UNDERSTANDING URBAN SYSTEMS USING COMPLEXITY THEORY: ANALYZING THE INFORMAL RAILWAY MARKETS OF MUMBAI
Open Access
- Author:
- Mitra, Arpita
- Graduate Program:
- Architecture
- Degree:
- Master of Architecture
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- July 28, 2008
- Committee Members:
- Peter John Aeschbacher, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
- Keywords:
- complex systems
informal spaces - Abstract:
- All cities have some form of informal spaces within them and these spaces grow along with the city. This growth in informal spaces is perceived as disorganized and chaotic. The traditional role of city planners is to eliminate or curtail this disorganization. In an attempt to organize the growing city structure, planners are still looking at conventional approaches, and, as a result, they end up designing static spaces. But this disorganized structure, when looked closely, is a self-organizing system. The planners need to understand the self-organization of informal spaces and need to take it into account while designing them. John Holland’s framework of complexity theory explains the self-organization and emergence of a system. This thesis hypothesizes that Holland’s framework is the best approach to understand and design informal spaces. The conventional approach, taken by the authorities, is evaluated using Holland’s framework with the aim to develop a better analysis strategy for the design of these spaces. For this purpose, this thesis looks at the case of Mumbai’s informal railway markets as an example of complex systems. Three cases of informal railway markets and a market built by the authority to replace the informal markets were selected for this study. The markets were studied during a field visit, and were analyzed and compared to understand their pattern and how they work as system. Issues of congestion, messy image, safety, and security were studied to understand the problems of the informal markets. The solutions proposed by authorities and counter proposals were then evaluated using Holland’s framework to arrive at a more effective solution for the markets.