Bursting at the seams !

The finding that even plush highrises in Mumbai have a stacked population index as high as 80,000 people per sq km has come at a pertinent time, given that the civic corporation is in the process of drawing up a new development plan for Mumbai.
Shanghai-based architect Neville Mars, who carried out the study in Mumbai for travelling urban think tank BMW Guggenheim Lab, said the disparity and spatial split of the city could no longer be ignored. Going by his findings, “people have as little as 0.4 square metre per person in certain slums while those in highrises might enjoy as much as 57.5 square metre per person.” Mars hoped the index would inform policymakers about the need to factor in the organic growth of slums in urban planning.
The index studied different typologies, including residential buildings and slums, industrial clusters, offices and mixed used areas . They mapped the city through Google Earth and sliced neighbourhoods into a matrix of 500 metre by 500 metre, which were then analyzed for their average occupancy. Even middle-class housing colonies showed up a density of 40,000 persons per square kilometre. Workplaces aren’t any better off with offices and warehouses showing an SPI of 30,000 persons per square kilometre.
Saying the index was a new way of looking at urban dynamics, demographer D P Singh of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences said it once again underscored the need to decongest Mumbai.
Urban policy and governance expert Amita Bhide said the issue of congestion could be looked at through several dimensions. It could be seen either in terms of private spaces, which include homes or offices and public spaces such as roads, parks, parking amenities and even burial and cremation grounds.