1,720,973 research outputs found
Historicizing Real Estate: The East India Company in Early Colonial Bombay
No full textInternational audienceProperty-as-real-estate emerged in Bombay at least by the turn of the nineteenth century. Real estate is historicized through previously unexplored archival sources (qualitative and quantitative) by analyzing how property was transacted in a colonial port, and how it became embedded in global circuits of commerce and the accumulation strategies of locals and the English East India Company. The paper demonstrates the existence by this time of legal institutions of publicity and property registration, specialized intermediaries, price-finding mechanisms such as auctions, and imaginaries of a property market as an abstract entity marked by general trends and values. Contrary to the literature that sees prices in this period as erratic and inconsistent, a systematic analysis of prices suggests a rationalized and standardized property market. These findings push back the timeline usually associated with the development of real estate in India
The Religious and Racial Geography of Late Nineteenth-Century Bombay
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Density Regulations and Informal Housing: Mumbai 1880-2015
No full textDrawing on original historical research and expert interviews, I trace the policy of density regulations in a megacity. I provide evidence on the policy evolution of density regulations and its relation to informal housing in Mumbai, since the late 1800s. I then use counterfactual analysis to analyze how local politics constrain deregulation, and assess whether deregulation would have the proposed effects of affordable housing for the bottom of the pyramid. In the last 20 years, these regulations have been converted into a market-based instrument to redevelop informal housing and achieve a range of urban development goals. Finally, expert interviews suggest that de-regulation is not perceived by key actors as key to a sustainable model of affordable housing
Policy Change and Floor Space Index
No full textInternational audienceThis article explores the key features of contemporary floor space index policy in Mumbai to contribute to the ongoing debates and provide the context for evaluating the proposed urban policy changes. Contemporary FSI in Mumbai exists in a policy network of exemptions, incentives, and development rights
AMBIGUITY AND ANXIETY IN THE PROCESSING OF HEALTH RISK MESSAGES
Get PDFThis study looks at the effects of manipulating the ambiguity of health risk messages on worry and perceived susceptibility. In view of literature that indicates robust emotion-congruent effects of anxiety on the interpretation of ambiguous information, a procedure was used to manipulate levels of state-anxiety for a treatment group.
Fifty-two participants completed an experimental task involving the reading of six health risk messages on different topics. Each message was followed by a short questionnaire to assess levels of worry, risk perception and attributional confidence. In addition, the participant?s familiarity with the message as well as his/her risk profile for the particular health risk in the message was assessed to provide context for their response to the messages. The experiment followed a 2 (within-group variables, ambiguous vs. unambiguous) x 2 design (between-group variables, state-anxiety induction vs. control group).
It was hypothesized that anxious readers would report higher worry than non-anxious readers, and that worry would be higher for disambiguated messages. Results indicated partial support. A significant interaction effect was found between state-anxiety induction and ambiguity, such that high state-anxious readers reported higher worry than non-anxious readers, for unambiguous messages only.
It was also hypothesized that risk profile information would predict worry. This hypothesis was supported
Les bidonvilles de Mumbai, une anarchie régulée
No full textcontribution à un site webJeune sociologue indienne, Sukriti Issar, Assistant Professor attachée à l’Observatoire sociologique du changement (OSC), consacre ses recherches aux politiques publiques d'urbanisme en Inde. Elle se penche notamment sur les phénomènes d’urbanisation non planifiée à Mumbai. Faisant remonter ses recherches jusqu’à la fin du XIXe siècle, elle en adopte pas moins une démarche de recherche appliquée en prise directe avec les acteurs de terrain. Aperçu de ses recherches
The Hustler and the Mooch: Slavery in Late Eighteenth-Century Bombay
No full textInternational audienceHow did property in persons manifest itself in late eighteenth-century Bombay? This article uses judicial records to explore how the master-slave relationship could be inverted: a woman sued a man who claimed to ‘own’ her for the money she spent on maintaining him. These records provide a unique insight into the biography and everyday life of an urban slave in this period and the intertwining of domesticity, caste, religion and kin-building. Jaffer Mahomed claimed that Assa was a slave and collateral on a debt and produced a deed of sale and a mortgage bond. Assa claimed she had maintained him and produced an itemized account of everyday expenditure and a manumission document. Through an analysis of the documents produced in court, interrogations, complaints and rejoinders, this article demonstrates how judicial sources can help understand the strategic choices and horizon of possibilities available to urban slaves in this period
Conceptualizing the connections of formal and informal housing markets in low- and middle-income countries
No full textIn many cities in low- and middle-income countries, a sizable proportion of households live in informal housing. This paper proposes a framework for analysing the connections between formal and informal housing markets, both at the city-level in terms of the mechanisms that link the two housing markets, and at the individual-level in terms of the preferences of residents for whom informal housing is a possible housing choice. The framework identifies the mechanisms by which formal and informal housing markets are connected at the city-level, including competition, disamenity or negative spillover, and redevelopment or positive spillover. Informal housing in Mumbai serves as an empirical case to demonstrate the applicability of this framework. Results from field research suggest that the connection between formal and informal housing markets is dynamic – it can work in different causal directions, change over time and vary by scale. The preferences of residents in informal housing are diverse, and have varying implications for urban policy
Codes of Contention: Building Regulations in Colonial Bombay, 1870-1912
No full textThis paper investigates the contentious institutionalization of building codes in colonial Bombay. Based on original archival research, the paper demonstrates that building codes were inflected with a discourse of moral regulation that masked the material interests of the state. Resistance to these regulations came from many quarters; conflicts within the state, public opinion expressed in the press, and political strategizing of residents and landowners in the public sphere. The paper argues for greater attention to the historically variable interconnections between power and resistance in specific empirical contexts
The financialisation of floor space, Mumbai 1880–2015
No full textInternational audienceThis paper traces the financialisation of policy instruments regulating floor space, namely, building height restrictions in Mumbai from 1880 to 2015. It describes and explains the shift from prescriptive regulation to hybrid market-based incentive. Drawing on original archival research and interviews with 80 policy experts, findings show that height restrictions shifted from ad hoc rules, to prescribed heights, to floor space index, and finally to market-based air rights. Paradoxically, the local state has used financialised floor space as an incentive to achieve social goals such as slum redevelopment, while the policy remains controversial and beset by conflict. The state has played a key role in financialising floor space, in the process creating a hybrid instrument with multiple constituencies. The conclusion explores how a history of building regulations can advance comparative urbanism
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