Mumbai

Where in the world?

Where in the world?

LOCATION

Mumbai (formerly Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. With an estimated population of thirteen million, it is the most populous city in India.

SITE AND SITUATION Along with the neighbouring

suburbs of Navi Mumbai and Thane, it forms, at nineteen-million, the world's fifth most populous metropolitan area. Mumbai lies on the west coast of India and has a deep natural harbour.

Describe the site of Mumbai. What problems might this

site possess for a rapidly expanding city?

Population:State of the World Population 2007

Mumbai is the most densely populated city in the world with 29,650 per square kilometre and projected that Mumbai will be the second most populous city in the world by 2020 with over 25 million inhabitants.

most urban growth comes from natural increase (difference between the number of births and number of deaths) rather than migration.

FUNCTION Mumbai serves as an important economic hub of the country,

contributing 10% of all factory employment, 40% of India's foreign trade and Mumbai's per-capita income is Rs.48,954 which is almost three times the national average.

Up until the 1980s, Mumbai owed its prosperity largely to textile mills and the seaport, but the local economy has since been diversified to include engineering, diamond-polishing, healthcare and information technology.

Mumbai is home to the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, and most of India's specialized, technical industries, having a modern industrial infrastructure and vast, skilled human resources. Rising venture capital firms, start-ups and established brands work in aerospace, optical engineering, medical research, computers and electronic equipment of all varieties, shipbuilding and salvaging, and renewable energy and power.

The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) also runs oil operations at Bombay High, an offshore oilfield located 160 km off the coast of Mumbai. The Bombay High supplies 14% of India's oil requirement and accounts for about 38% of all domestic production.

FUNCTION Its port handles over half of India's seagoing passenger traffic and a

large proportion of her maritime cargo. Mumbai is the commercial and entertainment centre of India,

accounting for 25 per cent of industrial output, forty per cent of maritime trade, and seventy per cent of capital transactions to India's economy.

Mumbai is one of the world's top ten centres of commerce by global financial flow, home to such important financial institutions as the Reserve Bank of India, the Bombay Stock Exchange, the National Stock Exchange of India and the corporate headquarters of many Indian companies and numerous multinational corporations.

The city also houses India's Hindi film and television industry, known as Bollywood.

Mumbai's business opportunities, as well as its high standard of living, attract migrants from all over India and, in turn, make the city a potpourri of many communities and cultures.

Stress? Although India boasts more billionaires than China, 81% of its

population lives on $2 a day or less, compared with 47% of Chinese, according to the 2005 U.N. Population Reference Bureau Report.

That class divide is starkest in cities like Mumbai, where million-dollar apartments overlook million-population slums.

For all its glitz, Mumbai remains a temple to inefficiency. In 2003 it had one bus for every 1,300 people, two public parking spots for every 1,000 cars, 17 public toilets for every million people and one civic hospital for 7.2 million people in the northern slums, according to a report for the state government

At least one-third of the population lacks clean drinking water, and 2 million do not have access to a toilet.

SHANTY TOWN:Dharavi, Makeshift townships (bustees) account

for about 40% of the city's population. Asia's largest slum. Made up of ramshackle corrugated tin

sheds it is home to more than 600,000 people.

But it is a unique shanty town. Thanks to a thriving crafts industry,

Dharavi generates business worth nearly $1bn a year.

Local workshops turn out leather goods, pottery, and jewellery, much of it destined for shop shelves in the West.

Now, the authorities want to harness Dharavi's business potential with an ambitious plan to turn it into one of Asia's best neighbourhoods.

A massive re-development plan, costing some $1.3bn, is in prospect.

Urban renewal? Shacks press up against the tracks of

Mumbai's famously packed trains. And slums block the proposed routes of new highways aimed at relieving the growing traffic. In short, the slums stand in the way of the city's rapid development.

Initially the way around this problem was to just bulldoze the shanty town.

Arputham is the founder of India's National Slum Dwellers Federation. And in this Hollywood of India, he's a celebrity. In 2000 he won the so-called Asian Nobel Prize, the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

Anyone who has lived in a Mumbai slum since 1995 has the right to a new home before being displaced.

SLUM REGENERATION Arputham's federation has already

built housing for 26,000 slum dwellers - on land provided by the government, and with funding from the World Bank. It's one of the largest urban resettlement projects in the world.

It's 225 sq ft. That's the size the government allots to the slumdwellers.

Yet slumdwellers are like any large and diverse group. They don't always agree. And many don't like Arputham's apartment buildings. Some slumdwellers have actually sued to keep from being shifted into the concrete apartment blocks. They'd rather stay in the slums.

problems So many slumdwellers complained to the World Bank that

the Bank's own inspection panel investigated the situation and issued a scathing report.

It found that the project had shifted thousands of slumdwellers to an unsuitable location. It's far from work opportunities, schools and medical facilities.

And it's close to the city's major garbage dump, and flanked by large, stinking drainage canals.

The rows of concrete buildings are squeezed so close together - just ten feet separates them - that precious little daylight filters through to the apartments.

conflict Mehta has his own plan for slum re-

development. It takes advantage of another government scheme crafted with input from the activists.

Mumbai has one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world. If a developer wants to demolish a slum and put up high end housing, in exchange that developer has to first construct apartments for the slumdwellers. Mehta's company set its sights on the largest slum in Mumbai, and in Asia. It's called Dharavi.

Mehta: “It's right in the heart of Bombay. So you have oil companies, finance companies, diamond companies, all of them directly sharing a border with Dharavi.”

Dharavi's slumdwellers weren't about to give up their prime real estate without fighting for something good in return. They opposed Shaan Mehta's redevelopment plan, and pressured the government not to approve it. So Mehta had to start working with slumdwellers to see what they needed.

Global links A plan to provide 60,000 families with new

apartments in their original neighborhood. They also get considerable amenities: top

schools, hospitals, occupational training programs, and job opportunities.

Some officials say the slumdwellers have taken advantage of their political pull and demanded too much.

But the slumdwellers say they're giving up a lot. A 225 sq. ft. studio apartment is smaller than what many of them already have. And many have invested considerably in their shacks - establishing street-level shops, and building two or three story additions.

Activists say the protections they pushed for are fair, and people living in the slums of other cities - in India and around the world - deserve the same.

So Jockin Arputham, who's spent 40 years fighting for slumdweller rights in India, has formed an international federation. He's now sharing his knowledge with the urban poor in Africa, Latin America, and other parts of Asia.