Urban Sustainability: Challenges, Visions & Strategies
Cities account for 60-80 per cent of energy consumption and 75 per cent of carbon emissions. They are also home to extreme poverty, unemployment and socio-economic disparities, non-optimal waste management, unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, major contributors to air and water pollution and are key contributors to climate change, environmental degradation and low safety. […]
Cooperative Housing for Slum Free Cities in India – Day 1
Learnings from Uruguay The irony of having commodified land and housing is that we have cities with large numbers of empty houses, to the tune of 11 million units, kept as investment by the middle classes while at least 65 million people are forced to squat on available land in shanties (Census 2011). Efforts at […]
Rejuvenation and Restoration of Urban Water Ecologies- Water Ecologies & Cities Day 1
“Un-Damning” Urban Water Flows! Finding a place for water ecologies in our city. The natural flows of water in our cities have been victim to the unplanned urban explosion. Our inability to accommodate rivers, water bodies and other ecological balances within our urban growth patterns has resulted in the increasing patterns of floods and droughts. […]
City Planning – As If People Matter
Democratising City Planning through Citizen Participation Why is participation so loathed by most city managers and planners? Despite enormous normative agreement on the benefits of citizen participation, most city managers and planners would shy away and at times actively resist any meaningful participation of citizens in the city planning process. They often argue that participation […]
Positioning Urban Waters- Water Ecologies & Cities Day 2
“Un-Damning” Urban Water Flows! Finding a place for water ecologies in our city. The natural flows of water in our cities have been victim to the unplanned urban explosion. Our inability to accommodate rivers, water bodies and other ecological balances within our urban growth patterns has resulted in the increasing patterns of floods and droughts. […]
Increasing Urban Water Stress: Hiding Behind Climate Change?
Biggest concerns and challenges for South Asian countries’ economy, polity and society are falling or stagnant agricultural growth, rural-urban migration, swift industrialization process and unplanned and unregulated urbanization. The direct impact of these changes is the escalating demand for water for non-agricultural uses such as for industrial and urban water needs. As a consequence, millions […]
Learning from MGNREGA while designing an Urban Right to Work
The COVID 19 pandemic continues to be a serious public health issue and has had serious impacts on the lives and livelihoods of crores of people. As in most cases, those most affected include workers, agricultural labour, small and marginal farmers, old age pensioners, widows, the differently abled, slum dwellers, the homeless and other such […]
Making Cities Water Secure
Water is the most important resource for human settlements, cross-cutting all social, economic and environmental activities. History teaches us that many civilizations were wiped out due to water scarcity. With climate change and resultant uncertain weather patterns, cities have become even more susceptible to water scarcity than ever before. The global community has also recognized […]
Sustainable Mobility Fortnight- Cities, People and Sustainable Mobility
The desired transformation of the mobility sector will be robust and just if it is accompanied by a process of enhancing public understanding about mobility and sustainability, and public engagement to evolve locale-specific sustainable solutions. The discussion, also drawing on the references to public awareness and the role of the public in the earlier webinars, […]
Sustainable Mobility Fortnight- BRTS: The unfinished Agenda
The webinar will be focused on the learnings from the BRT systems in Indian cities, current status and the future of the BRTS in India. Fifteen years ago, with the JnNURM and NUTP, many cities looked at BRTS as a viable option for a mass and rapid transit system. The period from 2005 to 2010 […]
