Green Zones - Question of Cities

See the frayed symbiosis between Mumbai and its shrinking forests

The Adivasis living in Mumbai’s Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) and Aarey Forest, given their deep relationship with the natural forest, struggle to make sense of the intruding city. Natural resources such as water are no longer theirs by right…

Minnesota park: An example of building public spaces for diverse communities

Phalen Park in St. Paul, Minnesota, is a model for inclusiveness and social interaction among diverse urban communities, adding to the city’s…

Heat-proofing cities: Green solutions that helped to cool them

As cities around the world warm up faster and heat waves become more frequent and intense, cities have gone beyond red heat…

Mumbai’s urban forests are missing and unrecognised: Report

Around 1,400 hectares of urban forest across 18 locations in Mumbai, from Sion and Trombay to Powai and Goregaon, is almost forgotten…

How Punekars fought for their hill, Vetal Tekdi, to save its ecology

Pune’s citizens have been fighting to save Vetal Tekdi, the city’s lungs and a popular open space, from being destroyed for developmental…

Linear parks: Adding value to urban landscape

Seamless stretches of green space and blue water courses, opening up possibilities and amenities for the public, are significant characteristics of a…

From nature in cities to imagining cities in nature, for our future

Nature shapes and defines cities, but the prevailing model of city-making equates development with construction at the cost of ecology, purely for…

Ladakh: The meltdown in the cold desert as people fast for nature

The 21-day fast by engineer, educator and activist Sonam Wangchuk in March drew attention to the fragile ecology of Leh-Ladakh and the rights of local people over nature as development projects made a beeline after Article 370 was read down…

What Shimla’s construction in defiance of its mountain ecology means

Over half of Shimla, the hill station from the British era that is still popular among tourists, has been officially classified as…

How adopting green measures made air more breathable

As all major cities across the world grapple with poor air quality, it becomes imperative to take responsibility and translate plans into…