarily by Koli fisherfolk) became the small cottages and bungalows built in the late 19th
site for the settling down of untouchable commu- and early 20th centuries in the heart of the city.
nities from different parts of the country. Those Today it is referred to as an urban heritage precinct
regions were seen to be unlivable and peripheral, mainly because of its distinct architectural flour-
from the vantage points of both - the fisher com- ishes linked to an Indo-Portuguese past.
munity that lived by the sea, as well as the city
civic-authorities in the south. Right from the start, the homes represented a di-
verse set of architectural influences – Portuguese
As it turned out, as more low-caste groups arrived villas, Maharastrian coastal cottages, Goan homes
from the countryside, attracted by the mills and and regular cottages and bungalows found in the
the docks, the southern city could provide only region. In its hey-day – the early twentieth century
limited accommodation. Most of the surplus la- – the village boasted of about eighty-eight such in-
bour lived in the villages, outside the perceived dividually owned or leased homes.
city limits.
During the course of my interactions with the vil-
As the southern city kept expanding and as de- lagers, I came across frequent statements by eld-
pendence on agriculture declined in importance, it erly residents mentioning that the wadi used to be
became easier for landlords to make more money referred to as a slum in the early twentieth cen-
by renting or selling out land than through agri- tury. It was called as such by British surveyors who
culture. However, when their lands got integrated were developing a larger urban plan for the city.
into the city they had to give up their control ei- Intrigued by the fact that a village now celebrated
ther to the civic authorities or to slumlords. This for its architectural legacy was once referred to as
process got even more complicated in the post-in- a slum, I continued to explore this observation. In
dependence period with the development of a lo- spite of frequent attempts though, I was unable to
cal electoral process and the growth of new neigh- actually verify this through archival material. The
bourhood leaders. records only mentioned the real name of the vil-
lage, never the underlying assumed category. How-
The landscape that thus formed by the middle of ever, on inquiring with contemporary architects,
the twentieth century in the northern parts of urban planners and government officials, I found

98
most of them agreeing with the residents. Their that wanted to distance it self as much as possible
certainty was based on the awareness that many from any rural memory.
habitats even today tend to be loosely referred to
as slums, though they are historically distinct vil- This necessitated an inquiry into the category slum
lages. Some historical accounts of the city even re- itself and brought me to Mike Davis.
ferred to its native towns (immediately outside the
Fort precinct), as slums. Referring to Khotachiwa- Davis uses a large canvas to talk about the future
di as such was, thus, quite understandable. of housing and the rise of slums at a global level.
His analysis works brilliantly in analyzing the rise
After all, even today, there exist village lands - of inequality in terms of a force-feeding of liberal
called ‘gaothans’ - that are specifically recognized economic policies to developing countries. How-
as distinct non-urban habitats, with separate de- ever, if we accept Davis’s vision of slums as be-
velopment laws. They are treated by developers - ing manifestations of certain kinds of economic
and commonly perceived by neighbouring settle- relations, then we are forced to view slums as an
ments - as slums. integral rural phenomenon as well. After all, just
because the one room huts of landless and poor
According to urban historian Rahul Mehrotra, it peasants are not historically seen as slums, does
was in the fifties that one saw the emergence of the not mean that they have never functioned as such.
simplistic binary - the slum and the multi-storied
building dominating rhetoric of built-form in the By this very fact alone – we move to an observa-
city. It came to represent a discourse that over- tion that seems to contradict Davis’s over all argu-
wrote the diversity that existed in the earlier expe- ment. The planet is not going to be witnessing an
rience of Mumbai’s built-forms and transformed increased presence of slums for the first time in its
the perceptions of the future of the city through the history at all. It is simply re-arranging resources to
aspiration of being a high-rise oriented city. This suit an economy that is now openly acknowledg-
aspiration eventually started a process that aimed ing the fact that the indicators of development are
at erasing all ambiguous habitats, especially those almost singularly indicators of a certain kind of
that embodied the ethnic elements of built-forms urban growth. It is not just that the poor migrants
found in the erstwhile “native city” – but more so are moving to cities and creating slums – they are
those structures that seemed rural and therefore also bringing in their histories. Slums from rural
inappropriate . Thus till the heritage movement in areas are being transplanted in urban contexts.
the city really firmed itself up as some kind of a Conversely, urban contexts are treating the ur-
force to reckon with in the 1980’s - much of the old ban poor exactly in the way older feudal agrarian
city (that was not protected by the old Rent Act) economies treated their rural poor.
was destroyed on the grounds that it was part of a
back-ward looking colonial experience. However, as Jan Breman in his review of Davis
points out, modern slums are emerging in villages
Places like Khotachiwadi were seen to be anach- as well and are being referred to as such – mak-
ronistic, since they were villages. While most “na- ing the process of urbanization in countries such
tive” spaces were distinctly urban buildings, this as India more complicated. In fact, it is becoming
particular habitat’s resonances of being “rural” particularly difficult to distinguish slums from
created further trouble for it. The colonial “na- villages in many parts of the peri-urban areas of
tive” city had quite comfortably absorbed the rural the country.
memories that its migrants had brought in. These
memories had provided the quaint architectural And if one adds to this explanation the special
flourishes of habitats like Khotachiwadi. However, case of Mumbai, then slums are not only a ques-
in the long run these very flourishes and charac- tion of developing a critique of the economic poli-
teristics made these hamlets seem inconsistent cies that the world is choosing for itself – but also
with the ideals of a modern “urban” present - one, about the way the idea of the city functions in this
process. Many studies demonstrate how the city

99
produces more pockets of urban poverty by con- In Mumbai – the earlier colonial mode of monop-
verting its land-use patterns into real-estate devel- olistic land use was substituted, in independent
opment zones that push the poor to its peripher- India, by an enormously corrupt administration
ies. These real-estate development zones subscribe that protected large land-holdings and worked in
to a certain kind of appropriate built-form – the tandem with corrupt builders. What it used to jus-
high-rise – to validate its imposition. In cities like tify this state of affairs was the argument that land
Mumbai – this form itself helps in escalating costs in Mumbai was scarce and people too many. Be-
and pushes the poor further into infra-structure sides, the image of the city as a modern city meant
deprived regions. funneling all resources to the production of appro-
priate habitats.
As Linda Clarke and David Harvey demonstrate
– capitalism has always operated best within the This process was recently evident most clearly,
context of the city. It has not only responded to the when the city’s industrial history got re-written.
rise of the modern city after industrialization but Old defunct mills, with acres and acres of land in
has actively propagated it as the most appropri- them were released into the market even as hous-
ate human habitat for modern living. Besides, this ing activists cried themselves hoarse saying that
propagation has a material basis – a certain in- a proportion of the land be used for housing the
dustry – the construction industry – that benefits poor. Not only did the authorities not respond to
most from this process and is constantly looking the demand, even the use of land for open space
for new land and new ways of appropriating old and parks was rejected. Old chawls in the area
modes of land use. were then rapidly pulled down to make for shop-
ping malls and high-rise apartment blocks.
The construction industry, along with its baggage
of architects, engineers and urban planners, have a However, what is to be noted is that this process
historical advantage in as much as they have been and this choice is not new. It continues an older
perceived as playing an ideologically neutral role story. The gaze of the British surveyors in the ear-
in the process of economic transformations. For ly twentieth century and their categorization of
long, we were under the impression that they serv- Khotachiwadi as a slum was part of the very same
ice a foregone economic choice – the logic that in- process. The native town even then was constantly
dustrialization follows urbanization – but as Davis being shifted and moved around to make way for
himself demonstrates, they may also lead the proc- imperial projects.
ess. While doing so they evoke ideological justi-
fications, like all economic interests and use the If one looks at the story of slums across the world
notion of the city – a specific kind of city - as their one is struck by the relativity of the term. In one
ideological anchor. They transform the city from a context it appears as impoverished living in the
site where different ideologies play themselves out most basic sense – without water and toilets – while
to becoming an ideology itself. in another it could denote a full fledged – middle
class housing complex that is a slum only in rela-
While theoretically, the high-rise apartment block tion to the larger story in which it is embedded.
has been used in Mumbai as a possible solution
to the city’s problems of density – in reality it has If one builds on this cross-cultural understand-
only produced more slums. This happens because ing of slums and locates that one common variable
the high-rise apartment block comes hand in hand that cuts across contexts – I suspect the variable
with increased costs of building and a new econ- will be this; the slum is simply an inappropriate
omy of land – use, one that depends significantly habitat in contrast to the larger aspiration of the
on wider roads, more car-parking space and in the economy in which it is embedded.
final order of things, fewer people occupying per
square feet. One is not de-contextualizing the impoverished
slum from the story at all. The fact of the matter is,
that the impoverished and the inappropriate habi-

100
tat are collapsed into one for the overall push in a Interestingly, the poor in Mumbai still follow a
specific direction – the one that the construction similar pattern of building habitats. They find cost
industry aspires for itself. effective ways of building them and allow for a di-
versity of skills to converge into the act if build-
It is this idealized notion of the high-rise city that ing. What causes them to become slums is that the
is used by builders and urban planners in cities land on which they reside is part of a competitive
like Mumbai to push forth a land-use pattern that market. This renders their built-forms illegal and
produces more slums. squeezes them into a zone of non-citizenship that
traps them further in a spiral of oppression. Al-
While so far, the city’s poor have responded to the most all their income is eaten up by this status and
crisis by highlighting their impoverishment - a they become victims of the informal apparatus of
move that is picked up by Davis to indicate that the state, which exploits their position and earns
the problem lies mainly in questions of economic massive illegal revenues from these transactions.
transformation. However, the issue of homeless- Creating a context where their growth and the
ness and slums also needs to address issues of in- threat of their annihilation is a constant presence.
appropriate habitats as well.
This story is well known in Mumbai. However even
This can use some well-worked out arguments as this knowledge fuels an activist zeal amongst
such as those by Charles Correa in his work ‘The everyone – the non-corrupt dimension of the state,
New Landscape’ as mentioned earlier. Accord- voluntary groups and the media - it often trans-
ing to Correa, the high-density low-rise form that lates itself into a desire to build homes for the poor
much of Mumbai historically demonstrated is in the mirror image of the construction industry.
widespread in urban areas not only in India but Through planners, builders, engineers and archi-
also much of Asia. In concrete terms, it is the re- tects. The mathematics is worked out to allow for a
linquishing of this habitat ideal – in favour of the particular kind of built-form to dominate the city’s
high-rise apartment complex - that benefits the landscape – most certainly vertical and definitely
builder and urban planner lobby the most and out of the control of the dwellers. Almost immedi-
contributes to the increasing presence of slums all ately, the question of costs rises and pushes for an
around the world. acceptable compromise that lets in builders who
build for profit into the scene and allow them to
According to Correa, in the Mumbai of the late subsidize the homes of the poor. The homes for the
19th and early 20th centuries, the relationship of poor become shadowy and shaky versions of the
dwellers to architects, builders and living space real thing - built in the image of the modern city
was extremely different. Dwellers had more con- – but not only are they never numerically enough
trol over the process of building homes and mem- to absorb the impoverished millions, there is no
ories about building skills played a vital role in the guarantee that they will outlive even one genera-
development of these spaces. Villages, clusters of tion of the intended inhabitants.
small buildings, colonies of bungalows got build
through these negotiations. Even though major ar- The ineffectiveness of this method is getting more
chitectural and engineering companies shaped the and more clear as slums continue to dominate the
docks, government offices and public buildings landscape and vast tracts of precious (hitherto not
– the inhabitants in most of the native city had a even available land) get utilized to create massive
greater say in building their own homes. In many apartments for the rich. Defying all logical of use
cases, and definitely until the early twentieth cen- of space, Mumbai sees more tall buildings appear-
tury, much of the native spaces were surprisingly ing with lesser people utilizing the floor space in-
‘rural’. Orchards and paddy fields accompanied dex. Where verticality is supposed to absorb more
the docks and industries as backdrops for a newly populations, one finds that space is manipulated
emerging city. to produce habitats for the rich and of course these
approximate the ideal rich habitats that one finds
all over the world – with swimming pools, enor-

101
mous personal spaces, multi-storied car-parks and References
lush gardens. However, in poorer economies like
India, their horizons are always darkened by the Bhatt, Vikram and Rybonzynski, W. ‘How The Other Half
Builds. Center for Minimum Cost Housing’ McGill Uni-
presence of the poor and their shabby habitats.
versity, Montreal, 1984.

In conclusion, I would like to evoke the work of an- Breman Jan, ‘Slumlands’ New Left Review, 40, July-Au-
gust 2006.
thropologist Anthony Leeds. Leeds understanding
lends itself to a powerful anthropology of habitats Clarke Linda, ‘Building Capitalism: Historical Change
and the Labour Process in the Production of the Built En-
and helps us to strengthen some of the questions vironment’ Routledge, London 1992
that the paper asks.
Correa Charles, ‘The New Landscape - Urbanisation in the
Third World’ London, Butterworth Architecture, 1989.
According to Leeds, we cannot view urban and
Davis, Mike, ‘Planet of Slums’ New Left Review, 26,
rural spaces solely in terms of their geographi- March-April 2004.
cal and occupational distinctions. He points out
Davis, Mike, ‘Ecology of Fear, Los Angeles and the Imagi-
that all through human history even though most
nation of Disaster’ Vintage, 1999.
people have lived in rural habitats these habitats
Dwivedi Sharada and Rahul Mehrotra, ‘Mumbai – The
have been shaped and ruled directly or indirectly
Cities Within’ India Book House, 1995.
by the relatively smaller populated urban cent-
ers. Agricultural practices have often evolved to Echanove Sendoa Matias and Srivastava Rahul: Master-
cities and Defiant Villages: Notes from Tokyo, Mumbai
produce certain kinds of grains for taxation and and Goa. (Forthcoming, PARMAL, 2007)
farming systems have been linked – through feu-
Echanove Sendoa Matias: Towards an Architecture of
dal structures – to important urban centers. Thus, Participation: Activating Collective Intelligence in Urban
the world had been urbanized for a very long time Systems. Prepared for the NATIW OpenWeb 2.0 Seminar,
(even though most people did not physically live in Geneva, April 20, 2007
cities) and the industrial revolution only marked a Government of India (GOI), National Housing Policy.
quantitative shift of populations into urban spaces. New Delhi: Ministry of Urban Development, 1988.
Most importantly, the narratives accompanying Government of Maharashtra (GOM), Guidelines for Im-
modernity, progress and urbanization have been plementation of Slum Rehabilitation Schemesin Greater
used and re-used in different ways. The ideology Mumbai. Mumbai: Slum Rehabilitation Authority, Hous-
ing and Special Assistance Department, 1997.
of urbanism as presented above is very much part
of this narrative and needs to be analytically iso- Hart Keith, ‘Studying World Society as a Vocation’ Gold-
lated. smiths Anthropology Research Papers No. 9, Goldsmiths
College, London, 2003.

Especially in contexts such as India, with its long Harvey David, ‘Spaces of Capital, Towards a Critical Ge-
ography’ Edinburgh University Press, 2001
history of (urbanized) rural habitats. One needs to
reflect upon the remarkable similarities between Leeds, Anthony, Sanjek, Roger, eds. ‘Cities, Classes and
the Social Order’ Cornell University Press, 1994.
urban slums in Mumbai and the rural habitats its
inhabitants have left behind. One needs to re-think Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority
(MMRDA), Draft Regional Plan for Bombay Metropoli-
what cities ought to look like in a world, which is
tan Region 1991-2011. Mumbai: MMRDA, 1995.
becoming increasingly unequal, maybe because
Patel Shirish, ‘Slums mean failed Housing’ Mumbai News-
it refuses to do so. One needs to reflect upon the
line, Indian Express, Thursday, 6 January, 2005.
anachronistic urban village of Khotachiwadi and
one needs to re-think the way in which cities cre- Rao Vyjayanthi, Joshi Pankaj and Srivastava Rahul (1994),
“Heritage, Habitats and Diversity”, A report for UNESCO
ate hardened aspirations for themselves and render (to be published)
inappropriate habitats into ideological wastelands
Sharma Kalpana, ‘Rediscovering Dharavi, Stories from
– that we call slums. India’s Largest Slum’ Penguin, Delhi, 2000.
Srivastava Rahul, ‘Digitizing the Sociological Imagina-
tion’ in Rajan Nalini (ed), Culture and The New Digital
Technologies’ Routledge, (forthcoming)

102
Srivastava Rahul, ‘The World Next Door’ journal Human-
scape, August 2002.
Srivastava Rahul, ‘Heritage Angst’ PARMAL – The An-
nual Journal of the Goa Heritage Action Group, 2006.
Tindall Gillian, City of Gold, Penguin Books, 1992.
United Nation Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS).
The Istanbul Declaration and Habitat II Agenda. Istanbul:
Habitat, 1996.
United Nation Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS).
Cities in the Globalizing World. Nairobi, Habitat, 2001.

103
Appendix
List of Reader Materials

29 May 30 May
Background and Opening Discussions Street Life
• City-building in an age of global urban • People in the Physical Environment: The
transformation (Richard Burdett with Miguel Urban Ecology of Streets (Stanford Anderson)
Kanai) • The Generic Street as a Continuous Built
• The 21st Century: Asia Becomes Urban Form (Kenneth Frampton)
(Rakesh Mohan and Shubhagato Dasgupta) • Street Form and Use: A Survey of Principal
• Vision Mumbai: Transforming Mumbai American Street Environments (Victor
into a world-class city (A Bombay First – Caliandro)
McKinsey Report) • Street Hawkers and Public Space in Mumbai
• Transforming Mumbai into a World-Class (Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria)
City (Government of Maharashtra) • National Policy for Street Vendors (Sharit K
• Vision 2031 (Mumbai Times) Bhowmik)
• Letter to Shri Manmohan Singh, the Prime • Living Environment and Health of Urban
Minister of India (Pankaj Joshi and Rahul Poor: A Study in Mumbai (Sunil Kumar
Mehrotra) Karn, Shigeo Shikura and Hideki Harada)
• Learning from Mumbai (Rahul Mehrotra) • Consumption and Urban India: The Poor are
• PUKAR: A compilation of articles by Rahul only Peeping Toms (Arvind Rajagopal)
Srivastava published in the Mumbai Mirror • Scavengers: Mumbai’s Neglected Workers (P
(Rahul Srivastava) S Vivek)
• India’s Democratic Challenge (Ashutosh • Making Markets Work for the Poor: The
Varshney) Small Investors’ Fund (Sundar Burra and
• Dharavi: Mumbai’s Shadow City (Mark Devika Mahadevan)
Jacobson)
• The strange allure of the slums (The
Economist)
• A cul-de-sac of poverty (The Economist)
• Failures at the top (The Economist)
• The Bomb, Biography and the Indian Middle
Class (Sankaran Krishna)
• Tracing a Timeline for Work and Family
Research in India (Ujvala Rajadhyaksha and
Swati Smita)

I
31 May 1 June
Spatial Analysis of Urban Governance Urban and Social Integration
• The Structure of Local Government in • Inclusive mega-cities in globalising Asia
Mumbai (Eli S. Rosenbaum) (Darshini Mahadevia)
• Budget Estimates for the year 2006-2007 • Globalising at Any Cost (Darshini
(Brihanmumbai Mahanagarpalika) Mahadevia)
• Decentering Decentralization (Jerry Frug, • Cartographic identities: geographical
from City Making) knowledges under globalization (David
• Seeing like a city: urban governance and Harvey, from Spaces of Capital)
change (Fran Tonkiss) • The New Urban Economy (Saskia Sassen,
• Deep Democracy: urban governmentality and from Cities in a global economy)
the horizon of politics (Arjun Appadurai) • Shifting Cities: Urban Restructuring in
• Bulldozing Rights (Indian People’s Tribunal Mumbai (Swapna Banerjee-Guha)
on Environment and Human Rights) • Urban Renewal: At Whose Cost? (Medha
• Towards a pro-poor framework for slum Patkar, Simpreet Singh)
upgrading in Mumbai, India (Sundar Burra) • My City, Mumbai (Shirin Bharucha and
• Supreme Court Judgement December 9, 2003 Nayana Kathpalia)
(Mumbai Reader) • Johannesburg: Republic of South Africa
• Mumbai Land, Housing Anarchy (Economic (Lindsay Bremner)
and Political Weekly) • Fortress L.A. (Mike Davis)
• Autoconstruction in Working-Class Brazil
(James Holston)
• Plans, habitation and slum redevelopment:
The production of community in Dharavi,
Mumbai (Roma Chatterji)
• Slumming it: Mike Davis’s grand narrative of
urban revolution (David Cunningham)
• Globalisation and the Management of Indian
Cities (Nigel Harris)
• Old Classes and New Spaces: Urban Poverty,
Unorganised Labour and New Unions
(Supriya Roy Chowdhary)
• Housing Policies for Mumbai (Shirish B Patel)
• Cities, Slums and Government (R N Sharma
and K Sita)
• Regional Distribution of Infrastructure
and Basic Amenities in Urban India: Issues
Concerning Empowerment of Local Bodies
(Amitabh Kundu, Soumen Bagchi and
Debolina Kundu)

II
4 June 5 June
Contested Spaces: Religion, Ethnicity Accessibility and Mobility
and Gender
• Commuting in Mumbai, 2008: Room for
• The Origins of the Modern Ghetto (Richard Optimism (Sudhir Badami and Smruti
Sennett) Koppikar)
• Secularism and Its Discontents (Amartya Sen, • City Transport in India: Impending Disaster
from The Argumentative Indian) (Siddhartha Mitra)
• The Indian Identity (Amartya Sen, from The • A Time for Change (Urban Task Force)
Argumentative Indian) • Making the Connections (Urban Task Force)
• Loathe They Neighbour: The bloody • Community-designed, built and managed
consequences of India’s Hindu-Muslim divide toilet blocks in Indian cities (Sundar Burra,
(Jo Johnson, from FT Magazine) Sheela Patel and Thomas Kerr)
• Counterfactual Cases: India and Indonesia • Place making in the context of urban daily
(Michael Mann, from The Dark Side of mobility practices: actualising time-space
Democracy) mapping as a useful methodological tool
• Gendering Everyday Spaces (from Space, (Paola Jirón)
Gender, Knowledge) excerpts include:
‘Housing and American Life’ by Delores
Hayden
‘Into the Labyrinth’ by Elizabeth Wilson
‘(Hetero)Sexing Space: Lesbian Perceptions
and Experiences of Everyday Spaces’ by Gill
Valentine
‘Femininity, Post-Fordism and the “New
Traditionalism”’ by D. A. Leslie
• Marriage, Family and Community: A
Feminist Dialogue (compiled by Chayanika
Shah) excerpts include:
‘Rveolutionising the Family’ by Rohini
Hensman
‘Feminist Perspectives on Family and
Marriage: A Historical View’ by Mary E John
‘Sexuality and the Family Form’ by Anupama
Rao
‘Querying Marriage and Family’ by Rinchin
‘You Can Be Lonely in a Crowd’: The
Production of Safety in Mumbai (Shilpa
Phadke)
Beyond Public Spaces and Private Spheres:
Gender, family, and working-class politics in
India (Leela Fernandes)
Negotiating the Mohalla: Exclusion, Identity
and Muslim Women in Mumbai (Sameera
Khan)
Dangerous Liaisons (Shilpa Phadke)
The Way She Moves (Shilpa Ranade)
Gendering the Culture of Building: Case of
Mumbai (Neera Adarkar)

III
6 June 7 June
Typologies and the Permeability of 3D Cultural Industries
Forms
• Distilleries of Pleasure (excerpts from
• The Urban Turn (Ricky Burdett) Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by
• The Architecture of the City (Aldo Rossi) Suketu Mehta)
• What even Happened to Urbanism (Rem • Provincializing the Global City: From
Koolhaas) Bombay to Mumbai (Rashmi Varma)
• Density and Urban Neighbourhoods in • The New India: Two Bombay Portraits
London: Extracts (Enterprise LSE) (William Dalrymple)
• Mumbai’s Eastern Waterfront and The • Welcome to Mumbai (Baba Sehgal)
Necessity of Evoking Social Histories (Rahul • Cable communications in Mumbai:
Srivastava) integrating corporate interests with local
• A Study of the Eastern Waterfront of Mumbai media networks (Veena Naregal)
(Rahul Mehrotra, Anirudh Paul and Pankaj • Women in Call Centres (Preeti Singh and
Joshi) Anu Pandey)
• The city as extracurricular space: re- • Part Three: Assemblages of a Global Digital
instituting urban pedagogy in South Asia Age (Saskia Sassen, from Territory, Authority,
(Anirudh Paul, Prasad Shetty and Shekhar Rights)
Krishnan) • Disjuncture and Difference in the Global
Cultural Economy (Arjun Appadurai)
• Photourbanism: Planning the City from
Above and from Below (Anthony Vidler)
• The art of rent: globalization and the
commodification of culture (David Harvey,
from Spaces of Capital)
• Excerpts from The Cultural Economy of
Cities by Allan Scott:
• The Mainsprings of Urban Economic
Performance
• The Creative Field and the Logic of
Innovation in Image Producing Complexes
• French Cinema 1: Structure, Economic
Performance, and Social Regulation
• French Cinema 2: Place, Cultural Geography,
and Competitive Advantage
• The Recorded Music Industry in the United
States

IV
8 June
Global Environmental Crisis
• Editorial: Reducing risks to cities from
disasters and climate change (Saleemul
Huq, Sari Kovats, Hannah Reid and David
Satterthwaite)
• The rising tide: assessing the risks of
climate change and human settlements
in low elevation coastal zones (Gordon
McGranahan, Deborah Balk and Bridget
Anderson)
• The vulnerability of global cities to climate
hazards (Alex de Sherbinin, Andrew Schiller
and Alex Pulsipher)
• Mumbai and the Global History of Urban
Disasters (Shekhar Krishnan)
• Mismanaging Floods (C N Ray)
• Mumbai Floods: Would decentralisation have
made a difference? (Vidyadhar K Phatak and
Shirish B Patel)
• Our needs, our priorities; women and men
from the slums in Mumbai and Pune talk
about their needs for water and sanitation
(Meera Bapat and Indu Agarwal)
• Executive Summary of the Stern Report on
Climate Change (Nicholas Stern)
• Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science
Basis Summary for Policymakers (IPCC)
• Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation
and Vulnerability (IPCC)
• Climate Change: Reduce global warming
emissions by more than 30% (A Greener,
Greater new York, PlaNYC)

V
VI
Study of Housing Typologies in Mumbai
CRIT May 2007

As any other urban area with a dense history, have several variations and could be interestingly
Mumbai has several kinds of house types devel- designed /interpreted / transformed by architects.
oped over various stages of its history. However,
unlike in the case of many other cities all over The focus of this study is on documenting and de-
the world, each one of its residences is invariably scribing the various house types found in Mumbai
occupied by the city dwellers of this metropolis. with discussions regarding their respective cul-
Nothing is wasted or abandoned as old, unfitting, tural contexts, evolution of form, policies under
or dilapidated in this colossal economy. The hous- which they took shape, delivery systems used to
ing condition of today’s Mumbai can be discussed generate them, agencies involved, financial mech-
through its various kinds of housing types, which anisms, uses and occupations, tenure patterns,
form a bulk of the city’s lived spaces. transformations, etc. It is neither a comprehensive
history of housing in the city nor a study of hous-
This study is intended towards making a compi- ing conditions, but instead a study of house types.
lation of house types in (and wherever relevant; The compilation however would be valuable for
around) Mumbai. House Type here means a ge- undertaking a historical study or describing the
neric representative form that helps in conceptu- present housing condition.
alising all the houses that such a form represents.
It is not a specific design executed by any impor- Research Team: Prasad Shetty, Rupali Gupte,
tant architect, which would be a-typical or unique. Ritesh Patil, Aparna Parikh, Neha Sabnis, Benita
It is a form that is generated in a specific cultural Menezes
epoch/condition. This generic ‘type’ can further

Gorai Site and Services Areas

Shayadri MAHDA Colony

DN Nagar MAHDA Colony

Reserve Bank of India Colony

Housing Projects in Navi Mumbai

Sahakar Nagar MAHDA Colony

Mumbai Port Trust Colony

Korba Mithaghar Slums
BDD Chawls Area
Parel Mil Land Area

Girgaon (Inner City Area)

Null Bazaar (Market Area)

VII
Wadis from the Mercantile Economy
Several trade settlements came up in in artisans of the regions they came from and the in-
northern parts of Mumbai, which had formed fluence is seen primarily in the intricately carved
important points in the trade routes connecting building skins. A building within a wadi consists
the hinterlands to the outside world. The of single room tenements with common corridors
colonial governments later capitalised on the and shared toilets. These corridors generally over-
natural harbour in the south of the city, which looked a street or an open space. These buildings
subsequently gave rise to trade-based settlements are generally two to four storied.
in the adjoining lands. Incentives were given to
Indian traders to act as middlemen in the trade.
Initially it was common practice for traders to
Several communities like the Parsis, the Bohras,
have shops in the ground floor and houses above.
and the Banias came to Bombay and began to
settle outside the fort walls in south. This came The buildings in the interiors would be purely
to be known as the native town, morphologically residential. Usually traders of the shops stayed
distinctly different from the low density fabric in the residences behind. Later years saw an exo-
inside the fort. These settlements have till date dus of large sections of the affluent trading com-
worked as large wholesale market areas for the munity to other parts of the city. These premises
city trading in all commodities passing through were then rented out for residential or commercial
the harbour. use. In many cases traders who moved out main-
tained their shops. In other cases the houses were
Earlier these lands were predominantly agrarian sub-let to either the trade labour or to small en-
with large plots. These lands specialised in pro- terprises. Commercial use slowly percolated from
ducing certain agrarian products and came to be the ground storey to the floors above with people
known after the product produced there or after finding tactical ways to use the premises as work
the name of the family that lived on that land. For places.
example the name Fanas Wadi came from fanas,
which means jackfruit or the name Vaidya Wadi
comes from Vaidya which is the surname of a
physician. When the economy of the city started
changing from being agrarian to mercantile, the
agrarian plots were hurriedly changed to accom-
modate the trading community. Land was de-
veloped either by the original owner or by a new
owner from the trading community. Buildings
were built in these plots to house the migrant trad-
ers and the trade labourers. Lower floors of these
buildings were made into shops. The old names
of the places still remain. The Wadis became the
predominant type. A wadi is originally a piece of
land. But in later developments the suffix wadi is
assigned to an area with a group of buildings oc-
cupied by several households and with a single
owner, who collects rent. Thus mass scale rented
houses came into existence in Mumbai during the
18th and 19th centuries. The urban fabric of these
settlements is densely structured. It is character-
ised by small nodes and open spaces with build-
ings around them. The fabric is essentially mixed
use with shops on the ground story and residences
above. The ‘native’ settlers brought with them the

VIII
IX
House from a Market in the Mercantile Economy
The southern part of Mumbai was developed as the
colonial fort where the British lived. Immediately
outside the fort, grew the large native town. The
native town developed into a large market place
with entire streets operating as guilds, specialis-
ing in various commodities. Even today there are
several streets that specialise in single commodi-
ties. There are streets that only have textile traders
or only jewellers, or glass traders. There is also a
street that sells stolen goods called chor bazaar.

Here the densities of people and intensity of activi-

ties is extremely high. In case of Null Bazaar, thin
types evolved that are three meters wide and twen-
ty meters deep. This was to maximise the number
of shop fronts. Houses were located on the rear of
the buildings away from the road and on higher
floors. These buildings are generally two to four
storied. The traders often had shops in the ground
floor and houses above. Later one of these used to
be rented and the trader moved on to either work
or live somewhere else.

Today these areas have twin problems – of highly

dilapidated buildings and over burdened infra-
structure. Even then, the place commands very
high real estate price. On account of such demands
we see several of these older typologies being de-
molished and tall towers coming up in their places.
While these new types promise luxurious internal
spaces, the questions on overburdened infrastruc-
ture remains unanswered.

X
XI
Chawls built by private Enterprise
Mid nineteen century saw the process of indus- The chawl can be described as a typology compris-
trialisation move to Bombay, with the first spin- ing of several single units of a multipurpose space
ning mill being set up in 1856. A cotton boom fol- with a kitchen facility and a wash area (mori), all
lowed as a result of the American Civil War and strung along one common access corridor also
discontinuation of textile supply from America leading in to the shared toilet. This typology is
to Europe. Many more mills were set up during known for housing densities as high as 3000 per-
this time. Large capital was poured into the in- sons/ha. The urban character of these areas gets
dustrialization process. In 1873 the Bombay Port defined by the corridors flanking the streets.
Trust was established. New industries like tram- Most chawls on the busy streets have shops on
way and railway workshops, ship building, dyes the ground floor. Some times the types also have
and chemicals and oil and paper mills were set up. a courtyard in the center with tenements strung
Some of the rich and influential traders shifted to around this courtyard. The building construction
owning mills. This created huge job opportunities is generally load bearing type with wooden frames
and brought a steady stream of migrants especially and pitched roofs. Some later chawls were also
from drought affected interior regions of Mahar- constructed with reinforced concrete frames. The
ashtra to the city. Demand for affordable housing corridors become significant for not only climatic
stock followed. Private landlords provided a fair reasons but also cultural reasons, when rooms in-
share of housing stock to the city. Housing for side are small and time is spent outdoors most of
these migrants were developed by private entre- the time. The shared spaces, high densities and a
preneurs who bought agricultural lands around common class helped the area develop a culture
the mills and constructed buildings of one room that would later on fight vehemently for its land
tenements with common toilets and corridor. This and work.
type of housing is called the Chawl. The central ar-
eas of the city today are densely packed with these
chawls that were developed on all available lands.
Open spaces were mostly found inside the cotton
textile mills.

The precedents of a chawl could be seen in the

army barracks or even in the wadis of the inner
city. But these were made for the male migrant
labourers of the industries who lived in the city
for eight months and went to their villages during
the monsoons for agricultural cultivation. Earlier,
each tenement of 8 to 15 sqmts was shared between
4-5 labourers. Later on, the labourers, entangled in
debt traps sold their ancestral lands and brought
their families to the city. Families also came to the
city to get better opportunities for their children.
The tenements of the chawl came to be later inhab-
ited by families rather than individual migrants. It
is now usual to find such a single tenement hous-
ing a complete joint family of more than 6 people
living in a single room of 10 sqmts and around
30 such households sharing 3 water closets and 3
bathrooms.

XII
XIII
Chawls built by Government Agencies
The Bombay Improvement Trust (BIT) was set up
in the late 19th Century to address the problems
of over crowding, dilapidation and infrastructure.
BIT also made new plans for several parts in the
city for new housing development. Several chawls
were constructed by the BIT to house the burgeon-
ing labour groups. Similarly the Bombay Develop-
ment Department and other government agencies
like the Bombay Port Trust and the Railways also
constructed several chawls in the city.

While the basic type of single room tenements

strung along a common corridor with shared toi-
lets remained similar to the privately developed
chawls; the chawls built by the Public agencies en-
sured a master plan for them with adequate open
spaces around them. Spaces between chawls that
remained neglected in the privately developed
ones became important community open spaces
in the chawls developed by public agencies. While
in the privately developed types, internal court-
yards were common, in the publicly built chawls,
one rarely found internal courts. Instead individ-
ual buildings sat in an open urban fabric making
spaces between buildings work as public and semi
public spaces.

Today, the industrial labour does not exist as the

industries have shut. But their families still live in
one of the densest parts of the city. Their tenement
in a chawl in which they live, remains as their only
saving and asset. The rents of these tenements have
not increased, but it is very difficult to get cheap
accommodation in these parts. The large demands
of housing and real estate have pushed the price of
the rights to occupy one of these tenements very
high (Rs 5000 – Rs 10000 per square foot). The
chawls on the other hand have become seriously
dilapidated on account of overuse and neglect.
While they stand to remind one of the industrial
might of the city; they simultaneously run a risk
of being pulled down to be scavenged for the pre-
cious land they hide below them.

XIV
XV
Mass Housing by the State after Independence
With independence came further migration, both Lower income groups were also sometimes given
by victims of partition and people seeking op- small serviced pitches of land where the fami-
portunities in the city. This raised the housing lies built row houses. As these families grew they
demands in the city. Rents started spiralling. At added rooms and floors to these houses. In some
the same time the Government took up a stance cases, the state also built houses for cooperatives of
of providing for the poor and at the same time en- working-class, wage-labour and other groups. On
couraging capitalist initiatives. To check the spi- the other hand, apartments with bedrooms were
ralling rents, the Rent Control Act was enacted in made for middle and higher income groups.
1947, which froze rents at 1940 levels. With meagre
returns from rented properties, landlords could All colonies were typically low rise and the densi-
no longer maintain them. Moreover providing ties depended on the class of the inhabitants. Today
rented accommodation was not a viable business these colonies, though dilapidated, still are places
anymore. This saw the demise of the landlord and with maximum amount of open spaces around
rented housing stock in the city. In 1967 the De- them. As these colonies invariably consumed
velopment Plan was sanctioned. Along with this lesser FSI, recently, we find a big rush to redevelop
came the concept of FSI (Floor Space Index) which these colonies into higher density residential colo-
laid restriction on how much one could build ac- nies. These redevelopments are undertaken by pri-
cording to the infrastructure available. FSI in vate developers whereby the existing population is
large parts of the island city were fixed at 1.33, resettled in slightly larger accommodation (as the
which was lower than that already consumed, by families had grown larger) and the additional de-
much of the rental housing stock. Hence repairs velopment is sold in the open market.
of dilapidated properties faced a roadblock. New
housing stock had to be built in areas that were
undeveloped. Land had to be acquired. The state
took up the responsibility of providing new hous-
ing stock through the Housing Board and later
MHADA (Maharastra Housing and Area Devel-
opment Board). Land was acquired through enact-
ing the Urban Land Ceiling Act whereby a ceiling
was defined for private ownership of land and the
state taking over remaining land. With concepts of
FSI and Urban Land Ceiling, land became a scarce
commodity and very expensive.

The State further made policies for targeting the

housing supply to various classes. The concepts
of HIG (Higher Income Group), MIG (Middle
Income Group), LIG (Lower Income Group) and
EWS (Economically Weaker Section) were formu-
lated. State started building rented apartments for
these classes. The size of the houses and specifica-
tion of construction depended upon the income
group. However, adequate open spaces, light, ven-
tilation and sanitation arrangements were ensured
in these colonies. The typologies also reflected
the income group. The Lower income groups had
houses that resembled the chawls, but had larger
tenement sizes and individual toilet facilities.

XVI
XVII
Public Sector Employee Housing
After Independence on account of the Rent Con- also provide housing to their employees in this
trol Act rented accommodation became unavaila- model.
ble. Outright buying of houses too became impos-
sible for the working classes due to high prices and In all cases however, sizes of the houses depend
expensive loans. On the whole it was very difficult upon the grade of the employee. Hence while a
for public sector employees to find accommoda- lower grade staff would get a room and a kitchen
tion in the city with their meagre salaries. Most with toilets; the higher grade officer would get an
of the Public Sector organisations then decided to additional bedroom and more space. The layouts
provide housing for their staff. There were several in most of these cases show a generosity of open
models of such provisions that were experimented space planning. The premises are maintained by
with. the organisation itself and today these are some of
the best maintained housing in the city. In cases
The Mumbai Port Trust for instance, themselves where they are old and dilapidated, like in the case
developed housing and rented it out to their em- of Mumbai Port Trust, the employees are evacu-
ployees. The employees would have to vacate their ated and shifted to new buildings.
houses after their retirement or in case of early ter-
mination of their jobs. These houses would then be
given to new employees. The buildings are main-
tained by the organisations themselves.

In many cases, like the Bombay Electric Supply and

Suburban Transportation, the houses are built by
the organisation and the employees pay a monthly
premium from their salaries. This premium is the
instalment towards the soft loans that the organi-
sation gives to the employees for buying the hous-
es. After some years when the loan is paid back to
the organisation, the house becomes the property
of the employees. In this case, a cooperative hous-
ing society of the employees is formed which un-
dertakes the maintenance of the houses.

In other cases, organisations help the employees

to get land whereby the employees have to form a
housing society beforehand. The employees either
buy the land from the organisation at a nominal
rate or the land is given free of cost. The houses are
then built with assistance from the organisation,
where the organisation provides the employees
with soft loans. Here the employees themselves are
promoters of the housing wherein they decide their
house designs, construction specifications etc.

There are also cases where the organisation buys or

rents houses from other agencies in the open mar-
ket and provides to its employees at subsidised rent
rates. Here the organisations themselves maintain
the buildings. Many private sector organisations

XVIII
XIX
Slum
The economic vibrancy of Mumbai attracted peo- settlement is mostly located along a natural drain
ple into the city much before independence. The which takes care of the sewerage. Electricity and
access to housing remained inadequate and people water was generally stolen, but the government
started living in slums since the late 19th Century, makes efforts to provide basic facilities. Water
providing services to the formal industries and supply in slums is mostly in terms of shared com-
city building activities. These settlements however munity taps. A slum mostly has a toilet block built
grew on the outskirts of the city on marshlands by the government, but that remains inadequate.
and other difficult places. The city grew rapidly Some houses in a slum have toilets within them.
since the beginning of the 20th century. Marsh-
lands and outskirts were developed. The slums In the 70s the slums were seen as a disease, and
that were earlier on the outskirts of the city came stood for poor living conditions. But perceptions of
within. However in spite of the annual housing the slums have changed. A slum dwelling has been
need for 46,000 dwellings in the 1960s and 60,000 a unit of production and a slum dweller, a unit of
dwellings in the 1970s, the supply of formal hous- enterprise. The slum is not only a place for living,
ing by the public and private sectors was only but is also a place of work. It has spaces, which ac-
17,600 and 20,600 respectively. The rest fulfilled commodate a community washing space, a leather
their shelter need in the slums. But slums only tannery, a ceramic kiln or a food-manufacturing
came into real urban concern in the 70’s when the unit. Today, the slum dwellers are considered inte-
real estate prices started climbing. Today about 60 gral parts of the city contributing to the economy.
% of Mumbai’s Population live in the slums, which Their right to live in the city is protected and they
exist everywhere - on marshlands, along railway cannot be evicted without rehabilitation.
tracks, on open areas, public lands, private lands,
between buildings and also on the pavements. The
construction type varies from wood to plastic to
asbestos construction and to double storey brick
and concrete structures. There are slums that have
a concentration of ethnic communities, of work
based communities, and other such associations.
There are slums that come up on construction sites
and move on to other construction sites after the
work gets completed.

Houses in a slum are generally very small (about

100 sq ft.). But there are instances where large hous-
es of about 1000 – 2000 sq ft could be found. These
mostly belong to the slum-lords who control land
in the slum. These slum-lords use muscle-power
and bribing tactics to squat on free land (generally
belonging to the government). They make houses
of tin sheets and bamboo (or some times even of
brick and concrete). These small houses are then
rented to poor people who are in search of hous-
ing. There are also houses in the slum that have
original squatters. These families also in most
cases build an additional room or a floor to ac-
commodate growing families. Sometimes these
additional rooms are further rented out bringing
about a complex tenure pattern in a slum. A slum

XX
XXI
Site and Service Schemes
By 1986 the state had provided about 100,000 to assess incomes and strengthen systems of dis-
houses to various income groups out of which 75% bursements and collection of loans. Further pres-
were for the lower income groups. However post sures from Real Estate Developers to not transfer
1986, the share of high income housing increased land to slum dwellers, the refusal of the Central
as private sector involvement grew in the housing government to allow the implementation of the
sector. Supply of low income and affordable hous- scheme on land held by them and perhaps a lack
ing continued to drop abysmally. Subsequently the of push from the state government side, caused the
80s saw major demolitions with the vision of turn- demise of this scheme. Only about 22,000 house-
ing Mumbai into Singapore. However a Supreme holds were covered in this scheme until it was ter-
court judgement decreed that the evictions would minated in 1994.
not only result in deprivation of shelter but would
also inevitably lead to deprivation of their means Typologically these schemes had a row of houses
of livelihood which means deprivation of life. The strung around a courtyard. These courtyards
Right to Life under article 21 was invoked here. would be accessed from roads that were then con-
This judgement brought about a major shift in the nected to the main roads. The edge of the main
Government’s stance. roads had higher income group housing. People
built their houses as per their capabilities in these
The World Bank’s Bombay Urban Development schemes. Today, these settlements are showing a
Project (BUDP), came into being in 1985, with two degree of transformation as there is a new class
programmes – the Slum Up gradation Programme moving into these lands. Some houses in these are
(SUP) and the Low Income Group Shelter Pro- getting transformed into clinics, design studios,
gramme (LISP). These were the Mumbai versions etc.
of the Site and Services Schemes. In the SUP, the
slum lands not reserved for public use were given
on a long lease of 30 years to the co-operative so-
cieties of slum dwellers at a nominal rent. Govern-
ment could provide upgraded civic amenities on
a cost-recovery basis and soft loans to the slum
dwellers for renovation of their structures on an
as-is-where-is basis against the mortgage of indi-
vidual leasehold rights. Under the LISP, the state
provided subsidized land to Economically Weaker
Sections (EWS) and Low Income Groups (LIG)
to build their own houses. The major mantras
brought in with the BUDP were regularization of
slums, supply of serviced lands to manage slums,
granting of secure long term legal tenure and cost
recovery.

However there were several problems with this

scheme, the first being that many were excluded
from the scheme as it did not recognize the various
complex tenancies that slum areas involve. Further
establishing the eligibility of households created
serious problems. Secondly, technical problems
of extending services and augmenting site infra-
structure were faced. The recovery of infrastruc-
ture costs failed because of lack of mechanisms

XXII
XXIII
New Suburban Township Housing
Economic Liberalisation policies in India in the residences of the buildings. On the other hand, the
beginning of the 90’s opened up the financial in- overall township is maintained by the developer
stitutions and other sectors for multinational in- for the first few years. Later on the federation of
vestment. Along with this, the Government also newly environment-conscious residents took over.
adopted the recommendations of the Fifth Pay The maintenance costs borne by each household is
Commission which tripled the salaries of formal also generally very high. While it is about Rs. 2-3
labour during the mid 90s. On the other hand in- per sqft in other areas, it is about Rs. 5-7 per sqft in
dustries within the city were discouraged and the these townships. The housing type is generally 14
economy of the city started resting on the mag- to 25 storied towers with two to four large apart-
nanimous and ambiguous service sector – includ- ments on each floor. The buildings are generally
ing the financial sector. Formal labour suddenly pasted with skins copied from classical Greek or
had money that they were not used to spending. ancient Egyptian embellishments. Some townships
This was coupled with introduction of financial themselves resemble a theme park with adequately
products like low interest loans, credit cards, debit eclectic skins outside but stacks of flats within.
cards, personal loans, etc. Affording newer prod- Generally all overhead tanks are made to look like
ucts in the city became easier and people started Gothic domes or Greek temples. Apartments in
buying. Real Estate was bought for not only use these townships are extremely expensive and can
purposes, but also as investments. Rented real be afforded only by the highly paid executives of
estate was already strangled earlier by the Rent multinational companies or large businesspeople.
Control Act and the newer loans made owning a Houses for the other classes with lesser affording
property easier than renting it. On the other hand, capabilities are provided by smaller builders.
the new real estate had to be much more than sim-
ply a functional space – it had to include elements
of high luxury for the population with newer de-
sires. This gave rise to large luxury apartments and
townships that promised relaxed and lavish life-
styles.

The townships came about in areas that were ear-

lier protected for environmental purposes - sen-
sitive coastlines with mangroves, or edges of the
forest land. Land was mobilised through getting
the land use zoning converted on these lands. This
required a huge amount of law-twisting and bribes
that the developers undertook. The developers who
were involved in these developments were large es-
tablished business houses that could raise money
due to their good will in the market. In some cases
real-estate was also securitised for raising money
from intermediate financers.

These self contained townships provide greatest

luxuries with clubs, swimming pools, gardens,
shopping places and entertainment centres. They
have generously planned streets with abundant
parking spaces. The whole township is extremely
well guarded. Individual buildings are maintained
by cooperative housing societies formed by the

XXIV
XXV
Urban Age, London School of Economics, 15 June 2007