Urban planning - Question of Cities

Three trends in cities we will closely watch in 2025

As curtains come down on 2024, the hottest year on record, building sustainable cities has become more urgent than ever. What kinds of cities are being built across India as urbanisation picks up pace? What core ideas inform urban development?…

The making and unmaking of Goa’s unique alternative urbanity

Back in 1986, Goa had put in place land zoning plans which ensured that its agricultural lands, ecological systems, and historical sites had protective cover from the fast-expanding land market. It gave the state an alternative urbanity. However, this will…

The spectacular failure of planning cities, as we know it. What next?

The widely-prevalent conventional urban planning framework in India, focused on land use, zoning and building regulations, is out of step with the demands of the time we live in, especially climate change events. Development Plans or Master Plans approach natural…

Redesign: The key to the Gordian knot of Mumbai’s congested and unsafe places

The city’s landscape has been constantly changing but what has remained consistent over the years is the chaotic cluttered mess outside its suburban railway stations used by millions of people every day and unsafe lanes at key locations. Redesigning some…

We, the people, must fight to save our cities and ourselves

Governments and authorities are the custodians of our ecology but, in the past few years, people have resisted and protested actions of their governments to save trees, forests, hills, rivers, creeks, seafronts, wetlands and more. While the prevailing urban development…

To record and remember changing cities is to resist their erasure

As cities transform with breath-taking speed and the shiny new replaces the fading old, resisting the physical change is impractical and untenable. Resistance then takes other forms such as documenting, recording, collecting stories, organising walks, logging the everyday life, and…

Tag: Urban planning

Three trends in cities we will closely watch in 2025

The making and unmaking of Goa’s unique alternative urbanity

The spectacular failure of planning cities, as we know it. What next?

Redesign: The key to the Gordian knot of Mumbai’s congested and unsafe places

We, the people, must fight to save our cities and ourselves

To record and remember changing cities is to resist their erasure

Self-policing for safety: Memoir of a weary woman

How cities are changing from ‘patriarchy in stone, brick’

Reimagining Mumbai: From flood-prone to sponge city

Climate disasters are connected to the way our cities are planned