Dear readers,

The renowned Danish architect and urban designer Jan Gehl once remarked that “The tower is a lazy architect’s solution [to density].” His words have more resonance than ever across cities in India. As the high density model of city-making is propagated, cities not only lose their unique character and landmarks but both the people and the ecology feel its impact. Density, by itself, is a measure. How good or not it is for cities is an outcome of how it is used in city-making. As our cities densify and new ways of densification like Transit-Oriented Development are adopted, Question of Cities focuses on how high density manifests across the urban landscape.

The QoC Editorial argues that while the benefits of density such as higher productivity, shorter commuters, and lower carbon footprint have been extolled, the downsides of the high density approach have rarely been critically examined. Among them are how the high density doctrine has been weaponised for social order in our cities, how sub-standard living has been normalised for the majority and their resistance or protests silenced, and how it has impacted natural ecology which is critical in the times of unprecedented climate change. It’s time to revisit and reevaluate the ‘high density is good’ doctrine. Read it here.

In an engaging illustration essay, QoC’s visualiser-writer Nikeita Saraf does a storyboard to show how density unfolds in our cities. Density, in urban planning, is a simple metric of the number of people within a given area. But it’s more than just bodies per square kilometre; it’s also the concentration of housing units, the total built-up area of buildings, and the intensity of human activity. To understand density beyond the definition and its technicalities, she illustrates how density is experienced in our cities — the crammed streets and trains, bodies as crowds, stacked-up buildings, capture of natural areas, and so on. Read it here.

The building and people densities across the upscale Sainik Farms and the poorer Sangam Vihar in Delhi, just a kilometre apart, are too stark to ignore – languid life in a low density neighbourhood in one, constant struggle amidst high density in the other. Both are irregular or unauthorised. If geography and legal status do not explain the difference in densities and quality of life, then what does, asks QoC’s Multimedia Journalist Ankita Dhar Karmakar. Perhaps, it is the financial ability of residents in Sainik Farms to organise essential services for themselves while residents in the congested Sangam Vihar are forced to depend on the state for roads, water supply, and sanitation. Read it here.

A multi-disciplinary study showed that density was not the only factor in people of Mumbai’s slum rehabilitation colonies contracting tuberculosis; the built form mattered too including light and ventilation, distance between buildings, and open spaces. Mumbai’s norms for slum rehabilitation buildings, in fact, mandate bad architecture and built form to make redevelopment financially viable and these norms affect people’s health, and fire and structural safety, says Namrata Kapoor, architect, planner and co-author of the study, in an interview to Question of Cities and calls for universal norms to be applied to all. Read it here.

High density in India’s cities was not accidental. It was a part of an urban development approach and policy greatly influenced by the World Bank and other multilateral institutions from the 1990s. If the argument is that high density is good for India’s cities, then it can be counter-argued that it has had a plethora of adverse impacts, especially for the marginalised. Yet, the counter-argument is rarely heard or examined in the context of city-making even as the new global mantra of Transit-Oriented Development is embraced. Team QoC puts together a compendium on how high density became the norm and how some of India’s largest cities are adopting TOD. Read it here.

In our regular section, News Digest, read about Uttarakhand floods; Hong Kong upgrades its response to natural disasters; Football World Cup venues at high risk of extreme heat stress; and many more.

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Thank you,
Smruti
September 19, 2025