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Fragile Entrepreneurialism: The Mumbai Airport Slum Redevelopment Project

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Entrepreneurial Urbanism in India

Abstract

This chapter examines entrepreneurial forms of urban governance in India through a case study of slum redevelopment near the Mumbai International Airport. Based on fieldwork conducted in 2014, this chapter spotlights the messy politics of coalition building among key stakeholders. It argues that redevelopment politics in Mumbai cannot be fully explained by neoliberal or post-colonial perspectives. In the absence of strong municipal institutions, fragile entrepreneurialism characterizes urban governance in Mumbai, as a new coalition has to be reassembled for each project or each phase of the same project. Overall, the market-led slum redevelopment model is largely inadequate as a solution to improve housing conditions for the millions of slum dwellers in the maximum city.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See http://www.som.com/news/the_worlds_most_spectacular_new_airports, and http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/culturehousedaily/2014/10/why-bombay-airport-is-the-greatest-21st-century-building-and-what-we-can-learn-from-it/.

  2. 2.

    ‘Rehabilitation’ is a term commonly used in housing policy circuits in Mumbai, referring to the process of relocating residents from slums to buildings and sites with better infrastructure and living conditions, such as flats built by private developers participating in the Slum Redevelopment Scheme.

  3. 3.

    http://www.indiaonlinepages.com/population/slum-population-in-india.html.

  4. 4.

    Interview with Jockin Arputham, 23 August 2014.

  5. 5.

    Personal interview, 25 August 2014.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Global Urban Studies & Sociology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Xuefei Ren

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  1. Xuefei Ren
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Correspondence to Xuefei Ren .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Research in Urban Affairs, Institute for Social and Economic Change Centre for Research in Urban Affairs, Bangalore, Karnataka, India

    Kanekanti Chandrashekar Smitha

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Ren, X. (2017). Fragile Entrepreneurialism: The Mumbai Airport Slum Redevelopment Project. In: Smitha, K. (eds) Entrepreneurial Urbanism in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2236-4_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2236-4_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-2235-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-2236-4

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