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QoC takes a powerful idea to The Nature of Cities festival: Join us on this journey

You might have seen the pop-up about The Nature of Cities (TNOC) Festival 2024 on our site. It opens this month in a virtual format and in the in-person mode in Berlin early June. And, Question of Cities will be…

How Bengaluru, once the land of a thousand lakes, can rework its water plan

The warning bells have sounded for the aspirational tech-city as residents struggle with water scarcity yet again and tankers move about supplying water. Its rapid expansion into peripheral areas and staggering concretisation damaged the intricate network of lakes and other…

Portraits of Bengaluru neighbourhoods struggling without water

The modest and low-income neighbourhood of Krishnaiyyanapalya in East Bengaluru exemplifies domestic life in the face of acute water shortage. With their one-hour-a-day supply from the Cauvery ebbing this year, residents are forced to rely on tankers and tractors. This…

Bengaluru’s water math is badly failing as ‘zero water days’ loom large

This year’s summer is a trailer for a bigger water crisis in a city which once boasted of great weather and good life. Now, authorities acknowledge they cannot bring more water to the city. Nearly half its population surviving without…

For five pots of water a day, women of Vyasarpadi mortgage lives and health

Chennai’s water distribution network is lopsided. Its northern areas like Vyasarpadi, with poorer and backward caste households, are neglected. Here, women’s daily gruelling routines revolve around water. Older women, young working women, college and school-going girls queue up for water…

Mumbai’s unquenchable thirst: Overestimating water demand to justify dams

Water to the city has been supplied from seven dams, constructed in the neighbouring rural and forested areas, at great socio-economic and environmental costs. More such capital-intensive projects are being planned. But does Mumbai really need these projects? The answer,…

Women architects: From slogans to struggle in making gender-inclusive cities

The work of women planners and architects has received little acknowledgment or visibility. That their perspective leads to more inclusive and sustainable cities is now accepted in some circles, their involvement has led to gender issues reflecting in urban plans,…

They broke the glass ceiling to build and design sustainable cities

When we say planners and architects in cities, how many women come to mind? Few and far between. Though women have been an inalienable part of these disciplines for decades, their challenges were tougher than those of their male counterparts,…

‘We need to design and plan better cities for diverse groups of women’

Women’s lives have rarely been at the heart of planning and design of cities. Even when they have been, city making has prioritised safety, especially in the transport system and public spaces. Without underplaying the need for safer cities, there…

Saving Rani Bagh with women’s power and collaborative campaigns

Women from diverse backgrounds joined hands to save one of Mumbai’s oldest green spaces and botanical garden, Rani Bagh, from construction. Their painstaking and tedious paperwork, awareness campaigns, audio-visual presentations, RTI applications, and archival information gradually ensured that the Brihanmumbai…