Contentions of affordability in the habitat planning of a new town

A case of Navi Mumbai, India

Authors

Keywords:

planned city, Navi Mumbai, contested habitation, housing stock, socio-spatial inequities, affordable housing, incrementality

Abstract

The onus of re-constructing a diverse socio-spatial and economically-prepared urban framework in the design of greenfield cities rests on the foresight of a Master Plan document. The conceptualisations in the making of a ‘brand-new city’ are challenged with its subsequent realisation. Often, urbanisation doesn’t tread its planned course, and contentious dualities of planned vs unplanned persists. In Navi Mumbai, five decades later, small-scale slum-settlements emerge as landscapes of dispossession and inevitable gentrification creating urban ruptures within the city morphology. Navi Mumbai was an expression of India’s euphoria as a newly independent nation, exemplified by pragmatic city planning. However, five decades later, the emergence of planning disruptions continues to indicate inadequacies. The paper examines the spatial logics of habitation under changing economic conditions and built-in spatial inequalities. It initiates a discourse on the type of environments planned cities foster towards residents from lower economic and social backgrounds. The key research questions addressed are: How do master plans further socio-economic segregations? What was the impact of neoliberal changes on affordable housing?
Points of critique: Navi Mumbai’s reliance on ‘Euro-American’ visions and Fordist planning present several delinkages with adjacent industrial districts, indigenous farming settlements and sensitive ecological edges. The analysis conferred that affordable housing schemes became an unequal instrument of social cohesion, in light of built-in inequities. The Development Plan of Navi Mumbai excluded its original inhabitations- agricultural and fishing villages, a characteristic adopted by several development plans in contemporary Indian cities. Close examination of mechanisms of ‘incrementality’, as a hall-mark of affordable housing projects, suggests disconnections between designer’s vision and dweller’s aspirations.

Author Biographies

Bhagyasshree Ramakrishna, CEPT University

Bhagyasshree Ramakrishna is an Architect and Urban Designer and is currently engaged with research on
Open-Source Urbanism. She holds a Masters in Architecture from CEPT University in Urban Design and
(minor) Urban Conservation (2016-18). She also received a grant (2022-23) to examine the socio-cultural
associations of communities with heritage water bodies in Panvel Municipality.

Shruthi Ramesh, Independent Researcher

Shruthi Ramesh is an Architect and Urban Designer currently running her independent practice Meander
Design Studio based in Kannur, Kerala. She received her Masters in Architecture (2016-18) with a Major
in Urban Design and Minor in HTC from CEPT University and her undergraduate degree from GEC
Thrissur. She engages in research centred around critical explorations of urban studies vested in
intersectional feminist and subaltern geographies.

References

Baitsch, T. (2018). Incremental Urbanism: A study of incremental housing production and the challenge of its inclusion in contemporary planning processes in Mumbai, India. École Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne.

Census 2011. (n.d). Mumbai (Greater Mumbai) city population. Mumbai (Greater Mumbai) City Population Census 2011-2023 | Maharashtra. (n.d.). Retrieved March 8, 2023, from https://www.census2011.co.in/census/city/365-mumbai.html#:~:text=Hinduism%20is%20majority%20religion%20in,%25%20and%20Buddhism%20by%204.85%20%25.

Chopra, M. (2018). Informal Sector-Backbone Of Indian Economy. International Journal of Research in Social Sciences, 8(2).

CIDCO. (2011), Socio Economic Profile of Households in Planned Nodes in Navi Mumbai. Statistics Department. City & Industrial Development Corporation Of Maharashtra Limited (CIDCO).

Correa, C. (1997). New Bombay as an Urban Catalyst. In Bombay- Making an Urban Landscape. Marg. Volume 49. Number 1.

Correa, C., Mehta, P. & Patel, S. (1965). Planning for Bombay: 1.Patterns of Growth 2. Twin City 3. Current Proposals. In Bombay: Planning and Dreaming. Marg. Volume 18. Number 3.

Dovey, K., & King, R. (2011). Forms of informality: Morphology and visibility of informal settlements. Built environment, 37(1), 11-29.

Dovey, K., van Oostrum, M., Chatterjee, I., & Shafique, T. (2020). Towards a morphogenesis of informal settlements. Habitat International, 104, 102240.

Edulbehram, J. (1996). Conceptions and Politics in the Patterning of an Urban-Regional Space: The Case of (New) Bombay. Berkeley Planning Journal, 11(1).

Fitting, P. (2002). Urban planning/utopian dreaming: Le Corbusier's Chandigarh today. Utopian Studies, 13(1), 69-93.

Florida, R. L., & Feldman, M. M. (1988). Housing in US fordism. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 12(2), 187-210.

Ghuman, B. S. (2000). Liberalisation and Regional Patterns of Industrialisation: The Indian Experience. In Economic Liberalisation and Institutional Reforms in South Asia: Recent Experiences and Future Prospects, 110.

Jana, A., & Sarkar, S. (2018). Disparate housing strategies and practices of public and private enterprises in India: Analysis of middle class housing and new towns. Cities, 72, 339-347.

Jeckel, E. (2021). Post-Fordist Production and Urban Industrial Land Use Patterns. Urban Planning. 6. 321-333. 10.17645/up.v6i3.4272.

Jose, G. (2022). Legislating the Urban in Vasai-Virar: Planning (in) the Periphery. In Mumbai/Bombay (pp. 116-134). Routledge India.

Mehrotra, R., & Sharma, K. A. (2018). Navi Mumbai: From New Town to Suburbia. In Berger, A., & Kotkin, J. (Eds.). (pp. 398–413). Infinite suburbia. Chronicle Books.

Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation. (2022). Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation Draft Development Plan 2018-2038 (Dp Report). Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation. Retrieved March 6, 2023, from https://www.nmmc.gov.in/navimumbai/assets/251/2022/08/mediafiles/NMMC_Draft_Report_11_08_2022-Final.pdf

Owens, K. E., Gulyani, S., & Rizvi, A. (2018). Success when we deemed it failure? Revisiting sites and services projects in Mumbai and Chennai 20 years later. World development, 106, 260-272.

Prasad, B. K. (2003). Urban Development: A New Perspective. Sarup & Sons.

Rajagopalan, S. (n.d.). The Quest for Economic Freedom in India. The quest for economic freedom in India | The 1991 Project. Mercatus Center. Retrieved March 8, 2023, from https://the1991project.com/essays/quest-economic-freedom-india

Roost, F., & Jeckel, E. (2021). Post‐Fordist Production and Urban Industrial Land Use Patterns. Urban Planning Journal, 6

Roweis, S. (1981). Urban planning in early and late capitalist societies: Outline of a theoreti-cal approach. In M. J. Dear and A. J. Scott (eds) Urbanization and Urban Planning in Capital-ist Society (pp. 159–177). London: Methuen

Roy, A. (2005). Urban informality: Toward an epistemology of planning. Journal of the american planning association, 71(2), 147-158.

Saleman, Y., & Jordan, L. (2015). The Implementation of Industrial Parks: Some Lessons Learned in India. Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy.

Sedighi, M., & Varma, R. (2018). Framing a New Discourse on the Notion of Habitat in Transforming Societies. The 18th International Planning History Society Conference -Yokohama.

Shaw, A. (1990). Linkages of large scale, small scale and informal sector industries: A study of Thana-Belapur. Economic and Political weekly, M17-M22.

Shaw, A. (2004). The Making of Navi Mumbai. Orient Blackswan.

Ugrani, P. (2017). Porous Boundaries and the Appropriation of Space in Urban Mass Housing. In International Conference On Theory of Architectural Design: Global Practices Amid Local Mileau (pp. 17-21).

Ugrani, P. (2020). Address-giving as Expression of Identity: Study of CIDCO Housing in Navi Mumbai. Tekton, 7(2), 44-63.

WID. (n.d.). India -WID - world inequality database. Income inequality, India, 1951-2019 https://wid.world/country/india/

World Bank (1997). Bombay Urban Development Project. Implementation Completion Report. Energy and Infrastructure Operations Divisions, South Asia Region.

Downloads

Published

2023-12-29

Issue

Section

Dossier Article