Team QoC - Question of Cities

Bengaluru: A step forward or two steps backslide in urban governance?

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…

‘Without money, municipal bodies cannot fulfil their role or deliver the mandate given to them’

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…

QoC salutes Dr Madhav Gadgil

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…

The Aravallis at the crossroads: Facts, fallout, and the fight

To watch the video click here

Beyond the Aravallis, other hill ranges in gradual destruction

The Vindyas, the Satpuras, the Himalayan range, the Western and the Eastern Ghats play an important role in protecting us from heat and dust. Their rich ecosystems support human health and provide food security. As the voices to save and…

Imaginations, protests and politics for better cities in 2026

The rapid development and redevelopment in cities in the business-as-usual mode has meant an extractive cost to nature with millions of people having no say. Cities built this way have led to unimaginably high levels of pollution, rising heat and…

Reading cities through stories, writers and lenses

Cities unravel layers in their books through trivia, history, lived experiences captured in books, monographs and other pages. The written word matters even in this digitally-driven age and books bring alive people of a city, its streets and neighbourhoods, hidden…

Community filmmakers tell lesser-known stories of
their cities

Cities are often spoken about through master plans, metrics and futures imagined top down. Often lost in these are how people live every day, adapt and adjust, resist and remake their city. The arts and films are ways to capture…

How changing climate and cities influence people’s lives

When the world is confronted with climate change and its intensifying effects, studies and research give concrete shape to the impacts. International and national reports, some short-term work and others long-term depth work that focus on rising heat, river pollution,…

‘Aesthetics not an after-thought or beautification, it’s harmony of city spaces and environment’

Cities become beautiful not only because of the quality of architecture but how it intermingles with nature, other life forms, and visual expressions of different communities. Advanced engineering and technology seen in flyovers, underpasses, and skyscrapers do not regard the…