The Exclusive Real Estate of Mumbai: A Tale of Gated Communities and Urban Inequality
Real-estate ads in Mumbai are remarkable for their unabashed glorification of conspicuous consumption. A 51-storey building in Kandivali is described as a “pinnacle of high-rise luxury, exquisitely tailored for the elite echelons of society”. A three-acre “enclave” in Mulund boasts “world-class amenities that meld vibrancy with serenity, ensuring you and your loved ones live in true bliss”. A residential skyscraper in Worli is portrayed as “a paradise where life feels like a walk in the park, a symbol of grandeur and an epitome of sophistication”.
In a city where 65 per cent of households live in single rooms or less, the front pages of daily newspapers gloat about “unwinding in palatial dwellings”. Where for most people economic compulsion is a norm, hoardings flaunt projects that reserve residences only “for a select few with discerning choices”. A project in Vikhroli sells “lavish homes and panoramic views of a lush landscape” which ensure “an escape from the city”. Meanwhile, the recently completed Atal Setu bridge connects the “dream city with the city of dreams” consisting of a “luxury golf township with exclusive amenities”.
Ignore the garish adjectives, and the language turns out to be quite instructive: elite echelons, enclaves, exclusive, reserves, escape. The real-estate sector has pieced together the traditional elements of Mumbai’s residential neighbourhoods – the walled compound, the high-rise block and the older residential colony – to produce a new Elysium for the wealthy in the form of the high-rise gated complex. For decades, “gated communities” have been discussed by urban analysts as a matter of civic pathology, but advertising ingenuity has transformed this manifestation of urban inequality into a slogan of an idealised form of inhabitation.
Community-based clustering is not new to Indian cities, and one can trace many older patterns of segregated living. But what makes the modern gated developments different from earlier colonies, baugs, or mohallas is their socially homogenous character guaranteed by affluence, the prospect of retreating from public life via privatised and exclusive amenities, and restriction of outsiders by a host of access barriers. The elite can capture public resources while voluntarily isolating themselves from the city’s myriad problems. Gated developments are not neighbourhoods of the city; they are enclaves designed to escape them.
While urban scholars stutter to explain gated developments, real-estate brochures admirably explain their various features. “Unlike traditional neighbourhoods”, says one builder’s website, “gated communities often feature controlled access points, advanced security systems, and a thoughtful layout that incorporates green spaces, recreational facilities, and communal areas”. Cutting-edge security, social wellness, modern amenities, increased property values, and spaces that provide a “haven from the bustle of the metropolis” – these are the many “benefits” of gated developments.
Obviously, from the perspective of real-estate boosters, the lure of elevated living is a wonderful thing. In a city with “pathetic municipal governance”, gated developments provide “first-world private sector development”. It is easy to regurgitate the old Thatcherite nostrum: governments can’t do anything, people must look to the private sector to serve their needs. Health, education, mobility, shelter – these basic rights of citizenship are irrelevant in a world hurtling towards the commonwealth of consumption, where you are entitled only to what you buy.
The problem with this view is that the government does a lot, but mainly to ensure “the ease of doing business” rather than to ensure the ease of access to drinking water or healthcare or affordable housing. The builders of gated enclaves denigrate the public sector while being beneficiaries of public largesse in the form of cheap land, development rights incentives, a plethora of relaxations in planning norms, financial concessions, and land-price uplifting public investments in infrastructure. In other words, gated developments have not emerged to replace municipal failure; on the contrary, they are an outcome of the close entanglement between the state and real-estate, a formation that preys on the remains of the public city.
Paradoxically, the relentless privatisation of the urban public realm is legitimised as an advancement of the “public interest”. Land entrusted to the government is gifted to builders for public purposes. Hospitals constructed by public funds are handed over to private entities for public benefit. Freeways are built exclusively for motorcars. Authorities invoke “public use” to enrich private firms; courts expound “public trust” while condoning its breaches for private gain. The “public interest”, it would seem, has very little to do with the public’s interests.
Yet, it is this shrinking public realm that provides some refuge to the city’s wretched. A large section of the population has no choice but to rely on public institutions and spaces for shelter, livelihood, and services, which in turn accentuate elite anxieties about “urban problems”. Urban elites, on the other hand, perceive the public not as a relational obligation premised on shared resources, or common goods, or collective action, but the domain of the riff-raff that must be avoided as much as possible. Voluntary withdrawal from public life becomes an index of status and prestige. The high walls of the gated enclaves provide an easy exit.
Hussain Indorewala is a teacher and urban researcher at KRVIA, Mumbai. Views are personal
