Archives - Question of Cities

Wayanad rebuilds but discounts people’s needs and
nature-based development

Nearly nine months after devastating landslides flattened large areas in the northern part of Wayanad district, the process of building back – or rebuilding and rehabilitation – has started. But, as usual, it’s a top-down process without consultations held with…

How much has your city expanded its footprint of
built-up area?

In cities across India, people speak of how much more construction they see in familiar areas. But how much exactly has been built? What does the data tell us? There’s no clarity, especially for common folk who do not have…

Why we must plan and build child-responsive cities in India – now

Children and urban development are rarely discussed in the same sentence. Given the definitive research on children’s physical, cognitive, and social development being influenced by the spaces they live, travel and play in, the subject deserves more attention – and…

The journey from dingy to vibrant, meaningful spaces in Govandi

The cramped and ill-maintained Natwar Parekh Compound in Mumbai’s Govandi is hardly a place children can feel at home, run around, explore the world and learn. But they, facilitated by civil society organisations, have turned their dingy spaces into Kitab…

If lakes are built over, where will water go, ask Bengaluru kids

What it means to see a city through young eyes and reflect on questions that adults bypass, consciously or unconsciously, came through in a social experiment. The ‘Walk on Bangalore’ exploration, led by the Mod Foundation, found that the questions…

‘A happy city is where joy is not a commodity’

Rapid and unplanned urbanisation has hardly left open spaces for children. The carefree running, the cycling without the fear of speeding vehicles, the freedom that open spaces offered are now stories told by the older generations. The way cities are…

Physical space and mobility top two challenges for children in 300+ cities: LSE research

How the built environment and policy decisions of cities can support or hinder healthy early childhood development and what city officials identify as the biggest challenges were subjects of research analyses from 358 cities across 75 countries at LSE Cities,…

‘Deep flaw or blind spot in Indian environmentalism is that it largely ignored cities’

Cities built at the cost of ecology are becoming uninhabitable and unsustainable. Between the Gandhian perspective which is hostile to city life and the other that cities are engines of growth, both flawed, cities face ecological crisis and issues of…

Feminism meets environmentalism but women left out of decision-making

As women, across barriers of caste and class and other social indices, assert themselves, they also touch upon environmental issues that are deeply tied to their lives, living conditions, work and more. They raise voices as women demanding gender justice…

Reading Guha: India’s environmental history that’s “partially usable”

India’s environmentalism did not start with the Chipko movement, says historian and author Ramachandra Guha. His latest book Speaking with Nature – The Origins of Indian Environmentalism maps three waves of environmentalism in India and focuses more on the forgotten,…