SQUATTERS AS DEVELOPERS? Mumbai's Slum Dwellers As Equity Partners in Redevelopment
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SQUATTERS AS DEVELOPERS? Mumbai's Slum Dwellers as Equity Partners in Redevelopment by Vinit Mukhija B.Arch., School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, 1990 MUD, University of Hong Kong, 1992 M.Arch., University of Texas, Austin, 1995 Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology June 2000 © 2000 Vinit Mukhija. All rights reserved The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Signature of Author D6rtment of Urban Studies and Planning May 23, 2000 Certified by_ Bishwapriya Sanyal Department Head and Professor of Urban Planning Thesis Supervisor Accepted by Frank Levy Daniel Rose Professor of Urban Economics MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTEChimnP.DCo ite OF TECHNOLOGY Chairman, Ph.D. Committee JUN 2 ROTCH LIBRARIES SQUATTERS AS DEVELOPERS? Mumbai's Slum Dwellers as Equity Partners in Redevelopment by Vinit Mukhija Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning On May 23, 2000 in Partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Development and Planning ABSTRACT This dissertation analyzes the slum redevelopment strategy introduced by the state government of Maharashtra (India) in its capital city, Mumbai (Bombay). The strategy involves demolishing the existing slums and building on the same sites at a higher density, new, medium- rise apartment-blocks including entirely cross-subsidized housing for the original slum dwellers. Slum redevelopment is distinctly different from the two prevalent conventional strategies with respect to slums in developing countries - slum clearance and slum upgrading. Interestingly, the strategy appears to enjoy considerable support of slum dwellers, NGOs, private developers and politicians. The study focuses on a single slum redevelopment case - the Markandeya Cooperative Housing Society (MCHS) - to show how the state government amended the land development regulations to enhance the potential land values and allowed the slum dwellers to share in the high development values. This analysis of the role of the State in promoting a new housing strategy and providing crucial support in implementation contributes to our understanding of housing provision policy in three ways. First, it provides insights into slum redevelopment as an alternative housing strategy. It analyzes the problems faced and the solutions innovated in the implementation of this strategy. It argues that despite slum redevelopment's shortcomings, the strategy may be superior to other alternatives, especially if the State can provide implementation support. Second, it identifies non- traditional issues, often overlooked in housing improvement that may help make slum upgrading programs more successful. Contrary to the conventional focus only on private property rights, the dissertation argues for policy to be based on a differentiated view of property rights (including common property rights) that also considers the property values, the physical structure of the property-holdings and the interplay among these issues. Third, the study reveals the complexities involved in housing production for low-income groups and demonstrates that enabling housing provision, even with the participation of private sector agents, requires an active government role. Paradoxically, enabling may require four levels of seeming contradictions - both decentralization and centralization; both demand-driven and supply driven development; both private as well as public investment; and both deregulation and new regulations. Thesis Supervisor: Bishwapriya Sanyal Title: Department Head and Professor of Urban Planning 4 Acknowledgements I would like to express my special gratitude to: Bish Sanyal, my supervisor, for teaching me how to theorize, think creatively, explore new ideas and for being an unambiguous supportive advisor. John de Monchaux, my mentor, for his generous encouragement and for teaching me how to learn at, enjoy and survive MIT. Larry Vale, my thesis reader, for his thoughtful and precise feedback and for insisting that there is a "physical lens" for analyzing housing issues. Lisa Peattie, Bill Doebele, Shrimp (Reinhard Goethert) and Omar Razzaz for helpful advice, insightful discussions and valuable comments on earlier drafts. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy for essential financial support to undertake this research. Sheela Patel, A. Jockin, Celine D'Cruz and Sunder Burra of SPARC for access to all of the NGO's documents on the Markandeya case and for their help in establishing the necessary contacts in Mumbai. Gautam Chatterji, Sharad Mahajan, Ranjit Naik, Adolf Traglar, K.G. Pai, Johnny Challaiah, the other residents of Markandeya and the other Mumbai projects for sharing their experiences and opinions with me. Natha uncle, Sushma aunty, Radhika, Debika and Manish for making my fieldwork in Mumbai enjoyable. Zeenat and Khush for being there, whenever I needed. To "Team V" that selflessly helped me to put together this document - Tito Bianchi, Rajive Chaudhry, Marianne De Clerk, Brent Ryan, Zhang Yan, Perry Yang and T.Luke Young - and for being such great friends. Amy and Punit Mukhija for proof reading this thesis and finding more mistakes than I expected. Sabrina de Carlo and Tito for friendship, advice and pasta. Monica and Claudio Pinhanez, & Pratap Talwar and Ranjan Nambiar for their support including their apartments. Jason Corburn for beer and basketball. Jose Oliveira and Arturo Ardila, my roommates for being cheerful despite the stress, also, Amy Brown and Yan, my office-roommates for smiling and laughing. Maria Elosua, Adair Smith and Lucian Burdi for the holidays in Mexico, Canada and Italy. And Ami and Aditya Mahajan, Ann Steffes, Janice O'Brien, Jennifer Hrabchak, Laura Wilcox, Nimfa De Leon, Sumila Gulyani, Theo Seltzer, Tom Campanella and the SPURS Fellows. My parents and family for their tireless support. Thank you! This dissertation is dedicated to my parents. Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction - A New Strategy in M umbai ............................................... 13 1.1 The Puzzles of Slum Redevelopment....................................................................13 1.2 Placing the Research in the Context of the Literature: Housing Strategies and Actors ....... 17 Self-help, and Enabling the Communities ............. .......................................... 17 S lum U pgrading Program s ................................................................................................................... 18 E nabling the M arkets..................................................................................................................... 19 1.3 A Preview of The Dissertation's Arguments and Contribution............................................23 T he L ogic of R edevelopm ent ............................................................................................................... 23 Property Rights, Property Values and Property Structures.............................................................. 24 T he P aradox of E nabling ...................................................................................................................... 25 1.4 Study M ethodology ................................................................................................... .......... 26 The Dense Data Case Study Approach .............................................................................................. 26 A Single Case, Informed by Other Cases ............. .................................. ........ 26 D ata S o u rce s ......................................................................................................................................... 2 7 F ie ld w ork .............................................................................................................................................. 2 8 L im itations of the S tudy ....................................................................................................................... 2 8 1.5 The Structure of the Dissertation............................................28 Chapter 2: The Evolution of Slum Redevelopment in Mumbai ............... 31 2 .1 In trod uction ........................................................................................................ .... .. ...... 32 2.2 Literature Review: Regulating Urban Growth and Promoting Spatial Decentralization ..... 33 T he U rban-R ural D ivide ....................................................................................................................... 33 Urban Size and Metropolitan Management ......................................... 34 D eregulating U rban G row th ................................................................................................................. 35 2.3 The Emergence and Gradual Evolution of the Slum Redevelopment Strategy in Mumbai.36 2.4 The Imperatives for Implementing Slum Redevelopment in Mumbai................46 The Perceived Failure of Past Policies and Increasing Slums and Slum Dwellers ........ ........... 46 Urban Politics: The Competition Between the Congress Party and the Shiv Sena. .......... .... 49 Property Values and the Unrelenting Attraction of Redevelopment........................ 52 2.5 Regulating the Development