From the slum to the house: towards a less polarized Mumbai?

Journal title TERRITORIO
Author/s Gloria Pessina
Publishing Year 2013 Issue 2013/65
Language English Pages 7 P. 37-43 File size 532 KB
DOI 10.3280/TR2013-065005
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

Also famous as ‘Maximum City’ (Mehta, 2005), Mumbai is undergoing a period of extremely rapid growth as a result of the booming Indian economy. While numerous multinationals are opening offices in areas once occupied by cotton mills and new middle class districts are springing up on the margins of the city, most of the population still live in shanty towns. Contrasts like these within the city show Mumbai as a particularly clear case of polarisation, which raises doubts over some current housing policies designed to raise it to the status of a ‘global city’ and to reduce polarisation by removing the shanty towns and moving the inhabitants to new neighbourhoods. The paper focuses on Dharavi and attempts to highlight the fundamental role played by informal production in the shanty towns, the losses in this sector due to the removal of the shanty towns and the possible greater polarisation resulting from these policies.

Keywords: Shanty towns; informal economy; social polarisation

  1. Abrams C., 1964, Man’s Struggle for Shelter in an Urbanizing World, Mit Press, Cambridge, MA.
  2. Bandyopadhyay S., 2006, Rich States, Poor States: Convergence and Polarisation in India, in «Economic Series Working Papers», University of Oxford
  3. Bhagat R.B., Sita K., 2009, «Population Change and Economic Restructuring in Mumbai», in Joshi P., Isac M., Mehrotra R., Mumbai Reader ‘10, Udri, Mumbai
  4. Bhowmik, S.K., 2009, «Street Vendors in Mumbai», in Joshi, Isac, Mehrotra, op.cit.
  5. Boano C., 2010, Conflictive Urbanism in Dharavi: Mega-projects, Megaresistances and the Dialectics of ‘Right to the City’ (www.naerus.net/ web/sat/workshops/2009/Rotterdam/pdf/Boano.pdf; retrieved on 31/5/2012).
  6. Breman J., 1976, «A Dualistic Labour System? A Critique of the ‘Informal Sector’ Concept», Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 11, n. 48, pp. 1870-1876
  7. Breman J., 2003, The Labouring Poor in India: Patterns of Exploitation, Subordination and Exclusion, Oxford U.P., New Delhi
  8. Breman J., 2004, The Making and Unmaking of an Industrial Working Class: Sliding Down the Labour Hierarchy in Ahmedabad, India, Amsterdam U.P., Amsterdam
  9. Breman J., Das A., Agarwal R., 2000, Down and Out: Labouring Under Global Capitalism, Amsterdam U.P., Amsterdam
  10. Chalana M., 2010, «Slumdogs vs. Millionaires. Balancing Urban Informality and Global Modernity in Mumbai, India», Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 63, n. 2, pp. 25-37 DOI: 10.1111/j.1531-314X.2010.01056.x
  11. Davis M., 2006, Planet of Slums, Verso, New York.
  12. De Filippis J., 2004, Unmaking Goliath: Community Control in the Face of Global Capitalism, Routledge, New York.
  13. D’Monte D., 2002, Ripping the Fabric: The Decline of Mumbai and its Mills, Oxford U.P., New Delhi
  14. Feinstein S., Gordan I. and Harloe M., 1992, Divided cities, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
  15. Friedmann J. and Wolff G., 1982, «World City Formation: An Agenda for Research and Action», International Journal of Urban and Regional Studies, pp. 309-343.
  16. Gruber D., Kirschner A., Mill S., Schach M., Schmekel S., Seligman H., 2005, «Living and Working in Slums of Mumbai», Arbeitsbericht, n. 36, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität, Magdeburg
  17. Kennedy, R., Gudur, M. and Betts M., 2010, Slum-Free India Program, Report on the findings and recommendations of Qut-Bee, 20 December, Qut-Bee, Brisbane
  18. Hamnett C., 1994, «Social Polarization in Global Cities: Theory and Evidence», Urban Studies, vol. 31, n. 3, pp. 401-424, doi: 10.1080/00420989420080401
  19. Hamnett C., 2001, «Social Segregation and Social Polarization» in Paddison R. (ed.), Handbook of Urban Studies, Sage Publications, London DOI: 10.4135/9781848608375.n10
  20. Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, Government of India, 2009, Integrated Housing And Slum Development Program Guidelines (www.jnnurm.nic.in/Brochures and Guidelines/IHSDP Revised Guidelines. pdf; retrieved on 12/6/2012).
  21. Mahadevia D., 2008, «Slumbay to Shanghai: Envisioning Renewal or Take Over?», in Mahadevia D. (ed.), Inside the Transforming of Urban Asia. Processes, Policies and Public Actions, Concept Publishing, New Delhi.
  22. McKinsey Report, 2003, Vision Mumbai. Transforming Mumbai into a World-class City. A Summary of Recommendations, Bombay First, Mumbai
  23. Mehta S., 2005, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, Knopf, New York
  24. Motiram S. and Sarma N., 2011, Polarization, Inequality and Growth: The Indian Experience, WP-2011-011, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai (http://www.igidr.ac.in/pdf/publication/WP-2011- 011.pdf; retrieved on 12/6/2012).
  25. Narayanan H., Mahadevia, D., Mathew R.R., 2008, «Demolition of Lives and Livelihoods, Mumbai», in Mahadevia, op. cit.
  26. Nijman J., 2006, «Mumbai’s Mysterious Middle Class», International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol. 30.4, pp. 758-775 DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2006.00694.x
  27. Nijman J., 2008, «Against the Odds: Slum Rehabilitation in Neoliberal Mumbai», Cities, vol. 25, pp. 73-85 DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2008.01.003
  28. Nissel H., 1999, «Auswirkungen der Globalisierung auf die Megacity Bombay/ Mumbai», Lokal verankert, weltweit vernetzt, vol. 52, Deutscher Geographentag Hamburg, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart
  29. Noorbakhsh F., 2003, Spatial Inequality and Polarisation in India, Ssrn Research Paper n. 03/16 (http://ssrn.com/abstract=482481; retrieved on 1/9/2012).
  30. Pacione M., 2006, «Mumbai», Cities, vol. 23, n. 3, pp. 229-238 DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2005.11.003
  31. Papola T.S., 2012, Structural Changes in the Indian Economy. Emerging Patterns and Implications, Isid working paper, June 2012/02, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, New Delhi (http://isid.org.in/ pdf/WP1202.pdf).
  32. Risbud N., 2010, Typology of Slums and Land Tenure in Indian Cities, presented at «National Workshop on Land Tenure Issues in Slum Free Planning», 30 August, Cept, Ahmedabad
  33. Sassen S., 1984, «The New Labour Demand in Global Cities», in Smith M.P. (ed.), Cities in Transformation, vol. 26, Urban Affairs Annual, Sage, Beverly Hills
  34. Sassen S., 1991, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, Princeton U.P., Princeton
  35. Sassen S., 2000a, «The New Inequalities within Cities», in Sassen S., Cities in a World Economy, Sage, London
  36. Sassen S., 2000b, «The New Urban Economy. The Intersection of Global Processes and Place», in Sassen, op. cit
  37. Sharma K., 2000, Rediscovering Dharavi: Stories from Asia’s Largest Slum, Penguin Books India, Delhi.
  38. Sundaram P.S.A., 1989, Bombay: Can it House its Millions?, Clarion Books, New Delhi.
  39. Takeuchi A., Cropper M. and Bento A., 2008, «Measuring the Welfare Effects of Slum Improvement Programs: The Case of Mumbai», Journal of Urban Economics, vol. 64, pp. 65-84 DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2007.08.006
  40. UN-Habitat, 2003, The Challenge of the Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003, Earthscan Publications, London
  41. Wacquant L., 2008, «Logics of Urban Polarization from Below», in Wacquant L., Urban Outcasts. A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality, Polity Press, Cambridge.
  42. Wilson D., 2004, «Toward a Contingent Urban Neoliberalism», Urban Geography, vol. 25, pp. 771-783. DOI: 10.2747/0272-3638.25.8.771
  43. Cities Alliance: www.citiesalliance.org.
  44. Mythologies of Mumbai: www.mythologiesofmumbai.pukar.org.in/ dharavi
  45. Slum Rehabilitation Authority: www.sra.ac.in.
  46. Statistical update on employment in the informal economy – Ilo Dpt. of Statistics: www.laborsta.ilo.org/applv8/data/INFORMAL_ECONOMY/2012- 06-Statistical%20update%20-%20v2.pdf.
  47. The Census of India: www.censusindia.net
  48. World Gazetteer, India: Largest Cities and Towns and Statistics of their Population: www.world-gazetteer.com.

Gloria Pessina, From the slum to the house: towards a less polarized Mumbai? in "TERRITORIO" 65/2013, pp 37-43, DOI: 10.3280/TR2013-065005