Two distinct Mumbai neighbourhoods appeared in their modern avatars in the Art Deco period – the precincts along the Oval Maidan and Marine Drive in South Mumbai, and the ones in Dadar-Matunga further north. Over the years, the Art Deco buildings in Dadar-Matunga have gradually fallen into disrepair or succumbed to redevelopment, while in South Mumbai, the Art Deco buildings, along with the neo-Gothic structures, became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2018. The historic appointment came after painstaking activism and advocacy led by the neighbourhood’s civil society.
Is there a difference in approach towards lived spaces and urban conservation in two middle-class neighbourhoods of the same city? What drives one neighbourhood’s civil participation over another? Tune in to this webinar from our archives, held in December 2021, as Dr. Kamalika Banerjee, now a post-doctoral research fellow at CNRS Create, Singapore, explores what makes the citizens of South Mumbai tick.
