For Indians, the most important form of social security is to own a house. It is a proxy for their social standing and prestige. But housing is expensive: realty in New Delhi and Mumbai is generally priced out of reach and remains mostly unsold. In India, there is a housing shortage, along with rising inventory
Delhi sits on three active fault lines, with over five earthquakes measuring over five on the Richter scale hitting it since 1720. It is designated as a category four seismic zone. A Nepal-like earthquake would flatten 80 per cent of Delhi’s 25 lakh buildings, including the Walled City and the Trans-Yamuna housing societies. Cloistered by
There is no one definition for India’s proposed smart cities. The Ministry of Urban Development provides benchmarks for various services — maximum commute time should be 30 minutes in medium-sized cities and 45 minutes in metros; water availability must be 135 litres per capita per day; 95 per cent of homes should have shops, parks,
India’s cities are responding to myriad pressures ranging from fiscal austerity, climate change and most importantly, a rising urban population. Significant investments in land utilisation and communication technologies are being lined up, aiming to improve our built environment through energy-efficient buildings, intelligent transport networks and foster an urban utopia. That tantalising dream of an orderly
India is a reluctant urbaniser. The Indian city is chaotic, unclean and unsafe. Lothal, Pataliputra and Ujjain were once cosmopolitan centres, planned around commerce and geography. Bad planning and governance scarred our cities, with the middle class driven away by rigid ideology, massive migration and industrial tension. Urban planning remains a farce. We face a