Dear readers,

For our cities to be liveable, inclusive and sustainable, they have to be governed with compassion and care, vision and plans, a sense of equity, and commitment to democratic traditions. For this, the structure of the municipal body, the power and authority vested within it, timely elections to it, and its finances are all important. Lately, governance issues have been trumped by the seductive idea of development including in election campaigns, fundamental and far-reaching decisions for a city are taken not by its municipal body but the state government, municipal bodies are both divided and reunified on the pretext of improving governance, and municipal finance is hardly discussed. This edition of Question of Cities explores these themes across Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and other cities with a Fact Sheet on the nine cities of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

Mumbai voted to send 227 corporators to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation but the election campaign did not pivot on governance. Instead, it was all about delivering development. This, in recent years, means gleaming high-rises as the city’s totems, exclusive gated complexes, networks of flyovers and expressways for private cars, mega projects financed by the public exchequer, gifting away swathes of public land to private entities, a central park and so on. This reductive and exclusionary version of development ignores the needs of millions and comes at a huge environmental cost, but the results have been interpreted as people’s mandate for more of it, argues the QoC Editorial. Read it here.

Amid opposition, Bengaluru’s municipal corporation was split into five, ostensibly to improve service delivery and expedite development. However, significant city-making powers – planning, executing development projects, controlling finance – lie with their command centre, the Greater Bengaluru Authority, ruled by the state government, writes Team QoC. In this three-tier system, each municipal corporation comprises several wards. People may vote in ward-level elections but their representation has little meaning when urban planning and development are centralised, undermining the 74th Amendment. Read it here.

Urban governance in the national capital has been through different formats, explains multimedia journalist Ankita Dhar Karmakar. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi was split into three in 2011, on the basis of reports, to decentralise and facilitate development. But the municipal bodies were reunified in 2022. Besides redrawing the municipal map, these moves have made little difference to civic services on the ground or to the financial position of the corporation. Like elections, these decisions too are more about politics than governance. Read it here.

The elections to 29 municipal corporations and other urban local bodies in Maharashtra as well as discussions about elections in Bengaluru, Delhi and other cities focus on ‘development’ and skirt around the issue of municipal finance. Delivery of electoral promises and routine urban governance depends upon the availability of funds. Urban local bodies are, increasingly, becoming dependent on national and state governments. “Municipal bonds have not solved their financial deficit or improved their independence…Public-Private-Partnership cannot be a primary source of funding,” Dr Ravikant Joshi, urban finance and management specialist, tells Question of Cities in this insightful interview. Read it here.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) has raised curiosity after the Navi Mumbai International Airport became functional and ‘Third Mumbai’ was planned. The MMR comprises nine municipal corporations including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. This Fact Sheet explains the location of each of the nine cities – Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Panvel, Mira-Bhayandar, Vasai-Virar, Kalyan-Dombivli, Ulhasnagar, and Bhiwandi-Nizampur – where municipal elections were held this month and the civic issues that persists in each. Read it here.

Among the strongest advocates for the conservation of the Western Ghats, Dr Madhav Gadgil, who passed away on January 7, left behind a huge ecological legacy. A celebrated scientist, ecologist, and scholar, Dr Gadgil embodied the idea and belief that conservation was never a technical exercise but a deeply political question tied to people and their welfare. Team QoC compiles some of the tributes for the eminent ecologist. Read it here.

In our regular section, News Digest, read about ‘snow drought’ in Himachal; why people are protesting against Vadhavan Port project; climate scholar pushes U.S. universities to step up on climate leadership; UN report funds global water bankruptcy harming billions of people.

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Thank you
Smruti 
January 23, 2026