'Hope infrastructure' is what people in big cities need

Earlier this week, public health physician and urban epidemiologist Tolullah Oni went for a morning run in Bengaluru.

- SHALINI UMACHANDRAN

She carried an air pollution monitor and her UrbanBetter Cityzens app to collect data on AQI, walkability and the habits of citizens, something she does in every city she's in. "It was a short run, and the AQI was very good early in the morning. It gave me hope," said the University of Cambridge professor, who was in the city to speak at the Nobel Prize Dialogue 2025.

Hope is a word Dr. Oni uses a lot. For her, effective urban governance rests largely on hope, which is distinct from optimism or any of its other usual synonyms. And in the current euphoria over Zohran Mamdani's win in the New York City mayoral election, it's easy to believe that. It is true that most Indians who don't know their local corporator, councillor or MLA have been rooting for Mamdani for weeks—an incredible irony about caring so deeply for city governance halfway across the planet while we breathe air laden with carbon monoxide or play hop-skip-jump to catch a metro ride.