Making our cities liveable

INDIA HAS ALREADY URBANISED ECONOMICALLY; TASK NOW TO COMPLETE TRANSITION INSTITUTIONALLY & SOCIALLY

- V ANANTHA NAGESWARAN BHARADWAJA ADIRAJU APARAJITA TRIPATHI

INDIA IS URBANISING in both visible and invisible ways. Like Janus, the Roman god of transitions, urbanisation has two faces.

One stretches outwards—visible skylines, expanding suburbs, and illuminated transport corridors. The other faces inwards—economic density, dense labour markets, integrated consumption spaces, and urban productivity, all of which anchor national growth. Official statistics largely engage with the first face, characterising India as only modestly urban. Herein lies the paradox of India’s urban challenge. Economically and functionally, the country is far more urban than conventional definitions suggest. Urban areas already generate the bulk of national output and host the most productive labour markets. What lags is not urbanisation itself, but the financial, institutional, and social capacity needed to convert this economic reality into the quality of life that citizens increasingly expect.

Over the past decade, India’s metropolitan regions have expanded substantially. Nighttime light data and satellite imagery show cities spilling far beyond municipal boundaries, creating vast peri-urban belts that are economically active but do not share the urban governance norms of their more established city counterparts. Urban growth has been spatially extensive rather than compact, shaped as much by regulatory constraints as by market forces. This has made everyday life in cities harder than it needs to be.