Mumbai uncapped
Removal of the FSI cap to encourage builders to construct buildings up to any height, on grounds that the city is squeezed for space and land, makes no sense
If only cities obediently followed the laws of Mathematics, urban planning would perfectly satisfy the needs of people regarding availability of space. Consequently, everybody in Mumbai would have a decent home and every inch of space would be effectively utilised. It would ensure that everybody had their needs fulfilled and neighbourhoods would have the right balance of offices, workspaces, residential areas, parks, trees, entertainment zones and everything a good city needs.
If all this sounds improbable, it is because urban planning is based on construction projects. This, in turn, is not quite determined by logic and needs, but is focused on profits. And there is nothing wrong with that. The point is to simply say it as it is and not hide behind abstract equations.
In other words, it makes no sense whatsoever to justify the removal of an FSI cap and encourage builders to construct buildings up to any height, on grounds that the city is squeezed for space and land. To use the excuse of land scarcity is an empty auditing exercise that conveys nothing, unless we are willing to follow that logic to its illogical end and say that everybody must share what they have with everybody else and those with more space must give it up for t h o s e with less. Such an abstract and mechanical understanding of resources is what gave socialism a bad name to start with so why are we using it now?
The fact is that the tallest cities were often built not necessarily in response to land scarcity, but like the inexplicable need of a mountaineer to climb the highest mountain just because. These have been prestige projects as much as anything else. American cities never really had major land pressures and whenever confronted by rivers and waterfronts, had the engineering excellence to transcend them as early as the nineteenth century onwards. Americas towering urban landscapes were primarily global signatures of economic, technological and political ambition. Similarly, gigantic building projects in Dubai and the Middle East are not responses to population densities or land scarcity but testimonies to economic might. Moreover, if we have to compare Mumbai to an Asian city at all, why only Hong Kong (which is half the population of Mumbai, anyway)? Why not Tokyo, which is more populated than Mumbai, but does not have a vertical towering landscape for most of its low-rise high-density territories?
The ecological argument being made for verticality is also short-sighted. It is a fact that urban densities are good for the environment. But low-rise, high-density spaces servicing lower end economies have smaller ecological footprints than high-rise, high-density ones servicing higher end economies. This is an equally well-documented fact, which is conveniently forgotten. In other words, tall, expensive, energy-guzzling buildings cause more destruction of the environment compared to sprawling, but dense, neighbourhoods.
What will happen, with the new lease of life that builders have got through the recent Supreme Court ruling, is that more air space will be created for higher end residents and buyers. This will have huge costs in terms of infrastructure, especially for neighbourhoods at ground level around those towers. Costs of real estate for the city as a whole will remain the same (or go higher) and the emergent vertical city will be surrounded by vast swathes of mobile, horizontal neighbourhoods, occupying as much floor space as the original city had to start with. The only winners will be the builders, the smooth-talking, awardwinning architects and a few thousand lucky Mumbaikars living close to the skies.
Tall, energy-guzzling buildings cause more destruction to the environment than sprawling, dense neighbourhoods
Rahul Srivastava, a PUKAR associate, specialises in urban issues, and writes on traffic, trains, illegal construction, Mithi, monsoon… in short all things that make Mumbai go grrr