Why designing with people in mind is now essential for India's urban future

As urban populations surge, the call is growing for cities built around people's lived realities, not outdated templates or top-down planning

Cities don’t emerge fully formed. Rather, they accumulate. They collect policies, decisions, improvisations, accidents, and repairs. They stretch when the economy expands, decay where governance thins, and pulse in accordance with how people use them rather than how they were originally planned. Indian cities are no exception to this rule and most of them have grown at the intersection of ambition and urgency, often faster than the systems that support them. By 2036, Indian cities are estimated to house 600 million and contribute almost 70 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). Yet, it is evident that much