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Behind Kamathipura's Closed Doors
Urban renewal plans for Mumbai's most notorious red-light district swings between preservation and erasure, possibly rendering its most vulnerable inh...
Once Asia’s largest and oldest red-light district, Kamathipura remains an overcrowded enclave spanning 16 lanes and 500 crumbling buildings over 100 years old, teetering in neglect with residents trapped in a decaying enclosure of dilapidated living conditions. The extreme density of these chawls makes private redevelopment of single buildings unfeasible, forcing functions to stack atop each other with encroachments and makeshift extensions: brothels occupy the street levels to lure customers, while upper floors house generations of migrant workers—Kamathis, sweepers, artisans, and shopkeepers—who have adapted the space to their needs. The moral stigma attached to historically marginalized red-light neighborhoods creates a paradoxical situation where it both prevents sustained municipal intervention since its inception in the colonial era as well as catalyses advances of large-scale redevelopment proposals due to globalization, privatization, and economic liberalization.
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