Project Proposal

Through this project, CRIT seeks to integrate GIS and other networked mapping and spatial imaging technologies into our existing infrastructure and research practice, enhancing our projects and interventions through the use of Internet technology and networks.

The key objectives and outcomes of this project are:

The creation of an online open-access spatial database and base map of key areas within the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, on the cumulative basis of the urban research, design and development studies and interventions conducted over the past six years by the CRIT Members, with our partner organisations and stake-holders in Mumbai. This will be deployed through a web-based geographic information system (GIS) for local communities to use for their own mapping, planning and development needs and aspirations, with the base map forming a platform for public dissemination and intervention. The key areas of the city for which we plan to develop the base map — based on our existing record of work in these areas — are the Western Suburbs, the Inner City, the Post-Industrial Landscapes, and the Metropolitan Periphery of Mumbai.

The development of a set of simple, cross-platform and Unicode-compliant spatial tools and mapping applications in English and localised in Hindi and Marathi, to enable participation of communities, citizens, and stake-holders in spatial planning and decision-making in Mumbai and other global cities in the Asia-Pacific region. These tools will be developed by CRIT and the project team through visualising communities’ own needs for information housing, land, infrastructure and environment.

The deliverable results of this project include making the base map, tool sets and source code (herafter referred to as the "platform") freely available online, as well as through a self-booting ‘live’ CD through which the platform can be used and modified on a computer desktop with or without Internet access, in English, Hindi and Marathi. The online (web) and offline (live CD) platform will include examples of work from CRIT mapping projects where we already have data and documentation, and will include simple how-to explanations and tutorials for how to make your own maps.

Project beneficiaries

We seek support for the development of a set of simple and localised spatial tools and applications for stake-holders to create and maintain their own community maps and databases of their localities, neighbourhoods and settlements. These community stake-holders — the prime beneficiaries of the project — represent diverse and often competing interests in the key areas of the city in which we work, from state authorities to residential associations to slum communities and grass-roots activist groups. The project seeks to develop a GIS-enabled and web-based public platform for these various stake-holders and the public to access and produce spatial information of crucial relevance to urban development in the four key areas of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region in which we have worked:

In the Inner-City of South Mumbai, the platform will assist residential and slum communities in claiming their right to quality housing, sanitation, and civic services, and security of land tenure and development rights, by allowing them to visualise the redevelopment potential of their housing and land assets, and assess the impact on local infrastructure and environment of the rampant and ill-planned construction activities currently transforming the area. The platform will also permit the documentation of structures and spaces for heritage conservation in Central Mumbai. CRIT has previously worked with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai in Kamathipura-Kumbharwada-Khetwadi and the Mancherji Edulji Joshi Colony Residents’ Asssociation in Dadar-Matunga-Wadala, and is currently working with the Slum Rehabilitation Society and the Heritage Conservation Society of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) in Mumbai Central and Mahalaxmi the Inner-City.

In the Post-Industrial Landscapes of Central Mumbai, the platform will assist state planners, labour activists, architects, heritage conservationists, port authorities and company managements to visualise and plan for urban regeneration and integrated redevelopment of the historic textile mill districts and port areas. The Mill Lands and Dock Lands — the two largest continguous land holdings in the city — have seen an extensive spatial restructuring in the past twenty years, with the decline and closure of manufacturing and shipping activities, the evacuation of large factories and the industrial waterfront, and the large-scale retrenchments of working class populations. The platform will assist in visualising the use of these lands for public spaces, social housing, local institutions and employment generation. CRIT has previously worked with the Girangaon Bachao Andolan (Movement to Save the Mill Districts), and is currently working with the Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI) and the Eastern Waterfront Task Force of the Government of Maharashtra in the Mill Lands and Dock Lands.

In the Western Suburbs of North Mumbai, the platform will be utilised by residential communities and local civic associations to continuously document, monitor, and keep vigilance over the open commons and public spaces which are currently threatened and contested by elite private interests, encroachers and the builder-politician nexus. With the ratio of open space per person in Mumbai one of the lowest of any large metropolis in the world, public space is one of the central arenas of conflict in the city. The platform will allow citizens to propose and assess political and design interventions to safeguard the open, non-exclusive and cosmopolitan character of these designated common spaces, and ensure their continued public access for recreation, sport, leisure and community activities, against the concerted efforts to enclose and privatise them. CRIT has previously worked in Bandra Reclamation with the General A.K. Vaidya Nagar Residents’ Association, and has its studio and office in Goregaon-Malad in the Western Suburbs.

In the Metropolitan Periphery north of Greater Mumbai, the platform will provide a basis for for local rural communities, tribal cooperatives and activists, and district and village authorities to negotiate the rapid and unbalanced development of these peri-urban regions, and their appropriation by city-based interests in the construction and tourism industries. The serious threat posed to sensitive ecologies and built environments by urbanisation — existing community-based systems of water and land management, the conversion of agricultural lands to urban uses, and the increasing migration from the city and other parts of the country — is largely unrecognised in the land-use and development plans for these regions proposed by state authorities in these "greenfield" sites. CRIT has worked with the Collectorate of Thane District in the Akloli, Ganeshpuri and Vajreshwari region, and is currently working with the the Heritage Conservation Society of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and the Vasai-Virar Arakhada Kruti Samiti (Action Committee for Planning in Vasai-Virar) in the Vasai-Virar Sub-Region of the Metropolitan Periphery.

In addition to these ongoing projects and initiatives in Mumbai, we have continuing relationships with the Muncipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, the Maharashtra State Government, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, and the Collectorate of Thane District. We have also received expressions of interest in our work from the All-India Institute of Local Self Government in Mumbai, the Maharashtra State Election Commission, and the government administrative academy Yashada in Pune.

Project methodology

As a collective of architects, artists, designers, social scientists, and technologists concerned with the city, we feel that inter-disciplinary collaboration is essential to research and intervention, and we are committed to working across sectors and institutions to articulate a public debate on the representation and dissemination of spatial information through the proposed GIS platform. In our six years of work with local communities, state authorities, and civic groups on urban design, research and development projects, our ultimate aim — of skill and knowledge transfer to stake-holders — has often proven elusive. Mostly published in printed form and privately circulated, our projects started as static representations of a fast-changing urban environment, with a normative bias towards immediate problem-solving and crisis resolution. The form and method of our urban projects — in spite of our commitment to participatory, action-oriented research and public dissemination — thus often ended up addressing our stake-holders as passive participants or consumers of the spatial information which we produced. This project reflects our desire to shift the form and method of our research towards a more dynamic and networked use of spatial information, where the stake-holders are themselves the producers and owners of the information, to which they have a right as citizens. The platform described above has the potential to unlock new means of dissemination and interaction within and among urban communities, enhancing their participation in development and planning processes, and reclaiming an urban imagination dominated by elitist and exclusive visions of the city’s development.

Project time-line

The proposed time-line of the project is 24 months, from May 2005 to May 2007. This is divided into a schedule of four six-month phases of activity:

May to November 2005. Acquisition, collation and indexing of all material from earlier CRIT projects, supplemented by archival maps, satellite and remote-sensing imagery, land survey records, development plans, and other forms of non-spatial social and economic data, and community information such as interviews and site photography. Team research into hardware and software choices, proprietary versus free software solutions, and the present state of the GIS industry in India. Preparation for development of base map.

December 2005 to April 2006. Vectorisation and digitisation of spatial and non-spatial information and creation of master GIS database of Inner City, Post-Industrial Landscapes, Western Suburbs, and Metropolitan Periphery projects. Installation of server and networked infrastructure to support development of base map, in collaboration with technicians and programmers. Preparation for development of community GIS tools.

May to November 2006. Completion of the base map and online beta distribution of the master GIS database created in the previous phase. Convening of workshops with communities and stake-holders to introduce the platform, and receive feedback and suggestions on the programming of customised applications in relation to local developmental priorities, community aspirations and interests, and technical feasibility. Debugging and trouble-shooting of base map and beta distribution of community GIS tools.

December 2006 to May 2007. Completion of application development and distribution to communities, public demonstration of the full platform, and interaction with stake-holders and user groups on potential future interventions enabled by the GIS base map and mapping tools. Launch of network of community mapping nodes on the basis of existing project stake-holder groups, to promote further use and development of the platform in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and throughout the Asia-Pacific.

CRIT will also organise community mapping workshops in Mumbai with software developers, architects and urban designers, educators and community activists at the conclusion of the first two phases and at the conclusion of the third and fourth phases — a total of three intensive workshops — to test the platform in a real-time setting and solicit feedback on usability, interface design, and facilitate planning and support for further phases of the project.

Project outputs

See above.

Project monitoring

Regular written reviews of work progress, full reports and accounting of all expenditures, and audits of project team performance, to be conducted at the conclusion of each six month phase of the project and submitted to the funder four times over the twenty four months of the grant cycle.