Mumbai: A Developing City in Depth
Skyscrapers rise beside one of the world's largest informal settlements. Explore Mumbai: why it grows so fast, the challenges rapid growth brings, and how change is led both from the top down and the bottom up.
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The city that never stops growing 🌆
On the west coast of India, **Mumbai** is the country's financial capital and one of the world's fastest-growing cities. As the in-depth **developing/emerging city** case study, it shows how rapid growth brings both opportunity and huge challenges.
Words to know 🔑
Four ideas run through this case study:
Where Mumbai sits ⚖️
A city's **site** is the ground it is built on; its **situation** is how it connects to everywhere else.
Why Mumbai grows 🎯
What is the main cause of Mumbai's rapid population growth?
- Rural-to-urban migration for jobs and services
- People leaving the city for the countryside
- A sharp fall in the birth rate
- The closure of the city's factories
Match each challenge to what it is 🔗
- Informal settlements
- Infrastructure pressure
- Informal employment
- Pollution
- Housing built by residents without permission
- Too little water, sanitation or transport
- Unregistered jobs with little security
- Dirty air and water from crowding and traffic
Inside Dharavi ♻️
Dharavi is one of the world's largest **informal settlements**, in the heart of Mumbai. Far from empty of value, it has a busy **informal economy**: residents run recycling, pottery and leather businesses, earning a living and supporting one another.
The cost of fast growth ✅
Select the TWO challenges of rapid urbanisation in a city like Mumbai.
- Shortages of housing and services
- Air and water pollution
- Too few people to fill the jobs
- Shrinking informal settlements
How rapid growth unfolds 📈
An interactive activity.
Match each idea to an example 🔀
- Top-down management
- Bottom-up management
- The informal economy
- Rural-urban migration
- A large government redevelopment scheme
- Residents improving their own homes step by step
- Small businesses like recycling in Dharavi
- People arriving from rural areas for work
A city of contrasts 💡
What does inequality in Mumbai mean?
- A big gap between wealthy districts and informal settlements
- Everyone earning exactly the same
- There being no wealthy areas at all
- There being no poverty at all
Mumbai in words 🧩
Mumbai grows quickly as people move from the countryside in search of _____. Because the city grows faster than housing, many live in _____ settlements such as Dharavi. Rapid growth puts pressure on _____ like water and transport. Change can be led by the government, called _____ management, or by the local community, called _____ management.
Spot the true statements 🖍️
An interactive activity.
Top down or bottom up? 🧭
An interactive activity.
Explain and manage ✍️
An interactive activity.