At a panel discussion titled Reimagining Mumbai’s Future, which took place at The Asiatic Society on Friday night, it was agreed that Mumbai cannot bear the weight of the exponential redevelopment boom it is experiencing and that an alternative is desperately needed. The panel, which was organised by Art Deco Mumbai, included Dalvi, restoration architect Vikas Dilawari, and Dr. Jehangir Sorabjee, head of the Bombay Hospital’s medical department, in conversation with Atul Kumar, the platform’s founder and trustee.
According to Kumar, the city of Mumbai has historically leveraged catastrophes, like as the plague, to drive progress. Planned neighbourhoods such as Matunga, Shivaji Park, and Colaba backbay were made possible by the Bombay Improvement Trust (BIT), which was established following the 1896 epidemic.
Sorabjee’s career suffered as a result of Mumbai’s constantly growing population, which contributed to the transformation. He stated that the average life expectancy in Mumbai during the 1920s was 26 years. It was 34 years in the 1950s. It is now 70 years, compared to 56 years in the 1990s. The population of the city rises by one million every two years.
However, Mumbai is where it is now because of one significant shift. “To guarantee that homes on the ground floor received enough sunlight and air, Mumbai had building codes that limited the height of buildings based on the width of the road, based on an angle,” Dalvi explained.
This changed when the first Development Plan (DP) introduced the Floor Space Index (FSI) concept in the 1960s, substituting monetisation for the fundamental goal of habitability in housing. Terms like carpet area, built-up area, super built-up area, etc., are the result of this. Exchange value is becoming a factor in housing. Additionally, Dilawari called out the 1999-introduced Rent Control Act. Even though it has been outlawed in the majority of nations, it nevertheless encourages landlords in Mumbai to choose reconstruction over maintenance for their older structures.
Dalvi noted that Mumbai has evolved from a rental city to one that is fixated on ownership due to the power of the real estate industry, which is driven by speculation.
A shortage of affordable housing, uncontrolled construction, and a reduction in open spaces have resulted from this. The panel as a whole was pessimistic about Mumbai’s future because of all these reasons.
Kumar predicted that the effects of Mumbai’s transformation would materialise within the next three to five years. Sorabjee described how five enormous structures now encircle his ground-floor house. He claimed that there was little harmony left in the city, which had become extremely tense.
For the wealthy and upper middle class, we have seen a development that is mostly focused on cars. Unfortunately, those who depend on and utilise public transportation lack a strong political will or lobby. Many decisions are being taken on the spot, such as the six-lane road at Marine Drive, without doing adequate traffic studies or evaluating the effects on the neighbourhood, Sorabjee continued.
Better public transport, reasonably priced housing, and natural open spaces were the consensus recommendations made by the experts when Kumar asked them what they would want to see in the city. “The city’s future can still be changed and given an opportunity to shine if we can focus on these few things,” Dilawari added.Sorabjee was even more gloomy when a member of the audience questioned whether there was still any chance for the city’s abandoned suburbs, Malad in particular. “It would require a crisis,” he thought.
Source: Hindustan Times
