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Papers by shweta wagh
University of British Columbia Press eBooks, Oct 15, 2020
Exploring Urban Change in South Asia, 2022
In this essay, we challenge the sectoral conception of the environment employed in urban planning... more In this essay, we challenge the sectoral conception of the environment employed in urban planning discourse and practice, to argue that the environment must be framed as the interaction between social and ecological processes, and recognized as a central rather than a sectoral concern of city-making. By highlighting planning as “environmental decision-making”, we provide a historical sketch of planning and environmental production in Mumbai, to contextualize the approach of the two versions of the most recent development plan—the overturned Revised Draft Development Plan of 2015 (EDDP), and the Revised Development Plan of 2018 (RDP). Through this discussion, we point out that in contrast to the view that “the environment” is a middle-class or elite concern, many of the diverse set of contestations over planning in Mumbai emerge as environmental struggles—concerned with the overall health and sustenance of the social–ecological system, as well as with the way in which the material and symbolic benefits and impacts of environmental transformation are distributed.
Intach Journal of Heritage Studies: Approaches to Conservation in India, 2015
In the context of the economic restructuring of the city from a landscape of production to a land... more In the context of the economic restructuring of the city from a landscape of production to a landscape of consumption, there has been a general shift in the theory and practice of conservation. This paper will look at discourses centered around heritage conservation in Mumbai with the particular intent of examining how these play out in a post-industrial city attempting to demystify some of the rhetoric adopted by conservationists. It will try to show how conservation discourses and practices to align with the interests of dominant groups in the city, often insensitive to the interests of marginalized groups. In this process, landscapes of the city such as its industrial cores, places of workers housing, inner cities, gaothans and koliwadas which once were landscapes of manufacturing, commerce and productivity are relegated to the margins. As histories are constructed around imagined communities, landscapes are commodified, transforming traditional neighbourhoods into consumable artefacts and aestheticised enclaves. The paper argues for the need for alternative frameworks which are inclusive and accommodative of the needs and interests of local communities and address issues related to sociocultural continuity in historic landscapes.
Binucom + KRVIA, 2017
This profile of Mumbai and its regional setting provides a short historical overview of the city’... more This profile of Mumbai and its regional setting provides a short historical overview of the city’s physical and demographic growth, economic and social geography, institutional-administrative structure, and urban planning and development policy. The paper also aims to set up the necessary context to understand the formation and position of self-built (informal) housing and settlements, and their role, especially in the provision of low-cost housing for low-income residents. It provides a critical-historical perspective on the social and spatial evolution of Mumbai, with an emphasis on the highly contested process of spatial production, and the centrality of relations of power and politics in shaping the city.
Book Chapters by shweta wagh
Urban Spaces in India, 2018
This article talks about the various shifts in the conception of ‘nature’ in Mumbai, to contextua... more This article talks about the various shifts in the conception of ‘nature’ in Mumbai, to contextualize the various environmental conflicts, contestations and diverse claims over resources, space and place that have been witnessed by the city. It it evaluates the adoption of the ‘commons’ framework in the context of Mumbai and its use by communities and collectives as an instrument of resistance to the appropriation and commodification of urban space.
Reports by shweta wagh
The Malvani People's Plan is an upgradation plan for a low income settlement of about 250,000 peo... more The Malvani People's Plan is an upgradation plan for a low income settlement of about 250,000 people in Mumbai. It began as a critique of current planning and development processes, that fail to recognize the internal diversity of self-built habitats in the city, the role of urban dwellers as agents rather than recipients of transformation, the intricate connection between built form and habitat, and the social arrangements that determine the control over land and space.
The Plan, formulated by the KRVIA Design Cell and YUVA in close consultation with the residents of Malvani, sought to demonstrate how development planning can address some of the most intractable problems of upgrading infrastructure and services within self-built settlements, through an incremental, conservative transformation of the built environment. The plan is an attempt to respond to the needs and capacities of urban dwellers, complimenting the efforts of communities along with the best that a planned development can facilitate. It was submitted to the municipal government for incorporation into its master plan for the city.
KRVIA Research & Design Cell, 2019
Aarey is a hilly landscape of extensive forest cover, natural ecosystems, numerous adivasi settle... more Aarey is a hilly landscape of extensive forest cover, natural ecosystems, numerous adivasi settlements, and primary occupations. Since it was established as a government Milk Colony in the late 1940s, it has been a predominantly low-intensity development zone, forming a much needed buffer area to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP). Aarey is a part of Mumbai's ecologically vital hill complex along with the National Park and an important catchment area, where streams and tributaries that feed two of four major rivers of the city originate: Oshiwara and Mithi. This report provides a qualitative-spatial analysis to highlight the impacts of past and proposed land use / land cover changes in Aarey on its river catchments and ecosystems.
This study aims to show that the original area of Aarey has been reduced systematically since it was established in the late 1940s, that newly proposed public and private projects are likely to sever the contiguity of the forest and ecosystems of Aarey with the SGNP and affect wildlife movement, that the new projects will disrupt hydrological processes and natural drainage patterns in the area. The extent and locations of these new projects will have serious socio-ecological impacts in Aarey itself, and are expected to create downstream impacts, possibly increasing the scale and severity of urban floods.
The report has been authored by faculty researchers at the KRVIA in collaboration with subject experts from relevant disciplines
A Report by: Shweta Wagh (Urban Conservationist & Associate Professor), Hussain Indorewala (Urban Researcher and Assistant Professor), Minal Yerramshetty (Urban and Regional Planner and Assistant Professor), Reshma Susan Mathew (Architect) & Mihir Desai (Architect).
Consultants: Surendra Thakurdesai (Geomorphologist), Sheema Fatima (Urban Planner & Sociologist) & Anand Pendharkar (Wildlife Biologist)
Research and Design Cell, Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA), Mumbai
Articles / Essays by shweta wagh
Digital Lives in the Global City: Contesting Infrastructures - ed. Deborah Cowen, Alexis Mitchell, Emily Paradis, and Brett Story, 2020
Protected Area Update, 2020
A brief outline on the case against the Mumbai Coastal Road
Blog URK, 2016
The two Draft Development Plans – the earlier one (EDDP) and the latest one (RDDP) — have provide... more The two Draft Development Plans – the earlier one (EDDP) and the latest one (RDDP) — have provided two different approaches to question of FSI. This number that indicates development rights through a simple built up area to land ratio has over the years emerged as the most contested and controversial instrument affecting development in the city, alongside its fiscal and marketable progeny, incentive FSI and Transferable Development Right (TDR), respectively.
University of British Columbia Press eBooks, Oct 15, 2020
Exploring Urban Change in South Asia, 2022
In this essay, we challenge the sectoral conception of the environment employed in urban planning... more In this essay, we challenge the sectoral conception of the environment employed in urban planning discourse and practice, to argue that the environment must be framed as the interaction between social and ecological processes, and recognized as a central rather than a sectoral concern of city-making. By highlighting planning as “environmental decision-making”, we provide a historical sketch of planning and environmental production in Mumbai, to contextualize the approach of the two versions of the most recent development plan—the overturned Revised Draft Development Plan of 2015 (EDDP), and the Revised Development Plan of 2018 (RDP). Through this discussion, we point out that in contrast to the view that “the environment” is a middle-class or elite concern, many of the diverse set of contestations over planning in Mumbai emerge as environmental struggles—concerned with the overall health and sustenance of the social–ecological system, as well as with the way in which the material and symbolic benefits and impacts of environmental transformation are distributed.
Intach Journal of Heritage Studies: Approaches to Conservation in India, 2015
In the context of the economic restructuring of the city from a landscape of production to a land... more In the context of the economic restructuring of the city from a landscape of production to a landscape of consumption, there has been a general shift in the theory and practice of conservation. This paper will look at discourses centered around heritage conservation in Mumbai with the particular intent of examining how these play out in a post-industrial city attempting to demystify some of the rhetoric adopted by conservationists. It will try to show how conservation discourses and practices to align with the interests of dominant groups in the city, often insensitive to the interests of marginalized groups. In this process, landscapes of the city such as its industrial cores, places of workers housing, inner cities, gaothans and koliwadas which once were landscapes of manufacturing, commerce and productivity are relegated to the margins. As histories are constructed around imagined communities, landscapes are commodified, transforming traditional neighbourhoods into consumable artefacts and aestheticised enclaves. The paper argues for the need for alternative frameworks which are inclusive and accommodative of the needs and interests of local communities and address issues related to sociocultural continuity in historic landscapes.
Binucom + KRVIA, 2017
This profile of Mumbai and its regional setting provides a short historical overview of the city’... more This profile of Mumbai and its regional setting provides a short historical overview of the city’s physical and demographic growth, economic and social geography, institutional-administrative structure, and urban planning and development policy. The paper also aims to set up the necessary context to understand the formation and position of self-built (informal) housing and settlements, and their role, especially in the provision of low-cost housing for low-income residents. It provides a critical-historical perspective on the social and spatial evolution of Mumbai, with an emphasis on the highly contested process of spatial production, and the centrality of relations of power and politics in shaping the city.
Urban Spaces in India, 2018
This article talks about the various shifts in the conception of ‘nature’ in Mumbai, to contextua... more This article talks about the various shifts in the conception of ‘nature’ in Mumbai, to contextualize the various environmental conflicts, contestations and diverse claims over resources, space and place that have been witnessed by the city. It it evaluates the adoption of the ‘commons’ framework in the context of Mumbai and its use by communities and collectives as an instrument of resistance to the appropriation and commodification of urban space.
The Malvani People's Plan is an upgradation plan for a low income settlement of about 250,000 peo... more The Malvani People's Plan is an upgradation plan for a low income settlement of about 250,000 people in Mumbai. It began as a critique of current planning and development processes, that fail to recognize the internal diversity of self-built habitats in the city, the role of urban dwellers as agents rather than recipients of transformation, the intricate connection between built form and habitat, and the social arrangements that determine the control over land and space.
The Plan, formulated by the KRVIA Design Cell and YUVA in close consultation with the residents of Malvani, sought to demonstrate how development planning can address some of the most intractable problems of upgrading infrastructure and services within self-built settlements, through an incremental, conservative transformation of the built environment. The plan is an attempt to respond to the needs and capacities of urban dwellers, complimenting the efforts of communities along with the best that a planned development can facilitate. It was submitted to the municipal government for incorporation into its master plan for the city.
KRVIA Research & Design Cell, 2019
Aarey is a hilly landscape of extensive forest cover, natural ecosystems, numerous adivasi settle... more Aarey is a hilly landscape of extensive forest cover, natural ecosystems, numerous adivasi settlements, and primary occupations. Since it was established as a government Milk Colony in the late 1940s, it has been a predominantly low-intensity development zone, forming a much needed buffer area to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP). Aarey is a part of Mumbai's ecologically vital hill complex along with the National Park and an important catchment area, where streams and tributaries that feed two of four major rivers of the city originate: Oshiwara and Mithi. This report provides a qualitative-spatial analysis to highlight the impacts of past and proposed land use / land cover changes in Aarey on its river catchments and ecosystems.
This study aims to show that the original area of Aarey has been reduced systematically since it was established in the late 1940s, that newly proposed public and private projects are likely to sever the contiguity of the forest and ecosystems of Aarey with the SGNP and affect wildlife movement, that the new projects will disrupt hydrological processes and natural drainage patterns in the area. The extent and locations of these new projects will have serious socio-ecological impacts in Aarey itself, and are expected to create downstream impacts, possibly increasing the scale and severity of urban floods.
The report has been authored by faculty researchers at the KRVIA in collaboration with subject experts from relevant disciplines
A Report by: Shweta Wagh (Urban Conservationist & Associate Professor), Hussain Indorewala (Urban Researcher and Assistant Professor), Minal Yerramshetty (Urban and Regional Planner and Assistant Professor), Reshma Susan Mathew (Architect) & Mihir Desai (Architect).
Consultants: Surendra Thakurdesai (Geomorphologist), Sheema Fatima (Urban Planner & Sociologist) & Anand Pendharkar (Wildlife Biologist)
Research and Design Cell, Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA), Mumbai
Digital Lives in the Global City: Contesting Infrastructures - ed. Deborah Cowen, Alexis Mitchell, Emily Paradis, and Brett Story, 2020
Protected Area Update, 2020
A brief outline on the case against the Mumbai Coastal Road
Blog URK, 2016
The two Draft Development Plans – the earlier one (EDDP) and the latest one (RDDP) — have provide... more The two Draft Development Plans – the earlier one (EDDP) and the latest one (RDDP) — have provided two different approaches to question of FSI. This number that indicates development rights through a simple built up area to land ratio has over the years emerged as the most contested and controversial instrument affecting development in the city, alongside its fiscal and marketable progeny, incentive FSI and Transferable Development Right (TDR), respectively.