Nature - Question of Cities

Trees and urban forests under attack in cities – and what to do about it

This summer saw temperatures across the country, especially in northern states, soar well beyond 40 degrees Celsius. Even cooler hill stations sweated through summer. The searing intense heat has a message – do not cut trees. But, unfortunately, lakhs of…

Reading the Supreme Court judgment on the Right to Life and climate change

In a judgment that flew below the radar, the Supreme Court of India brought the impact of climate change into sharp focus. The case was about the Great Indian Bustard but the apex court articulated a powerful idea in the…

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 healthy and liveable city. The green stretches may well be linear parks threading various neighbourhoods, creating accessible and…

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 profit. This has led to a serious rupture in nature and segregation of nature from people. As the…

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 moderately prone and 33 percent of it highly prone to landslides. The brunt of landslides is borne by…

Patrick Geddes: Urban planning for social and cultural renewal

Scotsman Sir Patrick Geddes has been considered as the father of city planning in modern times. He brought his belief that town planning was not mere ‘place’ planning but essentially ‘people’ planning, to the nearly 50 plans he drew up…

Walking in the footsteps of Patrick Geddes in the crucible of his ideas

Edinburgh was both the inspiration and the workshop for the Scotsman who defied easy categorisation during his lifetime and later. Though the man and his pioneering work may not be as deeply and often remembered at every turn of the…

Indore 2.0 bears no stamp of its first master planner, Sir Patrick Geddes

One of the first cities in India to be planned expansively by the Scottish biologist, geographer and town planner, Sir Patrick Geddes, Indore in Madhya Pradesh is fast losing its natural beauty and charm. The city’s development is not people-oriented…

How Vadodara’s citizens joined forces to save the iconic Vishwamitri river

The highly polluted Vishwamitri river in Gujarat’s Vadodara was dying and the municipal corporation floated the idea of a riverfront which would have spelt the death knell for the river. From academics who first woke up with the alarm bells…