Optimizing the Redevelopment Cost of Urban Areas to Minimize the Fire Susceptibility of Heterogeneous Urban Settings in Developing Nations: a Case from Mumbai, India

Heterogeneous and mixed urban forms profoundly influence fire susceptibility. Planning interventions to achieve fire resilience in urban areas are often not prioritized, primarily due to lack of analytical evidences. This paper proposes a novel analytical framework to reduce the fire-susceptibility in urban areas through optimal and cost-effective redevelopment of the existing UBFs. The framework includes a linear regression model to estimate the relationship between the fire-susceptibility of an area and the built-up spaces at a granular scale. A linear optimization model is incorporated in the framework to minimize the financial expenses, incurred during the redevelopment, for the reduction in fire-susceptibility of a city. The applicability of the framework is demonstrated through four different redevelopment scenarios of the southern part of Mumbai city. Pareto optimal solutions for various desired conditions of fire-susceptibility and population are determined. The results suggest that redesigning the urban settlement could lead to a significant decrease in susceptibility while catering larger population. The illustrated cases suggest medium and high rise buildings as the prime constituent to accommodate less susceptible larger populations in cost-effective ways. The outcomes suggest separate urban compositions for redevelopment scenarios, which make the approach suitable for informed decision making.