Applying Urban Models to Decode Mumbai’s Internal Structure
Mumbai, India’s financial powerhouse and a city of nearly 20 million people , is a fascinating case for urban geography. Once a series of fishing islands under Portuguese and later British rule, Mumbai (formerly Bombay) has grown into a global megacity , stretching from the narrow peninsula in the south to sprawling suburbs and satellite towns in the north and east. Yet, this growth has not been uniform. It has followed patterns influenced by colonial history, coastal geography, industrial development, transportation networks, and post-liberalization economic restructuring . To understand Mumbai’s complex internal structure, urban geographers often apply classical models of city growth such as the Concentric Zone Theory, Sector Theory, and Multi-Nuclei Theory . While none of these models perfectly explains Mumbai’s reality, each offers valuable insights. Together, they help us trace how Mumbai evolved from a colonial port into a polycentric metropolis . 1. Concentric Zone Th...
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