Living on The edge Hiranandani sees the railways Mumbai is no stranger to this kind Rachel Lopez “as important connectors to distant of arrangement. Its first suburb rose areas”, and they are. But more than a higgledy- piggledy beyond the Fort in When he was growing up bonding agent, the railway lines have Kalbadevi and Bhuleshwar in the mid- in Mumbai in the 1950s and ’60s, provided the blueprint for Mumbai’s nineteenth century, but every region that construction magnate Niranjan growth, observed architect Charles subsequently rose beyond was planned Hiranandani lived in a very different Correa in his perceptive essay Public keeping the city’s population growth kind of city. Most people agreed that Transport as DNA. “The urban structure and needs in mind. In 1866, Mumbai the city ended at Dadar and “Bandra of Bombay was not ordained by any already had east-west connectivity via the was a far-flung suburb”, he said. As city planner,” he wrote. It was “really Carnac, Masjid and Elphinstone bridges. Hiranandani grew older, Mumbai grew determined by the railway engineers” bigger. By the late 1980s, he had signed who laid down the Western and Central Thirty years later, an outbreak an agreement with the Maharashtra Railway local lines. (See Books for an of the plague would force the Bombay government, the Mumbai Metropolitan interview with Correa.) Since the end Improvement Trust to decongest the Regional Development Authority and local of the nineteenth century, Mumbai has city by doubling the number of roads, landholders to build a township in Powai, grown in the direction the train tracks led. building low-cost housing and extending much beyond the far-flung Bandra of his city boundaries up to Sion. In the boyhood. Mumbai continued to march out Consider these statistics: of the suburban colonies of Dadar and Matunga, even further. In the last decade, Hirandani 38 lakh people who moved to the city which emerged in the 1930s, the BIT has built housing complexes as far away between 1991 and 2001, roughly half allowed residents equable access to as Thane. He is now constructing a new have settled in the suburbs. The 1991 sunlight and breeze by ensuring that township in Panvel, a place considered census shows that the population of no building directly faced the other. the very edge of Mumbai but which Kalyan on the Central Railway exploded is only one of the four end-points of by 645 per cent in the ’80s and the Mumbai got its first city the city’s local railways system. Mira- Bhayander region along the development policy as early as 1909, a Western Railway expanded to 583 per 20-year plan designed to control landlords The website of the cent during the same time. The number and develop homes for the poor. It had a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, of first-class pass holders from Dahisar town planning scheme in Bandra and Khar the body that governs Greater Mumbai, rose from 6.33 lakh in 2007 to 8.44 by the1920s, zoning laws in 1951 that has a large map marking Dahisar and lakh in 2008, while their second-class prevented the construction of factories Mulund as the borders of its 468 sq km counterparts increased from 38.12 in the island city and a sprawling colony End of the Line jurisdiction. On the site of the MMRDA, the lakh to 53.07 lakh. The numbers from for the middle income group in Bandra TimeOUT, August 6 – 19 2010 organisation responsible for developing Naigaon, Nalasopara, Thane, Dombivali east by the 1960s. Mumbai seemed the 4,355 sq km metropolitan area, and Kalyan stations showed an average to know how to manage its growth. the map is even larger. It also includes increase of 40 per cent as well. Thane district, Uran and Pen – satellite So why are we now so grossly towns and villages whose economy is The railway tracks mark out incapable of creating suburbs that can inextricably linked to Mumbai’s. But for where the city grew from, and point to adequately support the expansion of our most Mumbaikars, the city doesn’t end where it’s headed next: the areas at the ever-growing city? All development in the where civic authorities tell it to – it stops ends of the Central and Western lines. Mumbai metropolitan region is supposed where the last local train does. On the As a city, this puts us in an enviable to be planned by the MMRDA. But the Western Railway, that means Virar. On position. We can plan today so our region also has several other entities Naresh Fernandez the Central Railway, it could be one of final destinations are well prepared that have decision-making powers: the Writer/ Consulting Editor TimeOut three points: Kasara, Khopoli or Panvel. for the population that is to come. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation 038 / 02 housing 02 / 039 (which manages Greater Mumbai), 12 “There is no overall strategy other municipal councils (for regions for urban development today,” observed like Thane, Khopoli, Virar and Alibaug), Shirish Patel, one of the architects the City and Industrial Development who submitted the initial proposal for Corporation of Maharashtra (which is building Navi Mumbai in the 1964.The responsible for the planning of Navi plan, created along with Charles Correa, Mumbai) and several gram panchayats, featured a series of stations along the each managing their own villages. Neither train line around which buildings and a of these is answerable to the other. circular bus corridor could be created. Areas closer to the stations were to have Perhaps that’s part of the dense growth that would diminish as one problem. The metropolitan region moved further away so that low income will have an estimated population of residents could walk to the station. Those 21.9 million by 2015. But it also has who could afford it would have more perhaps the poorest infrastructure spacious housing accessible by car. of any city of comparable size. Instead, Cidco, the developing authority that was established in 1971 to manage As the reports on the following the making of Navi Mumbai, opted to pages show, there is sewage on the have a uniform density for the whole streets in Virar, four holiday-home area, making for not only a monotonous and sold land at the highest profit. No doesn’t have to be retrofitted (like in complexes in Kasara but no hospital for landscape but creating traffic jams along low-income housing was created.” the case of the metro, monorail and the its 16,000 residents, and no jobs for the the main roads in the process. “Funding Jogeshwari-Vikhroli link road projects). residents of Khopoli. Even Panvel, the for the infrastructure was to come from Sunil Mantri, the president of Rohit Mujumdar, an architect with a only planned suburb of all the end-point the sale of land by Cidco,” Patel said. the Maharashtra Chamber for Housing special interest in the peripheral Vasai- stations, is starting to strain at the seams. “But Cidco turned into a private developer Industry, an association of builders and Virar region, recalls the press reportage real-estate developers, believes that that followed the announcement of the Mumbai’s northward sprawl and rapid Vasai-Virar development plan in 1988. pace of construction means that today’s “The headlines said that 10,000 hectares last stops will be tomorrow’s bustling had been opened up to development,” suburbs. “They will look like Andheri he said. “But the articles revealed that and Goregaon,” he predicted. But unless some 7,000-8000 hectares of that land new development plans are drafted to had already been bought by builders. keep pace with the city’s growth, they’re The plan seemed like an afterthought.” likely to have Andheri and Goregaon’s nightmarish infrastructure too. Mumbai’s To make up for the lack of first development plan was formulated statesupplied infrastructure, large in 1964; its second came into force townships like those by Niranjan between 1990 and ’93 and is valid until Hiranandani integrate parking, recreation 2013. “Plans should come every 10 and even schools and private hospitals years, not every 30 years,” Mantri said. into their layouts. “Living is not just staying in a flat,” Hiranandani said. They should ideally come “Eventually you have to get out of the before development takes place, so house, go shopping, meet people or go infrastructure precedes growth and to the doctor.” As more private townships 040 / 02 housing 02 / 041 sprout up in the new suburbs, the outside Panvel that will include an IT Industry standard census to reveal a population of close to disparity between people who depend on commercial centre, an entertainment Megha Mahindru one lakh, a huge jump indeed for a village state-provided amenities and those with city and rental housing. In the Igatpuri- that had only 515 residents in 1882. the ability to buy them are becoming more Vajreshwari area beyond Kasara, where Some residents of Khopoli obvious. It’s likely that some building much of the land is owned by local haven’t have been to a movie theatre So tied is Khopoli to industry complexes will soon have four-lane temple trusts, the MMRDA is working on in a decade, ever since the area’s only today that a local waterfall, one of the highways within their perimeters, even as a Recreation and Tourism Development cinema hall shut down ten years ago. But area’s big attractions, is named Zenith treeless alleys are all that separate one Zone that could block public access to the town Khopoli still attracts plenty of Falls, after a steel company in the vicinity.