Officially, about one-third of India has urbanised. There are the urban peripheries and rural spaces that have grown organically and urbanised poorly but are not counted as urban. How can this situation be reconciled?

If we go by city jurisdictions and municipal boundaries, India is about one-third urbanised. However, we are certainly more urbanised if we take the parameters of urban characteristics — access to a certain amount of infrastructure, social and health care amenities, the labour force, or densities. Some of those numbers are based on satellite imagery and night-time lights, which put India’s urbanisation at around 40-45%, based on agglomeration.

Some of this (variation) was addressed in the last census (2011), which made the distinction between census towns and statutory towns. If we look at Indian cities and the census towns (about 7,000-plus), it is the second largest system of cities in the world after China. This makes sense because we are also comparatively populated.

Is there a way to bring these areas into urban planning? Also, is it possible to retrofit planning in poorly planned towns and cities?

It is possible. A very stark example is the rebuilding of cities post World War II. The way urbanisation stimulated development towards prosperity and better socio-economic progress was a significant retrofitting exercise. Singapore, a fishing town, was transformed over a short period of time. The four Asian tigers — South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore — industrialised and urbanised in three to four decades and had double-digit growth. India is also aspiring for a double-digit transformation, and we see similar intentions in how programmes are designed.

Much of India’s growth will be in urban areas. What do we want our cities to be like?

(Based on the community feedback on urban priorities), structural issues such as access to adequate and affordable housing need to be corrected. There is a shift from a housing-ownership model to a housing-rental model, which the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has also tried to promote for the migrant population post-Covid. We have a large population of urban poor. But we also have a population of young professionals. We need to customise the type of housing that we are producing to be responsive to everyone.

New York City, for instance, has learned that it is the young professionals who are driving the creative economy of the city, and the housing stock did not address their needs because, again, they kept following the one or two-bedroom model whereas a young professional would have liked a studio apartment. Also, with their skills, young professionals, especially those in white-collar jobs, can choose any city to live in. So, if a city wants to attract a competitive workforce, it needs to meet its requirements.

The New York City’s housing corporation makes an assessment of their housing stock from time to time, looking at the different sizes of dwelling units, if they meet the demographic cohorts and the household size that are coming in. If there’s a mismatch, they look at what types of planning incentives can be given to the private sector to fill the gap. They also try to influence this through their own social housing mandate. These are some corrective actions that cities can take. But it has to be informed by evidence.

How can urban planning catalyse economic growth?

Our master plans have not paid attention to the urban economy aspect. It is essential because the type of infrastructure, housing, roads, and mobility we will plan has to be responsive to economic growth. The type of infrastructure that we will put in an industrial cluster of a light industry will be very different from the infrastructure for a heavy industrial activity or different types of commercial activities. Without that foresight, we will be investing money in network infrastructure, such as wastewater and storm management systems, which may or may not be best suited to that cluster. Without a proper study of the types of clusters (that exist), we might not benefit as much as we could by bringing in economies of scale and the right supply chain model.

Is cluster-based or regional planning possible in India, which has a fragmented governance structure and competing political interests?

It’s vital to put the political economy as a topic (while planning for a region) and accept that there will be multiple negotiations and interests. But right now, those discussions are ad hoc. We need discussions on regional economic strategies.

The fast transformation of South Korea was based on a regional strategy that each city or cluster of cities has different comparative advantages. Understanding this context and connecting those regions through transport corridors and other network infrastructure needs to happen.

For instance, the investments being made in the Western and Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridors should have, at the same time, looked at the economic geography and started creating economic plans for each of these hubs to see how they can leverage this network infrastructure.

Informed reports like these can act as magnets to start having discussions with different actors, be it government officials or communities, the private sector or donors and investors.

Can economic growth and environmental sustainability be balanced?

It is not a zero-sum game. However, some conflict is visible in how cities expand into urban sprawl. The UN-Habitat’s global model calls for a density of 150 persons per hectare, which is compact and liveable. Cities in the middle berth, anything that’s between 100,000 and 500,000 in population, have no reason to expand their master planning areas. They need to keep their jurisdictions within their current boundaries and infill ((develop under-utilised, vacant spaces within the existing boundaries) and densify.

Second, we must create blue and green networks within the city itself. In India, most of the cities are either on the riverbed or they are coastal cities. How do we restore this ecological asset and learn from the mistakes made by the Western world? Living next to a water body controlled by concretising it has certain dangers. Because it not only involves spending funds to concretise the whole riverbed, it is also a loss of an ecological asset.

The other tension between the economy and sustainability is the jobs. We are trying to understand what just transition is, especially in countries such as India, where so much of the labour force is still employed in low-wage, low-productivity, and polluting sectors. Schemes like the National Urban Livelihood Mission are important because we need to upskill this large labour force, so they don’t become defunct as we transition towards AI and more automation.

What kind of densification should Indian cities be looking at?

Based on UN-Habitat research, 150 persons per hectare is an average number. But the whole city does not have to look and feel the same. We need to create a diversity of neighbourhoods to meet the needs of a diversity of people. So, the city has to have varying densities and varying profiles of buildings.

Singapore or Hong Kong are not just high-rises. They have a high-density core, commercial areas, and high-rise apartments, which cater to a population that likes that lifestyle. In the periphery, there are bungalows with front yards and backyards.

We need to do the same for cities in India to make them current, dynamic, and vibrant. Vibrancy has a lot of implications for the city’s local revenues through taxes. So, they are investing in infrastructure, which is good footpaths and seating, to attract people.

How is India progressing on the targets to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG-11, which is about making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable?

We have made remarkable progress in reducing extreme poverty, improving access to basic services such as water and sanitation, and managing waste. But given the pace of urbanisation we’ll see in the coming decades, India will risk falling behind in achieving SDG targets unless we accelerate investments in affordable housing, sustainable mobility and reducing environmental pollution, particularly air pollution. Also, attention must be given to addressing the persistent challenge of slums in intermediary and large cities, and access to parks and open spaces.

Environmental justice is something that we are not talking about in India. This has profound implication on systemic inequity. Urban poor bear a disproportional burden of negative environmental externalities. For instance, wastewater treatment plants, landfills are, more often than not, adjacent to poor neighbourhoods.

Environmental justice is an important consideration in general plans (equivalent to the master plans in India) prepared for cities in California. These policy and planning documents must adequately respond to minimising and mitigating the social and environmental inequity. The revisions to the general plan have recommendations linked to key performance indicators and monitoring mechanisms to assess the performance of the previous plan. Local communities are also well-informed about the general plan and put pressure on their planners and local leaders for equitable policy and financing. Such local mobilising that puts planning issues on the electoral ballot must be encouraged in our cities as well.