City profile: Transformation and injustice in Mumbai

Mumbai is a city of contrasts which has been made and remade countless times over more than three centuries. In this 2014 profile, researchers with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences Centre for Urban Policy and Governance provide a foundation for understanding the many faces of Mumbai, and how its relatively low levels of public crime mask the many ways in which residents experience violence in their daily lives. 

Produced as part of a three-city examination on the links between infrastructure, violence, and exclusion, this critical account examines the spatial and social transformations that have marked Mumbai’s evolution, especially in the last 150 years. It highlights the ways in which the state and the market have transformed the city at different times, and the effect these changes have had on Mumbai’s people, places, and landscapes. Applying a “spatial (in)justice” lens, the profile questions who experiences what kinds of violence, who directs the transformations, and who reaps their benefits.

Read the profile “The City Produced: Urban Development, Violence and Spatial Justice in Mumbai” (PDF, 8.39MB) 

Learn more about this research at Urban Resources Knowledges.

Explore the IDRC-supported project People, places and infrastructure: Countering urban violence and promoting justice in Mumbai, Rio, and Durban.

Learn more about IDRC’s research support to make cities safer through the Safe and Inclusive Cities partnership with the UK’s Department for International Development.