Mumbai's business landscape: A spatial analytical approach to urbanisation

Abstract

India has proven to be one of the most diverse and dynamic economic regions in the world. Its industry focuses predominantly on the service sector and immediate economic growth seems to steer India into the economic superpower. India's unique business landscape is felt at a regional level, where massive urbanization has become an unavoidable consequence of population growth and spatial allocation to the economic hubs of metropolitan cities. Mumbai, one of the world's largest cities, represents a unique combination of a diverse economic landscape and the growth of a megacity. The role of Mumbai in India's growth is of crucial importance for India's business landscape. This paper explores the massive urbanization processes of Mumbai's peri-urban areas and compares urban sprawl with the location of its business landscape. A spatial accounting methodology based on the proximity of Mumbai's different economic hubs will be used to measure the underlying pattern of the Mumbai region, concerning past and present urbanization, and the effect of this urbanization process has on the possible location of businesses. This business-urban ecosystem perspective will be implemented by a spatial analysis on the correlation between urban compactness and urban footprints, in relation to business concentration and its spatiotemporal evolution over the last hundred years.