HOUSING TENURE FOR THE URBAN POOR: A CASE STUDY OF MUMBAI CITY

The island city of Mumbai is the economic growth engine and commercial capital of India. A combination of in-migration combined with a severe land shortage has resulted in Mumbai having one of the most expensive real estate in the world. As a result the city faces a housing crisis with an estimated 60 % of its total population living in slums, adopting multiple non-formal housing tenures. In recent times, concerted efforts at the political and policy levels to redress this crisis show an overwhelming preference for conferring ownership on slum residents. The common reasoning behind this approach is the belief that ownership facilitates the integration of market forces, results in a more efficient land use, increases revenues through taxation and, helps extend formal financial services such as housing finance to the poor. This paper analyses these claims and the possible impacts of the same on the urban poor. It concludes that an exclusive emphasis on conferring ownership is a uni-dimensional policy directed at a polyvalent and layered problem which may not provide the suggested benefits and in fact render homeless, some of the very people it is designed to benefit. 3CONTEX