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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Department of Architecture UNDERSTANDING URBAN SYSTEMS USING COMPLEXITY THEORY: ANALYZING THE INFORMAL RAILWAY MARKETS OF MUMBAI A Thesis in Architecture by Arpita Dwijendra Mitra 2008 Arpita Dwijendra Mitra Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Architecture August 2008 The thesis of Arpita Dwijendra Mitra was reviewed and approved* by the following: Peter Aeschbacher Assistant Professor of Architecture and Landscape Architecture Thesis Advisor Alexandra Staub Associate Professor of Architecture Deryck W. Holdsworth Professor of Geography Jawaid Haider Professor of Architecture Daniel Willis Professor of Architecture Head of the Department of Architecture *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School ii A B S T R A C T All cities have some form of informal spaces within them and these spaces grow along with the city. This growth in informal spaces is perceived as disorganized and chaotic. The traditional role of city planners is to eliminate or curtail this disorganization. In an attempt to organize the growing city structure, planners are still looking at conventional approaches, and, as a result, they end up designing static spaces. But this disorganized structure, when looked closely, is a self-organizing system. The planners need to understand the self-organization of informal spaces and need to take it into account while designing them. John Holland’s framework of complexity theory explains the self-organization and emergence of a system. This thesis hypothesizes that Holland’s framework is the best approach to understand and design informal spaces. The conventional approach, taken by the authorities, is evaluated using Holland’s framework with the aim to develop a better analysis strategy for the design of these spaces. For this purpose, this thesis looks at the case of Mumbai’s informal railway markets as an example of complex systems. Three cases of informal railway markets and a market built by the authority to replace the informal markets were selected for this study. The markets were studied during a field visit, and were analyzed and compared to understand their pattern and how they work as system. Issues of congestion, messy image, safety, and security were studied to understand the problems of the informal markets. The solutions proposed by authorities and counter proposals were then evaluated using Holland’s framework to arrive at a more effective solution for the markets. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES....................................................................................................... VII LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... IX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. XI 1. INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................... 1 2. OVERVIEW............................................................................................................. 4 2A. PROBLEM STATEMENT ....................................................................................... 4 2B. OBJECTIVE AND HYPOTHESIS ............................................................................. 4 2C. RESEARCH QUESTION ........................................................................................ 5 2D. RESEARCH DESIGN ............................................................................................ 5 2E. RELEVANCE ....................................................................................................... 8 2F. LIMITATIONS ...................................................................................................... 8 3. COMPLEXITY THEORY ......................................................................................... 9 3A. NEED FOR COMPLEXITY THEORY ......................................................................... 9 3B. COMPLEXITY THEORY AND ITS EVOLUTION ..........................................................11 3C. COMPLEXITY THEORY IN URBAN DESIGN AND PLANNING .......................................15 4. HOLLAND’S FRAMEWORK OF COMPLEXITY THEORY ....................................21 4A. STATE OF A SYSTEM ..........................................................................................22 4B. AGENTS OF A SYSTEM .......................................................................................22 4C. MECHANISM OF A SYSTEM .................................................................................22 5. MUMBAI AND ITS RAILWAY MARKETS .............................................................27 5A. HISTORY OF MUMBAI .........................................................................................27 5B. THE RAILWAY MARKETS OF MUMBAI ..................................................................31 iv 5C. ISSUES OF INFORMAL MARKETS .........................................................................33 5D. CURRENT PLANNING AND DESIGN EFFORTS .......................................................35 6. ANALYSIS OF INFORMAL MARKETS AS COMPLEX SYSTEMS .......................38 6A. STATE OF THE INFORMAL MARKET ......................................................................39 6B. AGENTS OF THE INFORMAL MARKET ...................................................................46 6C. MECHANISM OF THE INFORMAL MARKET .............................................................47 6D. GENERAL ANALYSIS OF THE MARKET CASES .......................................................52 C A S E S T U D I E S .............................................................................................54 6E. SANTACRUZ RAILWAY MARKET ...........................................................................54 6E.i. State of Santacruz market.............................................................................................. 54 6E.ii.Agents of Santacruz market........................................................................................... 57 6E.iii.Mechanism of Santacruz market................................................................................... 58 6F. VILE PARLE RAILWAY MARKET ...........................................................................60 6F.i. State of Vile Parle market .............................................................................................. 60 6F.ii. Agents of Vile Parle Market............................................................................................ 63 6F.iii.Mechanism of Vile Parle market.................................................................................... 64 6G. DADAR RAILWAY MARKET ..................................................................................67 6G.i. State of Dadar market.................................................................................................... 68 6G.ii.Agents of Dadar market................................................................................................. 69 6G.iii.Mechanism of Dadar market......................................................................................... 71 7. HOLLAND’S FRAMEWORK AS AN EVALUATION TOOL...................................74 7A. EVALUATION OF CURRENT PLANNING EFFORTS ...................................................74 7A.i. Removal and relocation of vendors ............................................................................... 76 7A.ii.Building a new market space in the area....................................................................... 83 7B. EVALUATION OF COUNTER PROPOSALS ..............................................................84 v 7B.i. Removal of all vehicles .................................................................................................. 84 7B.ii.Removal of only private vehicles: .................................................................................. 87 7C. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................96 8. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................97 8A. ANALYSIS USING HOLLAND ’S FRAMEWORK .........................................................98 8B. EVALUATION USING HOLLAND ’S FRAMEWORK ...................................................102 8C. IMPORTANCE OF HOLLAND ’S FRAMEWORK IN URBAN DESIGN .............................105 APPENDIX..................................................................................................................108 A. SANTACRUZ RAILWAY STATION : .............................................................................108 B. VILE PARLE RAILWAY STATION :..............................................................................117 C. DADAR RAILWAY STATION :.....................................................................................125 D. HAWKER ’S PLAZA :.................................................................................................133 E. GENERAL DATA : ....................................................................................................134 BIBLIOGRAPHY.........................................................................................................144 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2-1 Steps involved in analysis and evaluation of informal markets....................... 7 Figure 3-1 Edge of chaos diagram.................................................................................13