Urbanization In Mumbai Case Study

Mumbai, similar to several other large cities across the world has been undergoing the process of urbanization which has lead to massive spatial restructuring of the city. The urbanisation process has to be understood as one of the many consequences of Globalization and not as a process functioning on its own. The nested economic interest of underlying the process of globalisation include increase in the inflow and outflow of foreign capital in the country, shift from manufacturing to service sector and finance and opening up of the economy to make space for international economic activities; as a result of this, the urban spaces have had to redesign themselves in order to facilitate these. . It can be observed, especially in the case of India, …show more content…
The post-independence plans for the urbanization of Mumbai aimed at improving the overall quality of life in the city, however, the benefits of the same failed to reach the larger sections of the population in the city. In the process of achieving rapid economic growth, the developers and even the politicians often found themselves taking the side of commercial and business enterprises who aimed at achieving financial success, even if it has to be at the cost of the interest of the communities. The economic divide between the people in the city increased at an even higher rate after the economic reforms of the 1990. This was caused due to the concentration of the development policies of the city into spatial reconstruction which ensured maximum economic returns (Guha, 2002). This process of redesigning has caused major amendments in the economic structure and employment patterns along with altering the availability and use of space by different sections of the …show more content…
Capitalism is said to be closely linked with urbanisation since the process of urbanisation depends on the mobility of surplus product and this is done by the capitalists who increase the production of surplus product in order to increase their profits. Capitalists, by nature, reinvest the surplus value that they generate in order to earn higher profits; it automatically leads to accumulation of capital. Such accumulation forces the capitalist to find new and varied areas in the economy which is capable to absorb this surplus or expand their markets beyond boundaries. However, surplus absorption in such cases almost always leads to creative destruction, that is, situation where the poor, marginalised and underprivileged sections of the society end up suffering the most in this process. The escalation of the value of land can be explained using Engels understanding; the value of land increases with the growth of the city, specifically land in those areas which has the advantage of the location being situated centrally. The buildings and constructions which have been prevailing in these areas prior to the growth of the city lose its value leading to the depreciation of the value of the land itself. The constructions referred here include the homes of the workers which are situated centrally and whose rent value