This is the first volume to present such a comprehensive history of Bombay-from 1660s to the present times. Strongly grounded in primary sources and richly illustrated, it maps the radical transformation of Bombay from an agricultural settlement of little significance to a megalopolis. What had originally been seven 'islets' of fishing villages, coconut gardens, rice fields, salt-pans, and vegetable plots, had by the nineteenth century given way to chawls, warehouses, cotton mills, railway lines, and docks. In recent times shopping malls, skyscrapers and slums have become prominent in the urban landscape.
The book discusses several other significant aspects concerned with land use and planning of the city-customary rights versus state regulations, revenue survey, land acquisition, agricultural and industrial growth, housing problems, development of the metropolis and problems confronting the city today.