A locality is not simply a site, place or neighbourhood. It is a process that involves the inhabitant, the life-long resident and the passer-by who make it what it is through their active engagement, give it shape through social history, enrich it with meaning and symbols and argue and conflict over its future. This understanding is integral to URBZ’s vision of a user-generated city, since that is the only kind of city we know. Localities are central to our work.

We get invited to new places, we travel to them just to spend a few days, we choose to live in them at different points of time, but either way, we get  involved deeply. Since the people who connect with us and the worlds they live in are often so organically joined ,  that bonds form with both, through each other. URBZ sees itself as carrying places with it wherever  it goes -  through its ideas, concerns and practices.

We see localities, places and neighbourhoods in terms of the scale of our particular activity. We work in various parts of Mumbai, including Dharavi, Khotachiwadi and Crawford Market. We are also doing work in Goa, Tokyo and Geneva. Our team members and friends illuminate their locations and flag us to get involved, periodically. Our site geotags all that is done in the process and allows everyone to navigate across the board, get involved with places, no matter where they are presently located.

As more cities, towns and villages become part of URBZ’s sphere of infleunce through different perspectives, practices and concerns, the more exchanges take place across them, through workshops and online communication. Since locations are indeed all about making them, they have their own identities, but they also change and morph, look alike, become vastly different and keep feeding off each other’s experiences all the time. User generated cities are what places already are. For URBZ, the thrill is in working with users as they go about their business of generating them.

Please use the left side menu for more information about the localities we are involved with.