Ecology - Question of Cities

‘Ecology is a city’s natural buffer. We don’t see its tipping point, its warning.’

As large swathes of natural ecology in our cities are sacrificed for development and construction, not only do we lose the trees and rivers and lakes, but also the imagination of cities defined by its natural elements. Land use does…

The Himalayan disasters point to reckless construction, not merely climate change

As Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Punjab struggle to recover from the widespread devastation this monsoon, it is futile to only blame climate change. The ground situation and studies point to reckless construction – even over-construction – in the…

Dehradun: Infrastructure development or the
ghost of greed?

The aggressive push for infrastructure projects – specifically the Char Dham Yatra road, Dehradun’s airport expansion, and an elevated corridor to Mussoorie – threaten the fragile ecology of the Himalayan region. Despite studies advising caution, the government pushes ahead with…

Will nature send an invoice to booming Goa?

Eco-sensitive zones, private forests, paddy fields, orchards, natural greens, sacred groves, khazan lands, kulaghars, plateaus – all of Goa’s undulating land and rich ecology have been under assault for ‘development’. Almost every village has land deals and land conversions aided…

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…

Focused on flood management, Mumbai lets down Mithi River ecologically

Twenty years after the July 2005 deluge in Mumbai, the Mithi, pivotal to drain the rain, is still choked, silted and disconnected from the city despite thousands of crores spent to clean it, build embankment walls and sewage treatment plants.…

Why Kolkata should be a celebration of the Hooghly but isn’t

The iconic river, immortalised in cinema, songs and art, hardly has a happy relationship with the city. Visible for barely 1.5 kilometres, its banks and the ghats have garbage, debris, faecal matter, crumbling structures of the British era, derelict factories.…

Tag: Ecology

‘Ecology is a city’s natural buffer. We don’t see its tipping point, its warning.’

The Himalayan disasters point to reckless construction, not merely climate change

Dehradun: Infrastructure development or the
ghost of greed?

Will nature send an invoice to booming Goa?

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

Focused on flood management, Mumbai lets down Mithi River ecologically

Why Kolkata should be a celebration of the Hooghly but isn’t

Rivers are our home (but) what will the waters remember – plastic?

Why cities must reconnect with their rivers, renew river-people relationship

Vrishabhavathi: A river’s struggle in Bengaluru’s landscape