Maths, geography, commerce: What’s shaping Mumbai’s rebirth?

MUMBAI: On weekday evenings, the Shaheed Bhagat Singh playground in Kalachowkie comes alive with the crack of bat against ball and the shouts of players. On three makeshift cricket pitches, local lads go at it, as neighbours – many of them seniors – gather around to watch and chat about nothing in particular. It’s food for the soul.

Perhaps not for long. The easy camaraderie of Abhyudaya Nagar, a sprawling enclave of dock and mill workers’ families and government employees, will soon surrender to a new way of life. An integrated cluster redevelopment project is converting 48 ageing, low-rise buildings into residential high-rises. The neighbourhood’s 3,410 families, living in 220-sq ft homes, will get apartments almost three times their original size.

Concerns about redevelopment are cutting across pincodes, about how this unstoppable force sweeping through Mumbai is reshaping entire neighbourhoods. In a city where 30,600 people jostle for space in every square kilometre, redevelopment is changing not just the skyline, but the way people live.

The early yearsEarly efforts at redevelopment began after liberalisation in 1991, with the conversion of old mill lands and rent-controlled, cessed buildings. The model gained momentum a few years later, with a landmark amendment to the Development Control Regulations in 1999.