Up, Up... And Away

Aay dil hai mushkil jeena yahan, zara hatke, zara bachchke, ye hai Bombay meri jaan.

BOMBAIN, Bombaye, Boon Bay, Bombayim, Bom Bahia, Bombaum, Mambai, Boa Vida, Boa Baim, Bombay, Mumbai... Urbs prima indus has survived many changes in nomenclature. But is the 69 sq km island-city of hopes, dreams and aspirations—the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the train ride—experiencing a change of heart? Northwards towards the suburbs beyond Mahim in the north-west and Sion in the north-central? Are the citylights shining brighter in Bandra and Borivli, Juhu and Juinagar, Virar and Vashi than in Girgaum and Colaba, Malabar Hill and Matunga? And is uptown no longer downmarket?

Be it bars, hotels and discotheques, shopping malls and commercial complexes, theatres and entertainment parks, schools and colleges, apartment blocks and residential colonies, industries and corporate headquarters, Mumbai's suburbs in the north, west and east are suddenly throbbing with the action, activity and excitement that was till recently the luxury of the south and south-central tips. And disappearing is the age when the suburbanite had to trek or train all the way into town to enjoy the good things in life.

Not so long ago, the city stood for what was elite and aspirational. The suburbs have now created their own class structure—top class, middle market and value for money. Once upon a time the snob-end English theatre flourished only in the city. No longer. The largest shows, from the Michael Jackson night to the Filmfare Awards, are held on the grounds of the Andheri Sports Complex, the SNDT University at Juhu and the Exhibition Centre at Goregaon. Not in the city's Rang Bhavan or Brabourne Stadium. The suburbanite no longer depends on the city—the city has come to him.

And why not? Suburban Bombay has everything urban Bombay doesn't or can't. Space. Greenery. Infrastructure. Low density of population. Possibilities to grow. For individuals and corporates. At much less the price. A set of islands that for centuries had just a narrow strip of land has suddenly it seems found a wider canvas.

Anyone who recalls 9 pm at Colaba or Flora Fountain 20 years ago will know the difference. If the flower children crashed at downtown Studio 29 a couple of years ago, Razberry Rhinoceros and J-49 in Juhu are the cool places to be in today. Enough townees are dancing the night away at discos like Cyclone in Sahar, Avalon in Vile Parle, Wild Orchid in Chembur, Madness in Khar. And for the disc-regulars of Generation X, Slip Disc in Colaba is only a backbone disorder.

No longer is it so difficult to get admission in colleges like St Xavier's or Elphinstone—Narsee Monjee and Mithibai are the happening places. Time was when Regal, New Excelsior and New Empire were the hip-hot theatres downtown. No prizes for guessing where Shravan Shroff of Shringar Films started building his dream chain of theatre halls—Cinemax and Cinestar, his cineplexes in Goregaon and Kandivli, are the best in town. The entire Channel V team moved from south Bombay to Khar. Reason: it had all the space it needed and entertainment was closer—the stars are a few km away and so are the major music companies, BMG, Sony, HMV.

AND the city's major newspapers The Times of India, Mid-Day and The Indian Express are latching on to the concept of floating suburban supplements. The Times' Westside Plus supplement (which caters to a 1.25 lakh population) points out that "the buying prowess and disposable income of the residents of this area are second to none". Even while talking of the garbage problem of Bhayandar or the inauguration of an Elizabeth Arden showroom in Khar, it talks of budding cricketers in Vasai.

There are about 20 publications catering to New Bombay alone, raking in the moolah. Says Carol Andrade of The Times: "There is a large population in the suburbs which wants more than the macro picture provided by the mainstream papers."

Why did the shift happen?: By circumstance, and to some extent, by design, the city's epicentre has gravitated northwards. The reason veers around—as most things in Bombay—space, or the lack of it. "The government let the city down by not opening up serviceable land and balancing the land demand and supply," rues Rahul Mehrotra, architect and executive director of the Urban Design Research Institute. Since the '60s, all the action was limited to intensifying housing in the limited available land and accommodating more and more people till the system collapsed.

"The city became a collection of parts which no longer worked like a machine," explains Mehrotra. Hence, the exodus to the suburbs, more from the congested south and south central areas. In the '60s itself, it had started becoming clear that the city would sink under its weight. New Bombay, a city across the harbour, was conceived which would connect Bombay to the Maharashtra mainland. But the idea was torpedoed by the then government—only to be picked up years later. It instead reclaimed land at the southern tip and created Nariman Point which only further accentuated the north-southness of Bombay.

This, of course, spewed a new set of problems. For instance, the rent. With the city being a narrow strip of land and the main business areas being at its southern tip, living close to work meant shelling out a premium. An apartment in south Bombay, within 10 to 15 minutes of driving distance, can cost anywhere up to Rs 1 lakh or more. Purchase rates are higher—anything between Rs 5,000 and Rs 25,000 per sq ft. The suburbs, on the other hand, account for a far larger spread of 210 sq km and if you go further up, north of Dahisar and Mulund, there's 159 sq km. With purchase and rent rates considerably lesser, what more can you ask for?

Says V.K.N. Nayar, editor of Vashi Times: "The middle class found the Vashi rates reasonable." Nayar himself bought a flat at a cheap Rs 60 to Rs 80 rupees per sq foot, about 100 per cent less than his Anushakti Nagar (Trombay) flat. "There was a heavy rush of the middle class. They realised that they could sell the flats they were occupying at almost double the rate of the property price in Vashi. The difference they got in their property sale went directly into investments in local businesses—so private enterprise and investment attracted a heavy rush, and lots of entrepreneurs landed up in Vashi—TV repairman, electrician types."

Manna from heaven: In a bid to decongest the city, the state government with the help of the Bombay Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (BMRDA) plan passed a regulation that no new industry could build in the city proper. Manna from heaven? Well, so it seems. For, as soon as the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) on the outskirts was devised—as an alternative to Nariman Point and Worli—public sector units, foreign banks and non-banking financial institutions made a beeline for it. Among those who moved: ICICI, National Bank for Rural Development and Citibank.

HDFC has recently opened its offices in Borivli and another at Thane to service people up to Palghar and Panvel respectively. Though the head office has various departments, its service centres earn as many clients. Borivli averages 250 applications a month, while Thane earned 207—together they make as much, if not more, than the head office at Churchgate which averages 450 applications monthly, according to an HDFC source.

Businessmen know best: Shirish Patel, a leading city engineer who was involved in developing New Bombay, had said in 1993: "The point is that there are many activities located in south Bombay that have no real reason to be there." Now, the BKC is also the favoured spot of the diamond bourse and an expat-patronised American School. And so, diamond merchants and banking professionals are also moving house to the suburbs.

ANOTHER business centre has come up in the Andheri-Kurla area further north where courier and travel-related agencies have flocked. They are closer to Santa Cruz and Sahar and real estate costs are lesser. With film studios mushrooming in the suburbs and Goregaon housing the Film City, the industry was already concentrated in the west. Now media and TV companies like Zee TV and UTV have moved to Andheri. Around the mid-'80s, the rates were close to Rs 3,000 per sq foot. By September '95 it moved up to Rs 8,000 per sq foot, but was still cheaper than Bombay proper.

Many large corporates occupying leased premises in south Bombay are also shifting out. More space, cost effectiveness are the most obvious benefits. Powai, a north-central suburb known till now for housing Bombay IIT, is the latest hotspot. A single developer, Hiranandani Constructions, bought land, developed an upmarket township complete with plush offices and housing societies, and sold the idea to anyone willing to take it.

So impressed were the likes of Bayer and Chemtex that they moved there lock, stock and barrel, with Colgate-Palmolive in tow. As the Hiranandani township becomes the address for senior software executives, local businessmen and rich professionals, the booking rates waver—it was Rs 650 per sq foot in '87, peaked at Rs 6,000 in '94-95 and has settled at Rs 3,000.

Wooing NRIs: From Bandra to Borivli, Ghatkopar and Powai, there are a string of high-rises with swimming pools, club houses, golf courses, you name it, to woo the phoren-returned. In fact, companies like Citibank have built their own housing complexes in far-flung Kandivli. What's more, the corporates shifting base to the suburbs has given agents a new promotional weapon. Citibank has found that agents are trying to make some housing societies attractive by selling them as "Citibank colonies" after only a few bank officials moved in there.

Even the young and famous are flocking to such housing complexes outside Bombay. "Every nuclear family faces a crisis in Bombay when children grow up and have families of their own. High property rates coupled with increasing city congestion made many middle class families sell off their city properties to the commercial sector and move to the suburbs," says Prof. Sneha Palnitkar, director, international relations and research, All India Institute of Local Self-Government. Explains K.G. Krishnamurthy, deputy general manager, HDFC: "If you have your place of work, club, school, airport among other facilities close to a good quality home, people wouldn't mind shifting."

The middle class exodus: Even the oldest middle class residents of Bombay have started looking out for suburban options. While some have retained their old dwellings, others have sold out. When the textile industry came to a virtual halt, employment levels fell from 2.5 lakh in the '60s to about 30 to 40,000 people by the '80s. Several mill workers moved to Goregaon. In Bombay city, property rates increased ten to 25 times as the island city's population density reached an alarming proportion of nearly 46,000 people per square km.The suburbs on the other hand provided some breathing space with a density of 19,000 per square km.

Similarly, the middle class Christians in south and central Bombay have moved northwards. Says father Roque Alm-eida, rector, Holy Name Cathedral in Colaba: "As the parishioners got affluent, many with Gulf money, they preferred to move into larger homes in the suburbs like Vakola, Borivli, Andheri and even further up north in distant Mira Road." His parish had 16,000 people till 1972. Now he has 5,000. On the other hand, the Sacred Heart Parish at Santa Cruz, a northwest suburb, is up from 8,000 to 13,000. The largest parish—18,000—is in Orlem in Malad, a suburb far up north. Following this trend, most new residents who come to Bombay now settle in the suburbs right away. According to the 1996 BMC figures, the suburbs support a population of over 39.5 lakh, 20-25 per cent more than the city. The suburbs are already well-linked to the city. The Mumbai Urban Transport Project II proposes 51 flyovers and six railroad corridors interlinking the suburbs. Work has already begun. If implemented in toto, it is estimated to relocate another one lakh population to suburban areas.

The downside: The exodus hasn't done a lot of good to Bombay. For, though thousands have relocated in the suburbs, it has hardly decongested the city as rural migrants encroached upon public land to set up their shanties. The composition of residents has changed, not the numbers.

The influx has been ignored by succeeding governments and public spaces have started disappearing at an alarming rate. Slums have formed a powerful votebank that no government wants to mess with. The slumlord has become a man to reckon with, a "sergeant general to the officer class of politicians". Says Gerson Da Cunha, theatre personality and a member of Bombay First: "The political mechanism of the BMC and the state governments has only worked towards not planning adequately for the future."

With new investments giving Maharashtra the skip, funds have been bypassing Bombay. From being the first preference for industry investors, Maharashtra now lags behind Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. The new regional plan of BMRDA, rechristened MMRDA, for 1996-2011 wants Bombay to re-emerge as the international centre for business and finance. The new plan recommends opening up large areas such as godowns in the Bombay Port Trust and mill land—which would decongest the city considerably. And also suggests much-needed property and rent reforms.

But there are lots of ifs and buts. Some critics have already trashed the MMRDA plan saying it has no community welfare in mind. Says Prof. R.N. Sharma of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences: "The plan is pro-rich if not anti-people."

What next: So what does the future have in store? Views vary. Krishnamurthy sees the city and its suburbs finally settling into largely four zones around each of the business districts of Nariman Point, Worli, BKC and Andheri-Kurla. He anticipates vast chunks of south central Bombay, the mill area predominantly, to develop into upper end housing complexes. "South Bombay of today has only a locational advantage today," says he. Most of the buildings are in pretty bad shape. Quality housing 10 to 20 minutes away from the business and office areas will be welcomed. Others say the city will remain as it is—in the hands of the ultra-rich and slum-dwellers.