Bombay and Mumbai : the city in transition

This volume, third in the series on Bombay, or Mumbai brings together essays that treat the renaming of the city as a point of departure in visiting enduring themes in Bombay's life. As Bombay explodes into the megapolis of Mumbai, the volume examines whether the transition is merely in the name or if it has larger implications for the city's growth in terms of an enormous expansion in size, diversity, population and function.

The essays collected here offer exhilarating and provocative insights on what Bombay has become, as it steps into the new millennium. Has living in Mumbai meant a better life for its inhabitants or are they still condemned to the continued struggle for existence, and consequently withdrawal? Among other themes, the volume inquires whether the city has managed to retain its identity or if it has lost it like any other large metropolis.

More specifically, the essays focus on diverse aspects of the city's social, political and economic life including housing and rent control, the participation of Dalits and minorities in the city's life and activity, healthcare and life in the shanties, the twin evils of crime and communalism, and the world of films.

This vivid but realistic volume on Mumbai will serve as an essential and contemporary urban social history of Mumbai and will be useful to sociologists, historians, urban theorists, political scientists, and culturalists. In addition, activists, scholars, journalists and academics concerned with everyday life, culture, history, and the urban spaces of cities and particularly Mumbai will also find the volume of interest.