De-Landing Growth

Abstract

The prevalent paradigm of development in Mumbai is defined by anthropogenic processes aimed at building more. Manifesting in the form of inland architectonic augmentations or outward reclamations into the sea, these interventions are dissociated/incongruently positioned in the territorial ecosystem. Thereby altering natural cycles, disrupting habitats, and ultimately rendering critical ecological systems spatially and functionally marginalized. The resultant instability in the territory is evident as large volumes of humans and non-humans alike are lost, set-back or displaced, by catastrophic floods, that are further exacerbate by the adapting territorial landscape.
While it has been well established that in the case of Mumbai the act of accumulation is ubiquitous, and yet in this vicious cycle of overgrowth, still prevails a necessity for more growth. Acknowledging these processes of accumulation as constants, the projected is nested within the grim realities of the city, being an estuarine landscape that has been altered landscape to a point of no return.
Thereby proposing to reposition the prevalent paradigm of development to be centered around acts of maintenance stemming from systems of care. Maintenance for a healthy estuarine landscape defined by its biophysical as well as functional capability to prevail as well as support and ensure the symbiotic co-existence of its human and more than human occupants.
Essentially take into account the time taken for these natural acts of formation to manifest in comparison to the social processes, as it is this careful synchronization that will be essential in decentralizing the humanist perspective and yet safeguarding their livelihood against environmental uncertainties. In which case the health of the landscape will be tested by the very same hydrological cycle that shapes it.