Mumbai's 22 million people compete for space, and demolishing slums for towers mostly relocates poverty upward and outward.
Four rail lines carry eight million commutersOvercrowding at three to four times capacity made deaths routine: 2,691 in 2019, about seven a day.
Dharavi is poverty and enterprise at onceOne million people in under a square mile run 12,000 plastic jobs, 60% of the city's plastic waste and an $800 million informal economy.
Slum rehabilitation verticalises and displaces povertyResidents with under 20 years' tenure are moved to places like Lalubai, where Abdul earns half what his Dharavi business paid.
Executive SummaryAI
Mumbai, India's economic and financial capital with 22 million inhabitants, moves 8 million commuters a day on a railway network of only four lines, so rush-hour trains carry three to four times their capacity in near 45 degree heat.
In 2019, 2,691 people died on Mumbai's railway, an average of seven deaths a day; Sameer Tseveri, who lost both legs 30 years ago, lobbies for doors that close and free emergency treatment, while four subway lines are under construction.
In Dharavi, one million people live in just under one square mile with water two hours a day and no sewage system, yet its informal economy generates over $800 million a year — Mahesh earns $600 a month recycling plastic and Imran's leather workshop employs around 40 staff.
Property developer Babu Lal Varma, head of Omkar and its 800 staff, is clearing a 65-acre slum pocket to build towers of more than 50 storeys, selling apartments at $780,000 and $1 million while rehoused families get 95 to 312 square foot flats or are pushed to commuter towns like Lalubai compound.
With 1,500 migrants arriving daily, leopard attacks rising around the Sanjay Gandhi National Park and a projected 42 million inhabitants by 2050, Mumbai keeps growing — and Babu Lal Varma has since been incarcerated under suspicion of fraud and embezzlement.
Key Quote
“Yes, very exhausted. For an hour and a half, we have to take rest.”
— Vinit
Key Quote
“So I am since years demanding the suburban train in Mumbai have only doors required to close it.”