Mumbai's Quest To Be A Global City
Over two centuries ago, economist Thomas Malthus predicted that population has a tendency to outgrow food supply and production. There was more than a grain of truth in this assumption. The World population was about 1,000 million at that time; it has grown to above 7,000 billion. Only three per cent of the total world's population was urban then; over 50 per cent of the world's population is urban now. However, Malthus' other predictions did not come true. Food supply and production vastly outgrew population growth in the past 200 years. Today, almost all economists agree that population is an asset; and that food supply and production tend to vastly outgrow population growth. But, urban development in India is still driven by Malthus' views, especially in India's financial capital, Mumbai. Various government policies curtail real estate development in the city in their attempt to curtail population growth.
Curbing the height
In much of the central Mumbai, the area of the floor space constructed on a certain plot should not be greater than 1.33 times the size of the plot. By putting such restrictions in place, authorities wanted to curb low-income migrants from moving to the centre of the city. Another explanation is that the height of buildings in Mumbai was restricted to avoid the greater investment in infrastructure higher densities would necessitate. Building height restrictions were also imposed to preserve a better environment, and to make constructions homogeneously tall. But, as Mumbai's population saw remarkable growth year after year, these regulations have forced the city's residents to squeeze into the existing space.
This may change in the near future. Plans of building the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL) and a coastal road recently received environmental and coastal zone regulatory clearances. MTHL is expected to cut down the commute from South Mumbai to Navi Mumbai from 41 minute to 26 minutes and the coastal road is expected to reduce the commute time from Cuff Parade to Kandivli by 90 minutes. These measures are of great importance in a city, where nine people die in the suburban network, and the average commute is among the longest in the world.
The coastal zone regulatory norms have been preventing many infrastructure projects Mumbai for decades. This includes development and maintenance of parks, recreation areas, ports, and extension of metro lines. Much of the land where these regulations apply is very valuable, and is already developed.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has also said that Mumbai may soon have a housing regulator. The government would also allow an FSI (floor space index) of 4 in 104 Mumbai Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) colonies. This means that the authorities will allow builders to construct floor space that is four times greater than the size of the plot in these colonies. Fadnavis also wants Mumbai's mayor to have more autonomy, on par with other global cities.
Easing norms
When Mumbai builds the MTHL Bridge and the coastal road, the FSI policy should be revised simultaneously. The idle land that belongs to the Mumbai Port Trust and the long-idle mills of Mumbai will be the main connecting points of the MTHL Bridge in the Island city. Even though authorities recently decided to put 350 acres of Port Trust land to build houses, if the future land use policy is not clear, it is impossible to decide the ideal transportation networks on the MTHL Bridge. Whether the ideal transport on the MTHL Bridge are cars, buses or trains would widely vary depending on the land use policy. If transportation modes do not match infrastructure, this would not serve the purpose of opening up more land for urban expansion and housing.
Urban planning experts such as Alain Bertaud think that doubling the road bridge with a rail bridge would increase connectivity to areas like Bandra, Kurla, Parel and Worli. Experts also think that the bridge can be financed, if the investment is linked to real estate values along the bridge. (The bridge is expected to cost Rs 11,000 crore.) For example, authorities can issue bonds to fund it and pay back investors from the rise in revenues from property taxes along the bridge. This would make housing more affordable in Mumbai, if FSI levels along these areas are raised simultaneously.
How big a problem is Mumbai's housing affordability?
Real estate prices in Mumbai are among the highest in the world. But, Mumbai's population density by itself is not a constraint in providing affordable housing. The problem is that high real estate prices in Mumbai do not come with high living standards. This is because for cities to become efficient, there should be a greater concentration of jobs facilitated by taller building structures. Such high-rise areas should be along mass-transit corridors, especially in cities like Mumbai ,where public transport ridership is exceptionally high.
Mumbai's problem is not high population density, but the fact that its buildings are largely low-rise. In parts of Mumbai where buildings are taller, infrastructure is often poor. This is partly because authorities allowed high FSI in low-density areas. This is also because FSI in Mumbai is nearly uniform, unlike in other global cities where the ratio between the highest FSI and the lowest FSI is often very high. In New York, for example, the ratio is 30 while in Mumbai, it is 4. As FSI regulations made the city spread horizontally occupying more land, Mumbai is also the most crowded city in the world, with an open space of merely 1.1 square metre per person. Instead of decongesting the city, regulations have made the city even more congested.
The space crunch
Floor space consumption in Mumbai in 2009 was 4.5 sq mt per person, and this is among the lowest among global cities. This is often linked with the population growth, because Greater Mumbai's population has grown from over 800,000 to over 12 million between 1901 and 2011. But, cities like Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore and Shanghai have managed comparable population growth, while allowing people to have greater living spaces every year.
Shanghai is a shining example of that. In 1984, the average floor space consumption in the China city was 3.6 sq mt, lower than Mumbai's figure of 4.5 sq mt in 2009. By 2010, it had grown to 34 sq mt, even though the population had grown significantly in this period. This happened because unlike Mumbai, Shanghai took a conscious decision to allow a higher FSI.
Back in Mumbai, the Greater Mumbai Draft Development Plan 2034 proposes raising FSI in the densest parts of Mumbai to 8. The draft plan has many valuable proposals that would allow Mumbai to be an incomparably more prosperous city. However, the much-criticised plan is being revised now.
One of the reasons why a higher FSI is opposed is a perception that relatively affluent households occupy skyscrapers. On the contrary, when the FSI is largely 1.33, wealthier households did everything within their power to buy more living space. This is because when floor space is a scarce resource, more people will compete for it, bidding up its price. But, low-income households were unable to compete with them, and were forced to live in slums, on the sidewalks or on public infrastructure. In 1971, only 22 per cent of Mumbai's population lived in slums. Now, nearly half the people do, though estimates vary.
In fact, the highest density in Mumbai is in such a low-income, low-rise neighbourhood, Kamathipura, where, according to latest estimates, there are 121,312 people per sq mt. This suggests that you do not need tall buildings for population density to rise.
But, this is only one of the many problems Mumbai faces.
Informal dwelling units such like Mumbai slums fetch less value in the market and cannot be used as collateral for loans. This condemns many such low-income households to permanent poverty. The Urban Land Ceiling Act which prevented people from owning land over 500 sq mt, though repealed, still constrains the development of land in Mumbai because its aftereffects linger on. Much of the land in central Mumbai is covered by water, and this leaves little land for urban expansion.
This is not all. Imposed in 1948, rent control laws are also not relaxed since then. As rent control legislation and other laws that discriminate against landlords are in place in all Indian cities, over 11 million houses in urban India are vacant today. From 1961 to 2011, the greatest decline in rental housing stock among Indian cities was in Greater Mumbai, of 70.83 per cent. It is strange that this happened in a city, where people from all parts of India migrated to, seeking jobs.
However, Mumbai can overcome all these constraints by allowing more intense real estate development, putting idle land to use, strengthening private property rights and abolishing rent controls. Mumbai's success in the next few decades will be almost determined by the extent to which this happens.