Chapter : 3. Work, Life & Leisure - Cities in Count. World
Housing and Neighbourhoods
(c) Housing and Neighbourhoods :
(i) Bombay was a crowded city. From it earliest days, Bombay did not grow according to any plan, and houses especially in the Fort area, were interspersed with gardens.
(ii) With the rapid and unplanned expansion of the city, the crisis of housing and water supply became acute by the mid-1850s.
(iii) The richer Parsi, Muslim and upper-casts traders and industrialists of Bombay lived in sprawling, spacious bungalows. More than 70 per cent of the working people lived in the thickly chawls of Bombay.
(iv) Chawls were multistoried structures largely owned by private landlords, looking for quick ways of earning money from anxious migrants. Each chawl wad divided into smaller one-room tenements which had no private toilets.
(v) Many families could reside at a time in a tenement. High rents forced workers to share homes, either with relatives or caste follows who were streaming into the city. Though water was scarce, and people often quarreled every morning for a turn at the tap, observers found that houses were kept quite clean.
(vi) The homes being small, streets and neighbourhoods were used for a variety of activities such as cooking, washing and sleeping. Streets were also used for different types of leisure activities.
(vii) Caste and family groups in the mill neighbourhood were headed by someone who was similar to a village headman. He settled disputes, organised food supplies, or arranged informal credit. He also brought important information on political developments.
(viii) People who belonged to the 'depressed classes' were kept out of many chawls and often had to live in shelters made of corrugated sheets, leaves, or bamboos poles.
(ix) Planning in Bombay came about as a result of fears about the plague epidemic. The City of Bombay Improvement Trust was established in 1898; it focused on clearing poorer homes out of the city centre. In 1918, a Rent Act was passed to keep rents reasonable.
Trending Articles & Blogs
Download Old Sample Papers For Class X & XII
Download Practical Solutions of Chemistry and Physics for Class 12 with Solutions