Envisioning the Future of Mumbai/Bombay. Strategic planning as tool for inclusion or for further centralisation?

The paper aims to explore recent changes in the urban planning domain in the Indian megalopolis of Mumbai/Bombay, with a focus on an emerging form of document, the ‘Vision’, The paper highlights the active role of private investors in promoting visions and in selecting the projects to be financed, especially through ‘ad hoc’ created bodies. Such governance structure has been defined by some scholars as ‘governance-beyond-the-state’, usually led by economic, political, and social-cultural coalitions. While acknowledging its capacity to restructure a clearly fragmented and often ineffective institutional context, the paper questions if such a form of governance is actually aiming at a larger inclusiveness or rather at strengthening the government in such a complex context. Concluding remarks also question the role of international agencies in the definition of the governance structure and in the promotion of (standardized) visions and strategies as innovative forms of planning.