Understanding Urban Incongruity

Planning Cultures Between Public and Private Edge

Cities across the globe have undergone periodic transformation in their planning paradigms based on geo political events, economic policies and vision plans. Mumbai has traversed this path of mutations in planning paradigms shaped by global influence of evolving architectural, social and political landscapes during pre and post colonial period. The original inhabitants witnessed the metamorphosis in order to accommodate the needs of growing influx of migrants.

In order to satisfy the needs of improving housing infrastructure, various formal initiatives were undertaken by the state which couldn’t satiate the demand of housing. Due to this, informal settlements, industries and bazaars transgressed in the residual spaces in the city. The negotiations formed by the informal economy germinated over the evolving landscapes of the city. The heterogeneity manifested through coexistence of these diverse formal and informal building typologies emit a sense of harmony and cultural diversity. Before liberalization, The binaries of the city were recognized as complex spatial organism and was viewed as a vital cog in a larger framework which could not be easily reproduced through formal planning. On the contrary, Regulation No. 33 introduced in 1991 DCR seeks to flatten the complex systems in the informal networks by homogenizing it with the formal fabric of the city. The myopic understanding of post liberalized planning framework led to formation of fault lines propagating a sense of Incongruity by disregarding the heterogeneity.

To bring inclusivity in the planning framework, there is a need to derive a negotiating framework through understanding incongruity by recognizing the existence of complex spatial informal networks that have evolved over time. This thesis aims to analyze the social, ecological and built lines of incongruity through micro urbanism. As economy is the main protagonist in bringing about speculated development, the inferences derived from the micro urbanism would be contemplated through economy to propose site specific recommendations in form of a framework which can be implemented in other parts of the city.

Text & Image Credit: Omkar Nandapurkar | Krvia – Post Graduate Program | Urban Design 2023