The Making of Navi Mumbai

Book excerpt: This book uses the case of the Navi Mumbai urban project to bring out many of the problems inherent in the urbanisation process and in the nature of urban policy-making in post-colonial India. It illustrates how even a new city, built from scratch, is riddled with social and economic contradictions---well-planned and serviced areas coexisting with slums and shanties. The work questions some of the accepted solutions to urban policy especially with regard to urban land and distribution of civic infrastructure. Navi Mumbai is being used as a model for building new towns outside other cities in India. This detailed case study of Navi Mumbai reveals the strengths and weaknesses of this model of urbanisation and indicates the policy directions that can obliterate the duality that has characterised the Indian city all through the twentieth century.