Ripping the Fabric: The Decline of Mumbai and its Mills

Mumbai is India’s commercial and industrial capital and is expected to become the world’s most populous agglomeration by 2015. This book examines the growth of Mumbai through the redevelopment of land belonging to derelict cotton mills. Cotton mills were Mumbai’s premier industry till the late 1970s and have since declined. This edition includes a new preface which addresses the sale of such land in the light of recent developments. Mills occupy around 600 acres of prime property in mid-town Mumbai. The city has some of the most expensive real estate in the world and same of mill land is literally a matter of life and death for mill owners and trade unionists alike. Although the Prime Minister and state government would like to project Mumbai as another Shanghai, the fact remains that more than half of its population lives in slums. Since 1991, when India liberalized its economy, the state government has sought to convert Mumbai into a world class city and permitted the sale of mill land subject to certain conditions. D’Monte looks at various options before the government and advocates a holistic solution, which meets the needs of the city as well as those of the workers. As one of the first systematic studies of the city and its mills, this book will interest both academics as well as general renders, researchers in business studies and industrial economics, and policy makers, lawyers, and financiers.