| 簡介： Mumbai: City of Dreams, City of Extremes
In 2009, Mumbai ascended to the status of a "global city," acknowledging its influence on the world's economy. With 21 million metro area residents in 2014, the city is tied for third-most-populous metropolis with Sao Paulo and Mexico City, just behind Tokyo and Delhi. Only centuries prior, the area had been a ragtag group of seven islands that the Portuguese had acquired from a sultan and then ceded to the British as part of a queen's dowry. In 1845, the islands were joined in a massive land reclamation project and became the Bombay Presidency, one of the three principal power bases of British Indian rule. Bombay successively turned into a vital seaport in 1869, became one of the newly independent India's states in 1947, was repartitioned as the capital of the Maharashtra state in 1960 and renamed Mumbai in 1996.
Today, it is the nation's economic engine, renowned worldwide for its textiles, jewelry and leather trades. It's also a mecca for outsourcing, providing manpower for finance, IT, call centers and content development. Moreover, up to 90 percent of employment is in the parallel, informal economy of lo-fi street entrepreneurs like hawkers, taxi drivers, laundry washers and even highly skilled manufacturers. Many of these are rural immigrants who have little choice but to live and work in the appalling conditions of shantytowns.
孟買：夢想與極端的拉距之都
孟買在 2009 年榮登為「全球城市」，這是對其在世界經濟影響力的認可。這座城市的都會區居民人數在 2014 年達到 2,100 萬，與聖保羅及墨西哥城並列全球人口第三多的都市，僅次於東京和德里。才幾個世紀以前，這個地區原本是葡萄牙人從一名蘇丹王手中取得的七座不起眼島嶼，後來又轉讓給英國，當作其王后的部分嫁妝。1845 年時，這些島嶼在一項大型的填海計畫中合併成孟買管轄區，作為英屬印度政權的三個主要權力基地之一。孟買接著在 1869 年變成重要海港，於 1947 年成為甫獨立印度的一個城邦，在 1960 年被重劃為馬哈拉施特拉邦的首府，並在 1996 年從「Bombay」改名為「Mumbai」。
現今，孟買是印度的經濟引擎，以紡織品、珠寶和皮革貿易聞名全球。這裡也是外包聖地，為金融業、資訊科技業、客服中心與內容開發產業提供人力。此外，高達 90% 的工作是在平行的非正式經濟當中，從業人員包括攤販、計程車司機、洗衣工人，甚至是技術高超的工匠等老式街頭企業家。這些人大多是鄉村移民，他們別無選擇，只能在環境條件極差的貧民窟裡居住並工作。
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