Mumbai’s playgrounds: A look into how and where Mumbaikars play
Part 1 of 3
Mumbai is a city of paradoxes, home to the most expensive house on the planet, is also home to Asia’s largest informal settlement. Mumbai is also the commercial and economic hub of India, often referred to as the financial capital of the nation. This makes people from all over the country flock to the city, to try and make their fortune in the City of Dreams. Causing a constant demand for residential spaces in the city. However, the city is flanked on 3 sides by the Arabian Sea and there isn’t much space for the city to grow geographically. Which ultimately results in real estate prices being sky high in Mumbai.
In a city that houses over 18 million people, with so much economic activity and demand for housing, a lot of open spaces have been encroached upon in the name of development or for other purposes. Open Mumbai, a project by architectural firm PK Das & Associates, estimated in the year 2012, that Mumbai has just 1.58 sq m of open space per person. By comparison, London has 31.68 sq m and New York City 26.4 sq m per person.
Under the current development policies in effect in Mumbai, this number will shrink to a dismal 0.87 sq m per person. Mumbai’s development plan provides for 18.98 sq km of playgrounds and gardens, of which 5.3 sq km have already been encroached.
This lead me to my research question —
How do kids in Mumbai access spaces to play?
Read Part 2 here.
Read Part 3 here.
