Nikeita Saraf - Question of Cities

The Yamuna: Memoir of
a dying river

Nikeita Saraf, a Thane-based architect and urban practitioner, works as illustrator and writer with Question of Cities. Through her academic years at School of Environment and Architecture, and later as Urban Fellow at the Indian Institute of Human Settlements…

Mumbai Metropolitan Region: The facts and figures after elections

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…

They fight so that the Aravallis can stand tall

Sheer passion, deep commitment to their land, and raw anger at the daylight robbery of the hills they have called home forever have driven scores of people to gather in small and large numbers across the Aravalli hills and range…

Saving the Aravallis with songs, poems and art

People, including professional artists, have been using every medium at their disposal to draw attention to the Aravallis. While locals across Rajasthan and Haryana have taken to songs, poems, and art works to protect their beloved hills, activists in Delhi,…

Mumbai’s old textile market is on the edge of a new aesthetic

The Moolji Jaitha Market is a maze of lanes and gullies that culminates in small chowks; a grid of entrances and intersecting lanes at right angles to the main road; open spaces for worship, rest and recreation – a layout…

‘The greatest threat to wetlands is, ironically,
government agencies’

In a landmark order in December 2024,[1] the Supreme Court directed every state to appoint its Wetland Authority, complete ground truthing, and notify wetlands to protect 2.3 lakh wetlands across India from landfilling and construction. In the absence of being…

Walking the faultlines of a forest in the city

Amidst the chaos and cacophony of urban life in Mumbai and Thane, the lush green and quiet paths of the outer areas of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park offer a refuge and bring people close to nature. As the Brihanmumbai…

‘If the forest and animals exist, so will we. Otherwise,
it’s all over.’

In the fierce debates over protecting the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, its core area and buffer zone, the voices of the Adivasis, its oldest residents, are rarely heard. They or their ancestors were here before it was designated a protected…

When high-rises occupy Mumbai’s salt pans, where will the water go?

Often forgotten as a crucial part of the city’s estuary formation, Mumbai’s salt pan lands are under threat. Nearly 256 acres were sanctioned earlier this year to house people displaced by the Dharavi Redevelopment Project. Although notified as wetlands, the…

The anatomy of density in our cities: A storyboard, a way of seeing

Density, in urban planning, is often reduced to a simple metric: the number of people within a given land area.[1] But it is more than just bodies per square kilometre. It is also the concentration of housing units, the total…