As cities grow, public space shrinks. In Mumbai, land use rules meant to safeguard 10% for people are ignored - pushing housing & amenities out of reach. Prof Aneerudha Paul on why communities must shape redevelopment: questionofcities.org/private-intere… #housingcrisis #urbanplanning

Police aspirant Suleman Pathan, 20, led Ganesh festivities in his #Maharashtra village His best friends were Hindus On 11 Aug, some of those friends joined a mob that lynched him Kunal Purohit’s story of betrayal & a radicalising state article-14.com/post/-in-a-mah… 🧵👇 1/9

“The market will correct itself and the land prices or house prices can come down. But is it really affordable for the urban poor or the vulnerable? I have never seen it happen.” Read the full interview with Prof Aneerudha Paul: questionofcities.org/private-intere… #UrbanPlanning

A family earning ₹10.7L a year would need: • 109 yrs to buy in Mumbai • 64 in Gurugram • 36 in Bengaluru • 35 in Delhi • 15 in Pune When housing takes lifetimes, markets alone can’t fix it. Read why: questionofcities.org/public-housing… #HousingCrisis #UrbanPlanning

Lakhs of houses lie vacant, while affordable homes fall short. Nearly half of PMAY-Urban homes remain unoccupied. Cities can’t be built on inflated land prices alone - governments must step in. Read: questionofcities.org/public-housing… #EqualCities #LandUse

🚨 Who owns the city? Buses, parks, schools, even lakes - what should be common goods are steadily being captured for private gain. Access shrinks. Exclusion grows. Our new edition #CommonsInCities, asks: can we reclaim our cities? Watch out for our new edition.

In April, BMC moved to hand 5 major #hospitals to private players - promising better care & a few “reserved” beds for the poor. But history shows such beds often lie empty. Read how #privateprofiteering is eroding #publicGoods. questionofcities.org/why-government…

3 decades after India embraced #privatisation, its promised gains. Instead, buses vanish, housing schemes stall, and hospitals are turned over to private hands. Why is that the case? Read Hussain Indorewala's this essay to know more. questionofcities.org/why-government…

Lighting, toilets, benches, bridges - these elements of #urbaninfrastructure decide who feels welcome in Kolkata’s #commons. A walk through the city shows how access and exclusion are built into everyday design. Read Srestha Chatterjee essay here. questionofcities.org/walking-to-un-…

Kolkata’s varied urban #commons such as lakes, gardens, parks, ghats, streets,and rail tracks mean different things to people, esp. women and queers. Walking collectively to record & converse about it are ways to reclaim the commons, writes Srestha Chatterjee questionofcities.org/walking-to-un-…

Privatising #publicgoods in the name of “efficiency” comes at a real cost - eroding essential social programmes. The public always pays, the question is what is being paid for. Read Hussain Indorewala’s essay to know more: questionofcities.org/why-government…

The recent rains in #Gurgaon, India’s Millenium City uncovered how fragile the city’s infrastructure is. Gurgaon, built by private developers, is India’s most expensive cities. Who’s to blame? We uncover in our latest edition. Drops tonight. #gurgaonrains #gurgaonfloods

“Planning is a technical project, shielded from public view.” Who does this serve - public interest, or private profit? Prem Chandavarkar in QoC. #privatisation #publiccommons questionofcities.org/private-space-…

4 years of struggle. Endless protests. Hunger strikes. ⚠️ STILL, the government turns a blind eye. Dol Ka Badh, Jaipur’s green lung, is being DESTROYED for a mall. Trees are life — not concrete. 🌿 STAND UP for nature before it’s too late #savedolkabadh

“Describing causes of these disasters as cloudbursts or landslides isn’t good enough. What’s needed is an independent assessment of Himalayan disasters to know what happened." I write on why misattributing Himalayan disasters to cloudbursts is dangerous: dialogue.earth/en/climate/are…

(1/5)High-density cities are often sold as “efficient” and “sustainable.” But in India, the reality is more complicated. Who really benefits from crammed towers and disappearing open spaces? #urbanplanning

High-density cities are often framed as “efficient” and “sustainable.” But in India, crammed towers and disappearing open spaces show a different story: inequality, ecological strain, housing squeezed for the poor. questionofcities.org/why-are-we-pus…

#ZubeenGarg This morning Delhi woke up to Zubeen Garg via my article in the The Indian Express . The phone is ringing off the hook. My immediate social and family network are mostly Delhiites. They had no awareness i am Assamese. So glad I wrote this piece. Zubeen is beyond an icon.

Lal Dora areas like #Saidulajab and #NebSarai are highly dense, with informal layouts and minimal planning oversight. This is characteristic of #Delhi’s urban fabric which produces stark contrast in living standards, writes Ankita Dhar Karmakar. #UrbanDensity questionofcities.org/a-kilometre-in…

My piece on the destruction of Dehradun for Question Of Cities. Many thanks to Smruti 🇮🇳 and Shobha Surin questionofcities.org/dehradun-infra…