Failed urban planning
It is vital and important to think of urban spaces not merely in terms of floor space indexes, buildings and physical infrastructure but also in terms of economic and livelihood issues
Last week saw two bouts of violence in instances and spaces that one does not usually associate with such action. In one, kids went into communal mode while playing cricket in a relatively middle-class neighbourhood. In the other, middle-class consumers went on a rampage at a shopping mall. One took place in a neighbourhood that housed BMC workers, other government and industrial workers and rehabilitated slum dwellers. The other took place in a mall, in the most important neighbourhood of a supposedly super-planned (in reality just a well organised) city, Navi Mumbai.