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Revitalisation of The Eastern Waterfront
Revitalisation of The Eastern Waterfront
OF MUMBAI
ByKanika Patil
Guided By - Ar. Sanjay Kumbhare
TO MUMBAI
FROM BOMBAY
Marine Drive, the waterfront boulevard along south Mumbais western coast, is often
referred to as Queens Necklace because at night its streetlights resemble a string of jewels.
Around a mile away, across the narrow peninsula, corrugated metal roofs, deserted
warehouses, and old shipyard cranes and overgrown mangrove forests pepper the landscape.
Historically, this is where the martial maritime and mercantile city of Bombay began. It
started off as a simple manor house and factory by the Portuguese which radically changed
when the ownership went to the British. British seized the potential of natural harbour on the
eastern edges to create a mercantile hub. They brought in trades people, then the service
industry to the dockland. His helped in the boom of cotton trade, hence attracting vast
migrants who settled along the eastern waterfront.
THE POTENTIAL
The redevelopment of the eastern waterfront can play two vital roles:
1. Decongesting the city and improving its environment, and opening new spaces for the
mobility of goods and people.
2. Using the nodal location of the waterfront to connect the island city of Mumbai to its
twin city across the harbour, Navi Mumbai, through realignment of the regional axes of
economy, transport and communication.
Thus the areas stretch of 32kms of virtually inaccessible waterfront offers the potential pf
public access while re-orienting the perception of the region with regard to the citys
geographical and physical form. Similarly, the potential for connectivity using water transport
could offer the much needed transformation of mobility within the region.
The water edge contains infrastructural resources like the ferry wharfs, docks, bunders and
piers which are underused. The area is well connected by road and railway to the rest of the
region and is also equipped with internal roads and rails that underused.
potential to provide much needed public space and amenities in the densest city in the world
(22,000 persons per sq.km).
Above all the Mumbai eastern waterfront redevelopment needs to balance the following
conflicting needs:
1. Environment concerns with the pressure for speculative real-estate development
2. Interest of owners and developer versus that of residents and workers
3. Interest of stakeholders and residents versus city wide and regional interests.
POSSIBLE SITES
INTERVENTIONS -
AND