Archive for the 'Urban Peripheries' Category
Housing Typologies in Mumbai
DOWNLOAD “Housing Typologies in Mumbai” (PDF)
As any other urban area with a dense history, Mumbai has several kinds of house types developed over various stages of its history. However, unlike in the case of many other cities all over the world, each one of its residences is invariably occupied by the city dwellers of this metropolis. Nothing is wasted or abandoned as old, unfitting, or dilapidated in this colossal economy. The housing condition of today’s Mumbai can be discussed through its various kinds of housing types, which form a bulk of the city’s lived spaces.
This study is intended towards making a compilation of house types in (and wherever relevant; around) Mumbai. House Type here means a generic representative form that helps in conceptualising all the houses that such a form represents. It is not a specific design executed by any important architect, which would be a-typical or unique. It is a form that is generated in a specific cultural epoch/condition. This generic ‘type’ can further have several variations and could be interestingly designed /interpreted/transformed by architects.
The focus of this study is on documenting and describing the various house types found in Mumbai with discussions regarding their respective cultural contexts, evolution of form, policies under which they took shape, delivery systems used to generate them, agencies involved, financial mechanisms, uses and occupations, tenure patterns, transformations, etc. It is neither a comprehensive history of housing in the city nor a study of housing conditions, but instead a study of house types. The compilation however would be valuable for undertaking a historical study or describing the present housing condition.
Community Geographic Information System (GIS)
Mumbai is one of Asia’s largest cities, in which urban spaces are the central arenas of political imagination and intervention. The past decade has seen the articulation of a new politics of space in Mumbai — through the contesting claims of the urban poor majority in slums and squatter settlements, assertive residents’ associations and civic reform movements, the prosperous construction industry and builder-politician nexus, and concerned practitioners in the design, architecture and research professions.
In spite of this increased awareness and concern with urban spaces, basic information on housing, land, infrastructure and environment — the right of citizens — remains largely inaccessible, because of bureaucratic obstacles and vested interests. This asymetry of information has given rise to predatory classes of builders and speculators, whose privileged access to information is transformed into “development rights” for construction, eroding accountability to local communities and urban stake-holders, and the planning policies meant to uphold their rights.
Existing applications of new spatial technologies such as geographic information systems (GIS) for commercial services or scientific research remain distant from the needs of these grass-roots communities and local decision-makers. With the increasing demands of citizens for their rights to information on urban space — and recent legislative enactments and public interest litigation on freedom of information — we feel that communities can harness the power of new geo-spatial imaging and mapping technologies to strengthen their demands for secure tenure and housing rights, open and vibrant public spaces, and ecological conservation and sustainable development in the mega-city.
This proposal outlines a project to develop an open-access spatial data infrastructure, and a set of simple tools and applications in localised in Indian languages, for knowledge transfer and participatory urban planning by communities and citizens in the Mumbai Metrpolitan Region. Read the Community GIS Project Proposal and the Community GIS Project Addendum
Vasai Virar Sub-Region Comments on Draft DP
In the metropolitan peripheries, development often is synonymous with marginalisation of local communities. Existing policies and plans proposed by state agencies have resulted in severe expropriation of the community-based and natural resources in the Vasai Virar Sub-Region (VVSR), and this project intends to empower these local communities by providing them with bargaining tools for community-led development. This project focusses on areas where acute conflicts have arisen due to developmental pressures, and where resident communities are facing severe marginalisation. It aims towards envisioning short-term (one to three years) and long-term development strategies (five to ten years) in the Vasai Virar Sub-Region. The project methodology includes the formulation of a Local Development Committee (LDC) comprising of various community stakeholders, and institutional and financial mechanisms towards the implementation of the strategy plans Presently, three areas have been identified for community planning interventions:
Vasai Fishing Village (Sector VIII)
Fishing communities have been amongst the earliest settlers in the VVSR. Fishing activities in recent times have been severely affected due to the callous dumping of industrial effluents and urban waste in the creeks and the sea resulting in the loss of ground for fishing. Due to the natural growth of the population these villages have become over populated and face acute infrastructural shortage. Land reclamation in Mumbai, over a long period of time, has resulted into the tidal waves eating up the western coast. Broadly speaking, while deep-sea fishing is a territory controlled by large organizations having sophisticated capacities, fishing activities by indigenous fishermen having weak organizational capacities have been at the mercy of the pressures of urbanisation and threats from the natural environment. In spite of the fishing villages in the VVSR exemplifying all these problems, there is no mention of the fishing villages in the Draft Development Plan for the VVSR (2001–2021). The aim of this project is to initiate a pilot project through the case of Vasai Fishing Village, towards envisioning and strategising local community development.
Kaman Village in the Green Zone (Sector X)
The context for this project is the displacement of cattle sheds from Mumbai and their relocation in the VVSR. The agricultural village of Kaman forms one of the areas where reservations of land use have been made for the relocation of cattle sheds. The disposal of waste from the cattle sheds has affected the land and underground water sources in the region around the Cattle Shed Zone rendering a loss of jobs and livelihood to the farmers and the adivasi (tribal) labour. In the absence of any other form of economic activity, the reservation of land use for the Cattle Shed Zone looms as a severe economic threat for local communities. The process of gentrification, resulting out of the newer programme of the Cattle Sheds, has displaced the adivasi population from their lands and houses. This zone, in the regional context of VVSR, also presents numerous opportunities towards solving the water management and supply problems. In such a context the allocation of the Cattle Shed Zone as a land use is in question, and this project will take the case of Kaman Village for strategising local community development, becoming a bargaining medium for the agricultural and allied community.
Arnala Village in the Plantation Zone (Sector VII)
This project is set in the context of the recent shift of activities from agriculture towards recreation and spiritual tourism in the Plantation Zone, and the promotion of the tourism-based local economies in the Draft Development Plan for the VVSR (2001–2021). Arnala, which is amongst the most populous tourist sites in VVSR, has seen a tremendous growth of resorts and guest houses in the last decade due to the growth of the tourism. Questions have arisen regarding the sustainability of such activities with available water and energy resources and local infrastructure. The local economy, based primarly on agriculture and fishing, has been organised around resident farmers and fishermen, as well as seasonal migrant labour — the tourism economy, however, is based little local participation, and is oriented towards outside business and land interests. While the peri-urban areas have been conceptualised in the Draft Development Plan as tourism and recreation zones, this does not take into account local aspirations or realities. This project will involve the local community in strategising its future development, and suggest ways of strengthening existing local economies in the midst of predatory urbanisation.
Akloli, Vajreshwari and Ganeshpuri
The study is set against the background of the extensive development taking place in the three villages of Akloli, Vajreshwari and Ganeshpuri. No longer conventionally “rural areas”, these villages have been transformed by rapidly growing tourism to their popular religious shrines and pilgrimage centres. The influx of devotees from all over the country places an overwhelming burden on already degraded local infrastructure and environments. While the Government is aware of the tourist importance of the region, local groups feel that their rights, problems and opportunities have not been recognised in local and regional plans for tourist development. In June 2004, the Thane District Collectorate, in consultation with local stakeholders, appointed Sri Chandrashekhar Prabhu to make independent observations on the development of Akloli, Vajreshwari and Ganeshpuri. He recommended that CRIT be appointed as a study group to prepare the development plan. The task, as stated by the Government, was “to initiate a bottom-up process of planning” — to articulate the interests and aspirations of local communities and institutions.
The preliminary study was conducted over fifteen days in July 2004, during which CRIT met and interviewed numerous local stake-holders and community leaders, to assess their opinions on the local planning process. Through visual surveys, the study documents the haphazard develoment of local infrastructure, and degradation of the environment of the village communities and religious settlements. The report of the preliminary study strongly suggests the preparation of a Development Plan for Akloli, Vajreshwari and Ganeshpuri. The study further recommends the implementation of certain infrastructure projects to relieve some of the immediate problems faced by the village communities and religious institutions. CRIT is glad to present the report of the preliminary study, and hopes that the Government agencies undertake responsible activities towards an environmentally sustainable development, which provides economic opportunities to all stake-holders.