Rethinking Development Approach towards Local Cultural Clusters: a case of Bandra

Abstract

Cities have several identities that incorporate different characteristics such as its culture, leisure behaviours, cuisines, aesthetic, products, art, and so on. The technological advancement after industrial revolution led to the Suburbanization, the American Dream, where the cities experienced the relationship between urban development and its impact on transforming culture leading to globalization, where cities started marketing an ‘Image of the city’ to attract people and increase social and economic vitality for competition on global platform. (Portella, 2014) The American New Urbanism movement developed a thematic fragment approach in large suburban subdivision (Shane, 2011), where migration fuelled creative capital of the cities (Krätke, 2011), creating a concept of Fragmented Metropolis, or as Jonathan Barnett called it ‘fractured Metropolis’. The clusters, with their traditions, symbols and role of social cohesion, invoke a sense of place in the complex global world, are a physical manifestation of localization which concerns the identity of people and the city. (Urban Identity, 2011) Socio-cultural diversity fuels the creative and innovative capacity of the city along with cultural vibrancy and diversity enhance the economic prosperity of the entire city. (Krätke, 2011) But in fragmented megapolitan city of Mumbai, where the local culture & economy of clusters, British rule, suburban development after neoliberalism and the Bollywood culture has created a global identity for the city, creation or strengthening of the local identity and preserving socio-cultural diversity for economic materialization, raises questions around politics of ‘right to branding’ and it further evolves into ‘right to the city’. (Coletti Raffaella, 2020) This thesis tries to shed light on the importance of these clusters into building identity within the city with the case of Ranwar village in Bandra west of Mumbai city. The aim of thesis is to rethink the existing developmental approach into more inclusive and sensitive way towards community’s social, economic and political standing. This study overall discusses how development of localized identity of these culturally clusters scattered throughout the fragmented city could potentially improve the identity of the overall city while battling the urban political question by developing a sensitive approach towards integrating such clusters in the overall urban development of the city.