ABSTRACT
Planning for Mumbai’s port lands encompasses decades of analysis, deliberation and stalemate. Under a neoliberal, public-private partnership-driven model to spur economic development, the Central Government of India currently appears poised to “liberate” locked up port lands for civic use and for private speculation. AMumbai Port Land Development Committee1 report suggests ways to put some 1,800 acres of prime waterfront land, currently controlled by the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT), to uses that benefit both the city and port. Representing as this does about one-eighth the total land area of the City of Mumbai, and strategically placed as a narrow strip edging the entire eastern coast of the city peninsula, the port land offers an opportunity to revitalize and reinvent the city. Current planning to repurpose Mumbai Port lands is, as it has been in
previous attempts, highly contested. The need to think at all levels-global, national, regional and at the same time local-is essential if Mumbai is to attain (or, as some claim, retain) world city status. A collaboratively planned revitalization is critical but seemingly unattainable. A variety of stakeholderslocal to national levels of government, local to multinational business, developers, city residents, labor unions, non-profits, and a myriad of other constituencies of this multicultural Indian metropolis-are in the fray over its repurposing and future occupancy. The contemporary ideal of planning for the public good is poignantly salient, as are the prospects of a land-short city aspiring to attain (or retain) world city status. The stakes are high in the deliberation over the future use of this “found”
land which it is anticipated will soon be “liberated” from port trust control. The heterogeneous activities involved in planning in market situations detailed some decades ago by Friedmann (1987, pp.25-29, see particularly Chart 1) are palpably at play. Civic groups and organizations, labor unions, and many different levels and branches of government are engaged in an activity in which market rationality and social rationality vie for dominance. As Friedmann notes (p.25), in a market society (such as the Indian) “the central coordination of all planning activities is patently impossible.” But, as he
further notes (p.28, point 8), the planning effort needs to “restrain market rationality in the name of social interests.” This observation is pertinent in Mumbai around the deployment of government-controlled port land. Planning for port land involves negotiating between fundamentally con-
flicting agendas. They are reflected in the goals set for the 2014 Development Committee by the Union Minister of Shipping, which include “building world-class cruise terminals, new waterways projects, a 500-room floating hotel, 3-4 floating restaurants, a Ferris Wheel on the lines of London Eye and marinas and jetties to promote intra-city water transport in Mumbai” (The Hindu 2014) as well as meeting the need for social housing to alleviate the chronic housing shortage of the poorest in the city who live in informal settlements throughout the metropolis. The estimated land value (11.25 billion US dollars) is identified as the source of collateral for development projects to be executed on a BOT (build, operate, transfer) basis. The committee reportedly recommended that 1,000 of the 1,860 acres be made available to Mumbai city to serve as a transportation hub (40% of the land) and a green lung (30% for open spaces). The draft report recommends creating an autonomous implementation authority-the Mumbai Port Land Development Authority-that is financially and administratively empowered to overhaul port land and curtail port operations to make more land available for city use (see Purohit 2015). There is speculation over how much land will actually be released, where, for what civic purposes and, most importantly, if there will be an entity with the overriding authority to act. The committee report has yet to be released to the public. Regardless of when, and if, this report results in implementation, the
committee efforts highlight the difficulties of planning Mumbai’s port lands so as to balance both humanistic and technical/analytical assessments and to propose interventions that result in action. Bridging the divide between a focus on economic efficiency/technical rationality and on social equity/access is challenging. And predictably, these plans come into headlong conflict with the power structure that underpins big city politics as the stakes over who gains control over land are astronomically high. Stepping back from this to contemplate the larger cycles of action and
reaction, the accommodation to center/periphery shifts in power that underlie land use decisions in key areas of world cities is facilitated by being viewed through the framework that Friedmann (1987, pp.74-75) provides of alternative planning approaches and their underlying premises.2 Planning for world cities must take cognizance of regional and national wellbeing as well as the local, and develop cross-sectoral agreements to act. In democratic societies, where a myriad of actors have voice and stake, achieving a strategic plan for action and bringing it to implementation is challenging and fraught with contradictions as attested in the current contestation over visions for Mumbai’s port lands. These constituencies might achieve a shared purpose and balanced action by “bridging the communications gap” eloquently described as transactive planning (Friedmann 1973, pp.171-193) and
elaborated by various theoreticians of communicative practice (Forester 1988; Krumholz & Forester 1990), which has yet to be tried in efforts to find common ground between different stakeholders in Mumbai. The approach has been used, and successfully, in surfacing the needs and priorities of particular constituent groups such as, for instance, residents of informal settlements. But such an approach has not been attempted in the overview deliberations of all the varied entities, holding divergent goals that have a stake and leverage in Mumbai’s waterfront.
