Urban floods - Question of Cities

‘Urban planning tends to be driven by money, not natural ecosystem’

Once known as a salubrious city with abundant green, Pune has transformed into a crowded and chaotic city grappling with rapid urbanisation, poor infrastructure, and depleting natural resources facing the brunt of extreme weather events. The failure to cope with…

Reimagining Mumbai: From flood-prone to sponge city

Over the years, reckless development has destroyed the city’s ecology, increasing the risk of floods. Mumbai’s lakes, marshes, and salt pans used to absorb monsoon rains and mitigate floods but they have been built upon or covered with concrete. As…

Climate disasters are connected to the way our cities are planned

Cities have completely ignored their natural areas. If mapped and made available on a public database, people can be empowered with the knowledge about them and can decide to protect them. Mapping a city’s ecology can radically change the way…

Plastic chokes drains but bans are not enough

India’s ban on plastic in 2022 was to restrict the manufacture, distribution, stocking, sale and use of 19 single-use plastic items. An impractical approach and flawed implementation has resulted in hordes of plastic waste which chokes stormwater drains, washes up…

Urgent heat conversations and actions we need in India to cool down cities

As millions of Indians struggle through an relentlessly scorching summer with never-before high temperatures, Heat Action Plans have become critical to people’s lives and livelihoods. Although states and cities have prepared plans – and some have fitfully implemented them –…

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 alerts and action plans to cool themselves. Some of the on-ground initiatives to beat the heat range from…

Centring climate justice in rapidly urbanising cities of South Asia

The region is among the most vulnerable to climate change. With nearly 2.5 billion people and a limited capacity to adapt to climate change, South Asia shows how inequity and injustice lie at the heart of climate action. Billions in…

How Bengaluru, once the land of a thousand lakes, can rework its water plan

The warning bells have sounded for the aspirational tech-city as residents struggle with water scarcity yet again and tankers move about supplying water. Its rapid expansion into peripheral areas and staggering concretisation damaged the intricate network of lakes and other…

Bengaluru’s water math is badly failing as ‘zero water days’ loom large

This year’s summer is a trailer for a bigger water crisis in a city which once boasted of great weather and good life. Now, authorities acknowledge they cannot bring more water to the city. Nearly half its population surviving without…

The best of QoC 2023

As 2023 comes to a close, it is customary to compile year-end lists of the work done throughout the year. At Question of Cities, we join the bandwagon not as an exercise in self-congratulation but more as a reflection of…