Urban Planning

As Ease of Living Index 2020 is released, a look at the relevance of 'liveability' in India, and what it entails

While the EOL Index provides a good comparative benchmark to promote healthy competition among cities, urban India needs a much more disaggregated index at the ward or zonal level to prepare local area action plans and to promote citizens' participation in the urban development process.

Indian cities may not be sprawling, but their density is a major concern especially in a pandemic

This pandemic sounds an alarm about the consequences of inefficient planning and management of cities and poses an opportunity to rethink and rebuild the areas that are most important to the country’s growth

An architecture student's vision for a greener Mumbai: Urban water bodies and their correlation with the city's functioning

With various factors at play that impact urban lakes, a broader understanding is necessary in planning for urban water bodies.

How public spaces could be customised to suit the post COVID-19 world: Read in new comic by the Leewardists

The Leewardists' latest comic looks at designers' attempts around the globe to shape existing public spaces to fit into the post-COVID-19 world's mould.

Post-pandemic cities: Will changes wrought by coronavirus outbreak on urban structures be the 'new normal'?

How might cities change as we deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and start heading towards a new life on the other side of the lockdown? Read Leewardists' latest comic, on Firstpost.

Do we need architects after the coronavirus outbreak? A comic strip about post-pandemic urban planning

While medical teams were battling the novel coronavirus day in and out; economies crashed and markets suffered, some of the evil minds from the real estate industry were rejoicing. Read Leewardists' latest comic panel, on Firstpost.

Inside 'Lovely Villa': The homes we build are witnesses to our lives

Lovely Villa, a housing complex in Mumbai built by architect extraordinaire Charles Correa, was more than just a building. It was a microcosm of a secular nation, a notion of ideal living, and a repository of memories past and future for its residents. Rohan Shivkumar and Avijit Mukul Kishore's documentary on it looks at how it represented making order out of chaos, both in the political and personal sense.

Firstpost Conversations | How liveable are our urban centres?

On the first episode of #FirstpostConversations, our host Rupali Mehra asks urban planner Lubaina Rangwala, BJP MLA Ashish Shelar and author Amrita Mahale if our cities can be qualified as liveable. From the need for sustainable development to the importance of citizen participation, we speak about the factors that affect the quality of life of India's urban citizen, but are largely missing from our political discourse.

Ragpickers at Mumbai's Deonar, despite being 'unsung heroes of sustainability', battle garbage mafia and state apathy

At the Deonar dumping ground, it is easy to find many children who grow up in the garbage — the unregulated industry of child ragpickers is on the rise.

Dal Lake in distress: Kashmir's iconic attraction is facing a slow death by sewage as politicians look the other way

Though the Jammu and Kashmir government claims it makes all efforts to preserve the Dal Lake in Srinagar, there is little proof of effective implementation on the ground of cleanup projects.