The reality of globalisation, dependence between the city of urban growth accompanied by a changing governance pattern, challenges and its surrounding areas. phenomenal increase in urban areas and to the polity calls for an approach that the concentration of urban population in a compels us to explore and investigate The City: Imagined and Real limited number of cities like . This beyond the formal organizational The city has always fascinated has further accentuated the problem of discourse and move into the dynamics human thought and action. It is a place urbanisation. As a result of this, the urban of spatial politics and power. It is in where ordinary people hope to build centres in have become a confused this context that the role of peripheral viable lives and enjoy decent living. Thus, web of disorganised human activities, city regions (as sub-state spheres of each generation of urbanites, including creating difficulties for urban governance. politics) assumes importance. For it is migrants, bring hope, optimism, vitality essential to perceive of governance in and energy that keep cities alive and Most of the large metropolitan general and in the fringes in particular in dynamic.Most people know that the cities in India have continued to expand its three important dimensions, namely, city encompasses both problems that it laterally and are better described by the who wields authority and power, how faces and the possibilities it offers. The census term ‘urban agglomeration’ (UA). Notes from benefits and costs are allocated, and the essential physical dimensions of a city's This term denotes a continuous urban role of public participation in decision existence are the fixed sites, the durable spread and generally comprises of a making. This alone will help understand shelters, the permanent facilities for town/city and its adjoining outgrowths. Of the Fringes: sustainability of any governance or assembly, interchange and storage, the the 35 metropolitan cities in 2001 with development programme be in the essential social means and the social a population of over a million, only three, core or in the so-called rim- land. division of labour, which serve not merely , and did not the economic life but the cultural process have such outgrowths. However, most A Brief Note Urban Metropolitan Regions as well. Mumbai too fulfilled these of the available accounts are statistical, have they become ‘sites’ of scattered functions and came to be associated spatial or descriptive and they fail to urban settlements and the different as the apex hub in . represent the complex, multidimensional on Mumbai political problems of these metropolis- and changing nature of the urban hinterland systems are bound in intricate The cities of the post-colonial phenomenon. This is apparent in the case ways to the adjoining urban areas. The period have always been viewed in of Mumbai too. This city is also caught Metropolitan questions that can be raised are: terms of their demographic expansion. in a complex web of pluralistic and Urban theorists have described the multiple patterns that are intertwined. i. Can cities per se have their phenomenon in various ways but with independent identity? one overarching meaning, viz., expanded Thus, technical details (mainly Region ii. Should we or can we treat cities with exploding population, without relating to the spatial, statistical or cities separately from the regions corresponding development in either politico-administrative) apart, the reality surrounding them with which, in social or physical infrastructure. For of life is rather difficult to explain. In multiple ways, they are entwined? instance, terms like 'pseudo-urbanisation', fact, the city encompasses multiple and iii. Do they form part of what 'hyper-urbanisation' or 'over urbanisation' complex realities, which seem distinct we mean by the term city? are used to describe the social and from and even opposed to each other, iv. In an increasing globalising world economic problems of urbanisation in yet all are intricately interwoven in a are these interconnections more most of the megacities of the developing many-layered mesh of interdependent important than ever before? countries, to connote the fact that relationships in the social, political and urbanisation has not been accompanied spatial realm. Thus the relationship This brief not partly tries by economic or social development of between Mumbai and its adjoining regions Dr. Sudha Mohan to locate the inevitable inter- the right kind. What has taken place in has been lopsided, uneven, unequal, Associate Professor, Dept of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai connection, inter-action and inter- these countries has been a rapid rate opportunistic and unpredictable.

470 / 15 urban form 15 / 471 Setup / Level Actors/ Organisations Sectoral Relation Role Ministry of Urban Overall Urban Oversee implementation Central Government Development Development. of Urban Objectives Planning commission into policy and action Urban Development Urban Development- Direct Management, state subject, hence Planning and State Government direct role Development of Urban Development in the State Statutory Authorities

♦ MMRDA Metropolitan Planning Preparation of local and ♦ MWSSB Water supply and regional level urban development A) Water Sewerage plans and water distribution ♦ MHADA Poor /Lower Middle Social Housing/ B) Housing ♦ CIDCO class urban population Affordable Dwelling Municipal Hospitals, Poor/Lower Middle class Free / Subsidised Health Service Private Clinics Upper middle and Emergency and C) Health af uent sections Quality health service

Super Speciality Hospitals Resident and Non resident Ultramodern and High af uent sections Cost health care Gottman (1961) originally coined past two centuries as the island city ♦ MSRDC Road Development Catalyst for Public Railways (Central Govt) Catering to a majority of and Private Transport the term ‘megalopolis’ to describe the itself has engaged with processes of D) Transport commuters Augmenting Rail Services emerging economic hub that was the transition from colonial to post-colonial, through MU Boston-to-Washington corridor. Derived industrial to post-industrial, and from ♦ MUTP initiative Local Authorities, BMC, Urban Local Areas City Administration from the Greek and meaning ‘very large local–regional to national-global status. Municipal / Local Govt. city’, the term was later applied to a Mumbai is a city of contrasts. It reflects Municipal councils and Development UNDP.WB,ADB,OEC In the area of transportation WB supported MUTP. number of other regions. Ohmae (1993) within its boundaries both, the ills which International Agencies Multinationals, UNCHS and slum redevelopment WB supported Slum - later argued that ‘region states’ had afflict any city and its citizens and the Sanitation programme replaced nation states as the organizing dynamism and flexibility that are its Non Governmental Organisations ♦ SPARC, Housing, and Health Persuasive, Collaborative economic units the global economy. driving forces. In fact, in contemporary (NGO)- ♦ YUVA, and Advocacy role State / Local Mega region is not an artefact of artificial Mumbai, the existence of parallel cities ♦ CEHAT Tata, Birla, Mahindra, Bajaj, ICICI Transportation, Health, Fullling corporate, social and Private Sector Enterprises/ political boundaries, like the nation state is a very striking phenomenon. Infosys,Reliance, Britannia , Education and Housing Community responsibility? Corporate Sector and MNC, or even its provinces, but the product of Novartis, Cipla etc. concentrations of centres of innovation, Mumbai has over the decades production and consumer markets. been managed by a large number of provision of basic services in Mumbai fact remains that neither the city nor institutions. Their performance in the past and MMR. (Mohan Sudha: 2005) the suburbs and the extended regions Mumbai and the Mumbai has been marred by a certain measure developed in a sustained manner in all Metropolitan Region (MMR) of rigidity of approaches and procedures; • MMRDA: Mumbai Metropolitan these years after the conception of the Mumbai is the most populous lack of co-ordination between various Region Development Authority first Plan for the MMR in 1973. It needs to city in India and the sixth largest agencies, inefficiency and corrupt • MWSSB: Mumbai Water be clearly mentioned here that the Draft metropolitan region in the world. It is a practices presence is found in almost all Supply and Sewerage Board Regional Plan for Mumbai Metropolitan complex agglomeration that presents the basic services. The following table • MHADA: Maharashtra Housing Region 1996-2011, by its own admission, a socio-spatial structure exemplifying indicates the governmental organisations, and Area Development Authority mentions that “Twenty years after the complexity that has developed over the non-state actors and their role in the • CIDCO: City and Industrial Plan, Greater Mumbai continues to reel Development Corporation under increased demographic pressure, • MSRDC: Maharashtra State poor infrastructure and high level of Setup / Level Actors/ Organisations Sectoral Relation Role Road Development Corporation environmental pollution.” Though there Ministry of Urban Overall Urban Oversee implementation • MUTP: Mumbai Urban Transport Project are several problems of Mumbai city it Central Government Development Development. of Urban Objectives Planning commission into policy and action • SPARC: Society for the Promotion is in the metropolitan region, its peculiar Urban Development Urban Development- Direct Management, of Area Resource Centre problems and developmental measures state subject, hence Planning and State Government • YUVA: Youth for Unity that have been completely ignored. (TISS/ direct role Development of Urban and Voluntary Action YUVA Report 1996) The so-called‘rural Development in the State • CEHAT: Centre for Enquiry into rimland’ that forms part of the MMR, Statutory Authorities Health and Allied Themes occupying about 60 percent of the area ♦ MMRDA Metropolitan Planning Preparation of local and ♦ MWSSB Water supply and regional level urban development with just about 6 percent of the regional A) Water Sewerage plans and That there is the need for population, is least influenced by the water distribution development of backward areas in over-all development taking place in ♦ MHADA Poor /Lower Middle Social Housing/ B) Housing a co-ordinated manner for balanced the city and thereby has lagged behind ♦ CIDCO class urban population Affordable Dwelling Municipal Hospitals, Poor/Lower Middle class Free / Subsidised development has always been a concern the Mumbai city in its basic social and Health Service but never been implemented in a physical infrastructure services. Special Private Clinics Upper middle and Emergency and committed manner. A critically neglected efforts are required to develop this part C) Health af uent sections Quality health service component in the MMR are areas that along with other areas of the metropolitan

Super Speciality Hospitals Resident and Non resident Ultramodern and High at the fringes of development, both region. This would involve creation of af uent sections Cost health care geographically and otherwise. But the conditions conducive to participation of ♦ MSRDC Road Development Catalyst for Public Railways (Central Govt) Catering to a majority of and Private Transport 472 / 15 urbanD) T rformansport commuters Augmenting Rail Services 15 / 473 through MU ♦ MUTP initiative Local Authorities, BMC, Urban Local Areas City Administration Municipal / Local Govt. Municipal councils and Development UNDP.WB,ADB,OEC In the area of transportation WB supported MUTP. International Agencies Multinationals, UNCHS and slum redevelopment WB supported Slum - Sanitation programme Non Governmental Organisations ♦ SPARC, Housing, and Health Persuasive, Collaborative (NGO)- ♦ YUVA, and Advocacy role State / Local ♦ CEHAT Tata, Birla, Mahindra, Bajaj, ICICI Transportation, Health, Fullling corporate, social and Private Sector Enterprises/ Infosys,Reliance, Britannia , Education and Housing Community responsibility? Corporate Sector and MNC, Novartis, Cipla etc.

its citizens in city-oriented employment with Tokyo trailing at 27.3 million. The are the built settings of the community. • Deliberate planned political and provision of amenities and services. MMRDA is an apex body regulating This is one dimension that is agreeable and policy operations; and coordinating the activities of all to me from this controversial scholar. • Blatant violation of rules Greater Mumbai, the city these organisations, and is responsible and regulations proper, occupies only 438 km and yet for planning and administering the Urban scholars have analyzed • Nexus between Politicians, it is often confused with the Mumbai island city and its environs. in detail how neoliberal globalization Bureaucrats, Developers and Business. Metropolitan Region, which is almost ten has negatively impacted cities and times bigger (4,355 km) and includes The Mumbai Metropolitan city-regions. Since the 1990s there Above all scholars have raised the outlying townships of and Matters as it accounts for 22% of the have been changes in land use from critical issues regarding ideology and , which are 1 million-plus cities in state’s population, 40% of growth; has agricultural to residential and industrial/ politics directing urban development their own right. (Pictures 1 and 2). The almost double the state’s per capita commercial; (Pictures 3 and 4) Changes process in Mumbai through in the MMRDA is responsible for planning and income and 70% of all state taxes in the use of natural resources, for light of MMRDA plan and other developing civic infrastructure in the and 74% of sales tax are from MMR instance, deforestation, water depletion initiatives and attempts to develop a Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), The mega-regions, that the MMR is and pollution, land levelling because of critique of the entire process of recent which covers 4355 square kilometers. rapidly becoming opens new and large excessive quarrying, land degradation urbanisation. (Swapna Banerjee-Guha Of this, 468 square kilometers belongs forms of economic landscapes, political because of brick kilns and increased solid 2002 and Veronique Dupont 2007). to the city of Greater Mumbai. The rest battlegrounds and cultural changes and and liquid wastes. (Pictures 5 and 6) of the MMR contains five municipal spatial contestations. In his new book The latest plans for the city corporations, fifteen municipal on ‘The Great Reset’, Richard Florida Consequences of such drastic changes assumes that the total population within councils and several villages. (2010), talks about the 3 T’s, namely can be found in the formations of the metropolitan region will increase to Talent, Technology and Tolerance to which 34 million by 2031. Within 25 years, an According to the Washington- a forth T has been added, i.e., Territory • New forms of segregation; additional 12 million people will need based Population Institute, the Mumbai Assets. More than ever before ‘place • Polarisation; to navigate the city’s territory. This metropolitan region in 2020 will be the matters’ and geography has certainly • Socio-spatial fragmentation calls for a very clear planning strategy world’s most populous at 28.5 million, NOT become history! Territory assets resulting from those factors in the lives and livelihoods of people living in the villages that are part of the ‘metropolitan’ regions; enhance and enable employment opportunities by strengthening the vital and unique small scale and cottage industries in the regions.

For example papad making and clay works in Penn. (Pictures 7 and 8). These activities mostly are still in 1, 2 3, 4 5, 6 the rudimentary form and assistance from both the government as well as the non-governmental organisation in both regulating, strengthening as well as providing basic technology to enhance storage capability will be welcome by this sector. (As was pointed out by people employed in the sector during my visit and interaction with them).

474 / 15 urban form 15 / 475 The question that can be raised countries. The Mumbai Metropolitan is who decides what ‘development.’ Regional Development Authority If owners of property believe that it is (MMRDA), which undertakes planning difficult to maintain and manage/protect and developing civic infrastructure and preserve such ‘heritage’ structures, projects in the Mumbai Metropolitan with no assistance from the government, Region (MMR), has an idle investment do they have a ‘right’ to decide? Should of Rs 8.42 crore. These are the findings there be a concerted effort on the part of of the report of the Comptroller and 7, 8 9, 10 the government to identify such ‘heritage Auditor General of India (CAG). structures, make special provision for maintenance and upkeep of such places? The following are some of Where does that leave owners of such the ongoing projects: property? These are larger questions that were posed to this researcher, • An airport, a mega-city and ’s answers to which are still unavailable. biggest railway junction are coming up on its periphery. Most of this work Secondly was also known has been undertaken by CIDCO. These as a city of lakes. However, over the years, Projects have attracted their share most of these lakes have been closed of controversy with vast stretches City and City regions share a Most of these wadas have now made for to make way for construction. There are of villages and human settlements symbiotic relationship; if this association re-development projects and highrises hardly 5-6 lakes remaining in the area having to undergo displacement to is understood and carefully nurtured, have come in their place. There are just today. Old Panvel, which comes under the make way for these big projects. both will move forward together. If a few wadas left in Panvel. Of the two jurisdiction of Panvel Municipal Council, • In case of projects like the mega not, a city’s heedless expansion may wadas that I visited, the Bapat wada has been impacted the most because city, the objection has primarily been threaten the region’s natural endowment, is over 300 years old and was once of major infrastructure development over the rehabilitation as CIDCO has generating economic, social and flourishing is now in dilapidated state. projects coming up on its sides. planned rehabilitation on the periphery environmental costs that will ultimately There are about 40-50 families living of the mega-city with the villages being undermine its own development. in its premises but none of them want MMRDA in its enthusiasm for dispersed on all its sides in small pockets. this wada to be registered as a heritage ‘developing’ these areas as growth hubs • In case of the airport, the controversy Issues and Concerns of MMR structure and nor are they keen on has been engaged in a wide range of has also been over environmental In most metropolitan region repairing it. Neo liberal development has activities. A small list given below is clearances, CRZ norms and mangroves. that this researcher visited, the problem a way of penetrating mindsets and this is clearly exemplifies the motto as well as • In terms of development, a 200 acre is of insufficient allocation of resources so clearly visible in peoples ‘idea’ of what the modus operandi of an organisation Central Park has been planned which will and very un-coordinated work by they want as development. They want keen on making this a ‘global megacity be a green zone within the emerging city. different organisations. For example, that place to be re-developed for a good region’. Ironically, what MMRDA has • The authorities also stress that there in Panvel, where I did field work and sum and a new house. The other wada been involved with are a series of is hardly any scope for development also interviewed and discussed with that we saw was Patkar wada which is allocations for various MMRDA projects. in Old Panvel as the existing land Journalists, Engineers, Municipal next to the old Thane- highway. The area has already been occupied. Counselors and common men and owners have made efforts to preserve MMRDA has proposed to set A portion of the wet garbage from women. Most seem to lament the lost the original structure here. However, up Asia’s largest ‘Innovation Park’ within this area is sent to a biogas plant; status and glory of the onetime heritage they too do not want their wada to be the MMR. The park will be largest in the however, the gas generated out of this city that was Panvel. It was dotted by a registered as a heritage structure as it field of Research and Development. The plant has not been put to any use yet. number of wadas. (Traditional, sustainable brings restrictions on the extent of re- MMRDA is expecting the park to attract (See for more information website of structures/homes, (Pictures 9 and 10) development and the use of the property. about 25,000 scientists from over 100 MMRDA, www.mmrdamumbai.org)

476 / 15 urban form 15 / 477 City-Regions: Need for Mapping rebuild cities and regions. One suggestion Mumbai and Mumbai Metropolitan Region (A Comparison) Assets and reinforce Democracy is that the economics of city-regional Mumbai And Mumbai Metropolitan Region (A Comparison) The tangible assets of agglomeration (as much as the politics city-regions can be thus be divided of city-regionalism) ‘are creating Population (In Millions) Year 1981 Year 1991 Year 2001 into seven clusters that encompass tensions and interests around which human, social, cultural, intellectual, new alliances and struggles could be Mumbai Island City 3.28 3.17 3.33 natural, environmental and urban coalescing’. It is said and rightly so that Mumbai Outer City 4.96 6.75 8.59

assets. (Friedmann 2007). as places of politics and struggle, city- Suburbs(Outside Mumbai) 1.66 3.45 5.79 regions matter. (Jonas and Ward 2007) These resources still are Metropolitan Mumbai 9.90 13.37 17.70 available and existing in most of the MMR. With the 74th Constitution The question is, does the State care or Amendment Act of 1992, some hope Share Of Population Year 1981 Year 1991 Year 2001 does it brush these beneath the official for peri-urban areas has emerged with Mumbai Island City 33.2% 23.7% 18.8% neo liberal government discourse in the the Act’s recognition of ‘transitional’ Mumbai Outer City 50.1% 50.5% 48.5% pretext of ‘development’ and change? It is areas and the granting of civic status important especially at this stage of flux to them as ‘nagar panchayats’ or town Suburbs (Outside Mumbai) 16.8% 25.8% 32.7% and complex change to map out the basic panchayats. (Mohan 2001) However, Metropolitan Mumbai 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% assets of each one of the regions in MMR. the central act has left it to the different

To examine the strength and merits of states to create this new category for Share Of Growth Year 1981-1991 Year1991-2001 Year 1981-2001 these tangible assets, objectively evaluate the proper governance of peri-urban and appraise the manner in which it can areas. There is also Marginalization that Mumbai Island City 3.2% 3.5% 0.5% be further enhanced and strengthened. By is perpetrated in the name of urban Mumbai Outer City 51.6% 642.5% 46.5% this process of ‘mapping’ alone, I believe planning termed as urban revanchism Suburbs (Outside Mumbai) 51.6% 54.0% 52.9% regions can take advantage of some of the by Neil Smith (1996). Besides, there are Metropolitan Mumbai 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% ‘givens’ that are available to them either several examples of increased disparity; in the cultural or environmental fields. inequality and uneven/haphazard development in many city-regions of Population Change (In Millions) Year 1981-1991 Year1991-2001 Year 1981-2001 What is also required now, India as a result of such processes Mumbai Island City (0.11) 0.15 0.04

according to me, is an active search for are already plenty (Kundu, A 1997) Mumbai Outer City 1.79 1.84 3.62 creative and progressive alternatives to the current situation. In fact a politics I very ardently believe that Suburbs (Outside Mumbai) 1.79 2.3 4.13 of substantive democracy offers much research on city-regions could benefit Metropolitan Mumbai 3.47 4.32 7,.80 hope for creating more just urban places. from more sustained and critical As Mark Purcell states, ‘Democracy’ is attention to the question of sustainable Percentage Change Year 1981-1991 Year 1991-2001 Year 1981-2001 a question that must be woven into our development and substantive local Mumbai Island City 3.4% 4.8% 1.3% current understandings of city-regions democracy. Understanding their Mumbai Outer City 36.2% 27.2% 42.3% and their ongoing political and economic political dynamics is important. restructuring. Just, sustainable and truly Suburbs (Outside Mumbai) 108.1% 67.7% 71.3% civilised city-region. (Purcell 2007) There has to be more critical Metropolitan Mumbai 35.1% 32.3% 44.1% examination about how decisions in City-regional researchers city-regions are made, why they are from Geography, Economics, Sociology made that way, and how they can be and Political Science should be more made more responsibly, responsively engaged in progressive agendas to and more democratically. N.B: Greater Mumbai comprise Mumbai Island City and Mumbai Outer City Sources: Calculated from Census of India 2001 and MMRDA data

478 / 15 urban form 15 / 479 References • Andrew E. G. Jonas and Keven Ward, (2007) Debates and Developments, There’s More Than One Way to be ‘Serious’ about City-Regions, Volume 31.3, pp. 647–56 International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. • Florida Richard (2010), The Great Reset, New York, Harper Collins. • Friedmann John, The Wealth of Cities: Towards an Assets-based Development of Newly Urbanizing Regions Development and Change 38(6): 987–998 (2007). • Gottmann, Jean. (1961) Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States. New York: The Twentieth Century Fund, 1961 • Kundu, A (1997): ‘Trends and Structure of Employment in the 1990s’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 32(24), pp 1399-1405. • Mark Purcell, (2007) City-Regions, Neoliberal Globalization and Democracy: A Research Agenda Volume 31.197–206 International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. • Mohan Sudha (2001) Revitalisation of Urban Local Governance, with special reference to the 74th Constitutional Amendment” in Nawaz Mody and K.Raman (ed.), Revitalisation of Indian Democracy, Mumbai, Allied Publishers, 2001. • Mohan Sudha (2005) Between Privatisation and Participation: Basic Services in Mumbai Metropolitan Region in Klaus Segbers, Simon Raiser and Krister Volkmann (Eds), Public Problems – Private Solutions? Globalizing Cities in the South, Aldershot, UK, Ashgate, September. Pp. 191-206. • Ohmae, Kenichi (1993) "The Rise of the Region State", Foreign Affairs, 72 no. 2, Spring. • Smith, N. (1996) The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City (New York: Routledge). • Swapna Banerjee-Guha, (Jan. 12-18, 2002), Shifting Cities: Urban Restructuring in Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 37, No. 2 pp. 121-128 • TISS and YUVA Report (1996). A Critical Review of the Draft Regional Plan for Mumbai Metropolitan Region 1996-2011”. Seminar Proceedings of the Report published by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and the NGO, Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA), Mumbai. • Ve´ronique Dupont, (2007) Conflicting stakes and governance in the peripheries of large Indian metropolises – An introduction, Cities, Vol. 24, No. 2, p. 89–94.

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