Skyscrapers and Other "Evil Paradises"
These are the Tallest Buildings in Mumbai as of 2013..Many more are planned...
Please click here to see some of the future project planned in
Mumbai.
Several essays in Mike Davis and Daniel Bertrand Monk's edited volume Evil Paradises display several essays that tell different examples of the “Evil Paradises” that have been sprouting up in cities around the globe. These are places that are created for use by the rich and super rich that inhabit them. The construction, maintenance and operation of these places of the privileged fall on the backs and the labor of the incredibly underpaid and overworked poor. The poor do not use the dwellings, restaurants or any of the vast shopping arenas among the rich in these places of indulgence. The paradises are only for use and enjoyment for the elite; this inequality is what makes them “evil”, in the viewpoint of the book's author's.
The dreamworld of neoliberialism is shown in the architecture of monumental buildings that reach higher and higher in the sky in the proclamation of their accomplishment of money money money
money. These dreamworld developments often take land labeled as useless and previously unused land and build unreal castles within them. In Mumbai, these skyscrapers called the Imperial Towers
were built on former slum land where the current re-development model of builders providing free land and rehabilitation to slum dwellers in exchange for rights for property development, was
first put into practice on a big scale. This model became the standard for slum redevelopment across the city, and across India as a whole. Mumbai is an enormous city, cruel and heartless in the
way huge cities are. A 2007 New York Times ariticle states that “the official population is about 20 million, but some demographers put the number closer to 24 million because of an influx of
immigrants and the complexity of measuring the population of Dharavi, the city's central slum... more shanties sprouting up”. Mumbai is also one of the most densely populated cities in the world.
By 2015, the United Nations predicts it will be the second-largest metropolis on the planet.
The ideal is that the people inside the gates dwell in a transnational way that can be replicated anywhere in the world. For many, Hong Kong residents transnational urbanism is their vernacular. Laura Ruggari's essay, “Palm Springs; Imagineering Hong Kong in America”, Hong Kong shows that the inhabitants of this city are “experts in the transnational idioms of fashion, sports, music, clothing,cuisine, and travel (Ruggeri p. 112). The chosen few that are global creatures that float around from one enclosure to the next. Yet these enclosures always look the same wherever they go. They look like Disneyland. These places do not inhabit the original natives or inhabitants of these countries. The original inhabitants are driven to the other side of the fence, but may come back over to repair and operate the machinery and provide the services necessary for the rich that this play place has been made for. This is also the case in Mumbai where as “The Economist” points out, Mid-town flats cost $1m-3m. The average price of a 1,000-square-foot pad in the city is perhaps $250,000, or 90 times GDP per head. With flats out of reach, the share of people in slums has risen to perhaps 60%, compared with 20% in Rio de Janeiro and Delhi. This is alarming due to the disproportionate number of original inhabitants of Bombay that have been moved out of the space that was once without division. In the article, The Mumbai Paradox: The Commingling of Development and Tradition in India's Largest City, Leah Misbin says that the change is apparent in the Taj Hotel, as it represents a changing India that is connected to its past and moving towards it's future. The high-security entrance reflects the country's modern condition: surrounded on all sides by hostile neighbors and the heightened sense of awareness that such a condition dictates. At the same time, the structure goes back to a memory in India's past as a colony of the United Kingdom, a homage to lavishness and plenitude.
Mumbai has urbanized over the past 60 years and urbanized rapidly from its origins as a fishing village. The site of the fishing village soon became a port region as the site favored development. Protected from the Arabian Sea by a peninsular art the southern end of Salsette Island, it had access to sea on two sides and the British colonial administration in India developed the sheltered inlet into a major port. The British viewed the port and surroundings as the”Gateway to India”. This made it the closest port of entry to subcontinent for travelers from Europe, through the Suez Canal. As with many major global ports area around the port became industrialized – processing goods for export and handling imports. The city grew during British rule as variety of services grew up around the port and continued to grow after British left in 1947. Since 1971, the graph shows the inexorable rise in the population of Mumbai, from 8 million in 1971 to 21 million now. The other significant factor to note is that slum dwellers make up an ever increasing proportion of the population, creating numerous problems for people and planners. It should be noted that the original urbanization phase of Mumbai focused upon the southern tip of Salsette Island, and outside of this the city suburbanite in a Northern direction.
The causes of urbanization are multiple, but involve a high level of natural increase within Mumbai itself and in-migration principally from the surrounding district of Maharashtra but also from neighboring states. Mumbai booming economy means that migrants come for job opportunities in the expanding industries, financial institutions and administration.