Paper is an attempt to define agenda for planning sustainable cities using different options of planning, transportation, green buildings, ruralisation etc

1. Strategies for Promoting Urban Sustainability
*Jit Kumar Gupta*
Abstract; Cities have been definers of history, art, culture, power, authority, economy,
growth and development of mankind. Cities have existed in the past and shall continue to
define the march of human civilization in future. Cities are known for their role and
importance in promoting economy, generating employment, providing state of art amenities
and services besides attracting investment and creating wealth for communities and nations.
Despite numerous advantages cities offer, they are also known for their dualities and
contradictions; where poverty and prosperity compete; sky-scrappers and slums rub
shoulders and where unplanned and haphazard development have emerged as the order of
the day. If cities are creators of wealth they are also areas of concentration of population,
poverty and exclusion. Cities, as conglomerate of people, population, buildings and activities,
are known to be consumers of large amount of energy, resources and generators of enormous
waste. In the process, they are known to be prime generators of conditions adversely
impacting both local and global ecology and climate besides polluting environment. . Global
warming and climate change can be largely attributed to the way cities grow, operate,
function and consume energy. Cities are known to be responsible for consuming more than
75% of global energy and generating 70% of carbon footprints. Cities, as consumers of
energy and resources, have its genesis in the manner they are planned ; way majority of
building are designed and the manner in which people are made to travel for meeting their
basic needs and discharge their daily obligations. City planning has also been found to be
heavily biased towards physical planning with little focus and priority for protecting,
preserving and promoting environment. Such an approach has made cities highly polluted
and environmentally unsustainable. In order to make cities more livable, humane, sustainable
and promoters of quality environment and ecology, paper looks at the options of redefining
the planning process to make cities compact with focus on environment; leveraging nature to
promote energy efficient/ green buildings; creating options for green mobility and promoting
ruralisation to make urban areas as promoters, sustainers and usherers of a new era of clean
environment and urban sustainability.
Key words: Compact cities, environment, Green buildings, Green Mobility, Ruralisation
INTRODUCTION
As determinants of economy, polity, industrialisation, infrastructure, innovations and quality
of life, cities are known globally for their capacity and capability to usher an era of growth
and development. Operating as an ever-evolving and ever-devolving dynamic physical,
economic and social systems in space, cities are also known to house large concentration of
population, consumer markets, highly trained workforce and large number of activities in a
limited area. Operating as principle centres of economy and places with significant, social
and economic achievements, urban centres are fast emerging as preferred destination for
human living. By providing economy of scale and proximity that allows industry and
commerce to flourish, cities also offer optimum location for services and facilities, which
require large population threshold and markets for its sustenance and operational efficiency.

2. Housing large population at higher densities, cities are known to offer opportunities and
quality of life better than its rural counterparts.
Despite distinct advantages, cities are also known for their dualities and contradictions where
rich and poor, skyscrapers and slums rub shoulders. With majority of urban residents living in
slums with inadequate basic infrastructure services essential for good human living, cities are
also known to be storehouse of large number of physical, social and environmental
problems. Development and management patterns, prevailing globally in developing world,
are marked by poor urban governance, haphazard, unplanned and sub-standard development,
which are observed to be the promoters of social ills, breeding grounds for poverty, exclusion
of majority of people and areas of environmental degradation. As major consumers of energy
and resources, cities are also known to have large carbon footprints, closely associated with
the climate change leading to increase in average global temperature. Global warming is
assuming alarming proportions due to rapid urbanization with NASA recording all but one of
the 16 hottest years since 2000, during its 134-year recorded history. Under the impact of
global warming Antarctica has been losing about 134 billion metric tons of ice per year since
2002. Looking at the entire context of prevailing growth and development, cities can be
considered to be major determinants of poverty, pollution, exclusion and global warming.
Accordingly, planning, development and management of urban areas needs to be rationalised
and redefined for ushering an era of global and local sustainability.
INDIAN URBANISATION
Indian urbanization is globally known for its uniqueness, peculiarities and complexities,
characterized primarily by its massiveness, population, poverty besides dualities and
contradictions. With 378 million persons (2011 census) residing in 53 metros and 7935 urban
centres, India has emerged as the second largest urban system in the world despite level of
urbanization merely standing at 31.11%. Census 2011 will be known as the landmark year in
the Indian demographic history for two distinct milestones. For the first time, Urban India
added more population (91 million) as compared to Rural India (90 million) during the
decade 2001-11, putting India on the fast trajectory of urbanization. In addition, Urban India
created history by recording largest increase of 52% in the count of urban centres, with
numbers going up from 5161 to 7933. Count of metropolitan centres went up from 35 to 53,
holding more than 40% of urban population, indicating polarisation of urban population in
large urban centres. Last eleven decades (1901-2011), have witnessed enormous change in
the contours of Indian urbanism with urban population increasing 15 fold from 25.8 to
377.1 million; urbanization level going up merely by three fold- from 10.84 to 31.15%;
whereas number of urban centres multiplying by a factor of 4 from 1917 to 7933.
Considering the massive differential between urban and rural growth rate (2.1% against
0.7%), number of urban dwellers are projected to share parity with rural population by 2050.
Next four decades are likely to witness enormous growth in terms of numbers of urban
centres, their size and population. It is estimated that by 2050, number of Metro Cities will go
beyond 100 and 10 million plus cities will be 8 with Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi occupying
distinct place among largest urban centres at the global level.As per UNO estimates, Urban
India ,which housed 11% global urban population in 2015, will be home to 13% population
in 2030 besides making sizeable contribution to the national economy which was placed at

3. 60% in 2011, going up to 75% in the year 2031. Accordingly, urban India will emerge as the
definer of Indian story of growth, development and prosperity.
URBAN SUSTAINABILITY
As promoters of economies, knowledge, and innovations; urbanization is considered globally
a panacea and essential condition for leveraging growth and poverty reduction . However, if
planned and rational urbanisation is bliss; rapid and unplanned urbanisation has caused
numerous challenges and problems for the communities and parastatal agencies. While the
urban centres act as the generators of economic growth; rapid and uncontrolled pace of
urbanization creates burden on the existing natural resources. Accelerated urbanization
creates demands for mass transportation; increment in commercial and industrial activities;
pressure to use the vacant urban land; destroying natural landscape; eliminating water bodies;
increased energy consumption and causing severe damages to the quality of air, water and
other natural resources, making human settlements vulnerable to natural disasters. Since,
urbanization is known to be closely associated with global warming, accordingly new pattern
of urban planning and development has to be evolved, defined and put in operation to make
cities sustainable. Promoting rational urbanisation should include making cities compact;
reducing urban sprawl; designing greener buildings; making public transport green; reducing
city’s carbon footprint and providing better quality of life for its citizens besides creating
options of promoting ruralisation through planned and rational development to usher an new
era of global and local sustainability besides making urban settlements and urbanisations
more sustainable and rational.
For achieving the global sustainability, UNO in its,‘The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development’, has also given a prominent role to urbanization and cities with the inclusion
of a stand-alone goal 11, for cities and human settlements. This comes as recognition that
cities are a string that connects all other goals together, their density and economies of
agglomeration link economy, energy, environment, science, technology and social and
economic outputs.
.
REDEFINING URBAN PLANNING
Creating sustainable cities with lower carbon footprints would require new order of urban
planning, considering the contours and complexity of such a city. New order of planning
would involve making planning people centric, transparent, community oriented,
resource/energy efficient, sustainable and flexible. Its focus shall be to minimize prevailing
urban dualities and contradictions and to promote development based on equity, inclusiveness
and providing opportunities to all. Master Plans, which have been used by planners as the
panacea to overcome all the urban ills, will have to be redrawn /redefined with appropriate
innovations/ changes made in the intent, contents and scope of such plans. New order of
Master Plans will not be merely land-use plans, defining/freezing the city future once for all
for next two decades, indicating the use of every parcel of land in the city. It will take a
‘whole city’ approach to planning and will focus on the urban form, shape and typology of
the city. Since cities are dynamic entities, ever changing, ever shaping, ever evolving and
ever devolving, they will require plans which would provide inbuilt flexibility to cater to ever

4. changing urban dynamism. The master plans would accordingly be dynamic in nature,
growing and evolving with the growth of towns. New breed of Master Plans would be based
on state of art technologies and a distinct vision, evolved after detailed study, analysis and
understanding of the city fabric and its growth potential, duly supported by detailed planning
and development guidelines. The vision shall be achieved through well defined missions for
different facets of city involving planning and development. Each development project in the
city shall be evaluated in the context of defined vision and guidelines, by a multi-disciplinary
team of experts by involving stakeholders before accepting. The city planning shall not be
dictated exclusively by planners but will involve larger set of experts representing different
shades of city planning, growth and management to rationalize decision making. Architects,
urban designers, landscape experts, service providers, environmentalists, transport experts,
conservationists, art and culture historians and sociologists etc. will have major role in
conceptualising and planning the sustainable cities.
New order of planning will be geared to make the city compact to reduce travel and extent of
service network to bring economy and operational efficiency in the city. In this context, the
focus of the city shall be people. Planning shall also promote better relationship between
living and working by adopting the mechanism of transit oriented development and mixed
land use. In this pattern, the focus shall be to provide housing, offices, work areas,
commercial and institutions along the mass transport network, within walking distance.
Green spaces on the defined norms shall form integral part of urban living and working for
promoting highest order of environment and ecology. Cities will be planned with minimum
carbon footprints on the basis of inclusiveness, self-reliance and self-sustainability, having
minimum impact on local and global environment and ecology. Considering the major
implications of urban areas, being largest consumers of energy and resources, generators of
waste and emitters of green house gasses , largely due to transportation and built
environment, the new regime of planning will focus on, minimising travel and create
buildings which are least consumers of energy and resources; focus on creating cities which
would be highly energy efficient made possible by adopting shape and size of the city which
involve minimum travel and services.
MAKING CITIES COMPACT
The prevailing pattern of massive urbanization, emerging out of urban planning strategies,
planning frameworks, and uncontrolled population growth, is bringing numerous dualities ,
contradictions and challenges in majority of cities, in terms of spatial distribution of people
and resources; use and consumption of land in the shape of less dense and more inefficient
land use patterns; car-centred urban models with pure land use zoning dividing urban spaces
into residential, commercial, and industrial areas. In the process cities are melting in all
directions, creating large conurbations and urban sprawl. With increase in population , cities
are being subjected to large negative externalities in the shape of congestion, infrastructure,
pollution, and social disaggregation, making these horizontally spreading cities large
consumers of energy and resources making them operationally inefficient and non-
sustainable.

5. No horizontal and outward looking city can be efficient and productive. Horizontally spread
cities are known to be cost intensive, energy and land inefficient because of low densities,
larger spread of services and road network. Horizontal spread and low density cities
promote larger travel demand and make trips longer, calling for the provision of large and
complex mechanized transportation, making city large consumer of resources and energy
leading to increased carbon footprints, generating green house gasses, promoting global
warming, creating more pollution, adversely impacting the health, hygiene and quality of life
of the residents. Horizontal cities invariably lead to numerous operational and management
problems besides making the city environmentally unsustainable and socially disintegrated,
operationally and resource inefficient.
For facilitating social, economic, and environmental progress, cities must become more
compact, absorbing population growth by increasing their density. Cities have to be compact
with smaller land footprints in order to be efficient. Compact cities offer distinct advantages
in countering the global warming by saving precious land resource; promoting economy in
development; accommodating growing population with a smaller ecological footprint;
providing agglomeration advantages with least dependence on personalized vehicles.
Compact cities are known to make city life supportive of social living and overcoming the
two worst gifts of urbanization ie travel and traffic. Promoting non-mechanized travel has
distinct advantages in improving the health of residents besides making cities more humane
and liveable due to large personal contacts, lower costs of providing infrastructure and
services, strengthening social interactions and reducing mobility demand, ensuring energy
efficiency, promoting
pedestrianisation, cycling and
mass transportation. Only
through agglomeration will
cities have the power to
innovate, generate wealth,
enhance quality of life, and
accommodate more people in
a sustainable manner, with
smaller environmental
footprints through lower per
capita resource use and lower per capita emissions. Compact cities also make business sense
because of lower cost involved in making provision of basic services and their effective
maintenance
.
Planning compact cities would however, require new state of art approach to planning.
Present approach to city planning would have to be re-defined with new order of
development controls put in place. It would also require new planning norms and standards
for land use and supportive amenities and basic services. Planning compact cities would
ensure that basic principles of city planning are not sacrificed and city would be planned and
designed to promote highest order of quality of life, provide high order of productivity and
ensure availability of basic services/ amenities to lead an optimum life.

6. For making a city compact, it has to be planned, designed and developed as a vertical and
inward looking city. Planning compact city essentially involves promoting high density
development for providing large built up area using minimum land; making provision of
enough land and spatial structures to support urban development which minimizes travel;
reduces service network and delivery costs, optimizes the use of land, supports the protects
the environment and rationalises urban open spaces. Planning strategies for compact cities
should include suburban densification, area redevelopment, layout of new areas with higher
densities, brown field development – the rehabilitation of land previously used for industrial
purposes – building conversions, and transit-oriented developments. Planning of compact
cities must invariably incorporate densification strategies, allowing mixed land use and taller
building structures and providing adequate public spaces such as parks, green areas, and
streets. A well-designed public space not only contributes to improving the overall visual
character, invigorates economic activities but also enhances the functionality of the city. High
density neighbourhoods with adequate public space, infrastructure and public transport
facilities encourage walking, cycling, and other forms of eco-friendly non-motorized
mobility, reduces reliance on fossil fuels, thereby reducing carbon emissions and global
warming. Furthermore, the provision of pedestrian friendly streetscapes and public structures
where residents can gather for sports, recreational, or cultural activities , promotes social
connectivity and diversity, thus making neighbourhoods more cohesive, lively, and ultimately
more attractive to residents and investors alike. Compact cities are known to e offer more
safety to human life and liberty as compared to largely spread cities. They require less
manpower to manage and run the city making them more economical and efficient. From an
environmental point of view, city planning should focus on minimising dependence on fossil
fuels, incorporating low emission strategies so as to make city development resilience to
climate change. Being compact and largely dependent upon non-mechanised vehicles,
compact cities will have low car ownership and accordingly would require much less area
under traffic and transportation and parking of vehicles. The area saved from traffic and
transportation can be utilised in providing better amenities and facilities to improve the
quality of life for the urban residents.
Cities of Singapore and New York have clearly demonstrated the distinct advantages of
vertical development in promoting quality of life and higher order of operational efficiency.
In search of optimum solutions to make the city development inward and vertical, Singapore
adopted the mechanism of using digital survey of the city, identified low rise buildings,
evolved a policy and provided incentives to owners to put high rise buildings , to overcome
the problem of high cost of living besides providing more housing space in the city. City of
New York permitted the sub-division of land and construction of studio apartments on the
terraces of the existing buildings to create more housing space in the city. Though the system
of re-densification of the existing cities may be slow and cumbersome but new and green
field cities offer enormous opportunities to be planned and developed as vertical cities for
making them smart. Planning compact and vertical cities an using land on 24x7 basis would
be most desirable and essential in the Indian context, because India has only 2.4% of global
land with 16.7% of global population to hold/support, which would require land resource to

7. be preserved, conserved, protected and used in a most optimum manner for ensuring
sustainability and survival of the nation as a whole.
PLANNING SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY
Cities, are known to contribute 70% of global green house gas emissions, with majority of
contribution coming from transportation and buildings. With traditional fuels, transportation
sector alone contributes 45% of total carbon emissions. Challenges posed by transportation
sector accordingly remain daunting and formidable in creating sustainable cities. To
overcome these challenges one of the best option would be to promote sustainable urban
transport in order to make cities cleaner and greener. Such cities would have different order
of priority for transportation led by pedestrianisation, cycling and public transport with least
priority going to personal transport. Planning of sustainable cities should revolve around
promoting sustainable transport based on the principle of planning for people and not for
vehicles and promoting accessibility
rather than mobility. Sustainable
transport would essentially call for
minimizing use of personalized
vehicles; promoting non- mechanized/
non-fuel based options for travel;
using public transport with large
capacity, run essentials on non-
polluting fuels /electricity; using state
of art technologies, making vehicles
zero-emission; making cities more
compact to limit the need of
mechanized travel; using mixed land
use planning to rationalize the travel
pattern etc. It would also involve use of information technologies as one of the mechanisms
to reduce travel by using homes as offices, schools, libraries etc. Increased use of
environment-friendly public transport systems and halting of urban sprawl in cities can
substantially reduce emissions at city level to make cities sustainable. However, creating
sustainable urban transport would require a multi- pronged strategy based on leveraging the
advantages of all modes of travel, involving communities and stakeholders besides
professionals engaged in urban/transport planning, development and management Our
capacity to create sustainable urban transport, through state of art cleaner and greener
technologies with innovative city planning, development and management, would hold the
key to leverage the productivity, economy, quality of life, sustainability and operational
efficiency of human settlements besides minimising carbon footprints of the cities..

8. Study recently made by Central Road
Research Institute (CRRI), has clearly
demonstrated the efficacy, efficiency,
role and importance of rail based mass
transportation in promoting urban
sustainability and quality of life in Delhi.
The study concludes that, Delhi Metro,
having daily ridership of 27 lakhs, has
helped in replacing 3.9 lakh vehicles off
the Delhi roads in 2014 besides saving
Rs 10,364 crores in terms of fuel,
pollution and passenger’s time. Besides annual reduction of 2.76 lakh tonnes in fuel
consumption, metro also brought down the travel time of commuters by 32 minutes. In
addition to promoting operational efficiency and making Delhi cleaner and green, study
furthers states that metro has made the city safer by reducing the number of fatal accidents.
DESIGNING GREEN BUILDINGS
Researches and studies have concluded that buildings have critical role in defining the
environment and urban sustainability. No city can be made sustainable unless it is supported
by built environment, which is energy and resource efficient. Buildings are known to
consume over 40% world’s total energy, 30% raw materials, 25% timber harvested, 16%
fresh water withdrawal and are responsible for 35% of world’s CO2 emission, 40% municipal
solid waste, 50% ozone depleting CFC besides making 30% residents sick. With number of
people rushing, towards urban centres, energy requirements of cities due to buildings, is
going to rise sharply in future. As per McKinsey Global Institute Report , India would be
required to create on annual basis, buildings to the tune of 700– 900 million sq m (equal to
the built up volume of Chicago City
in USA) to meet the built area needs
of urban India. Despite huge projected
requirements, little focus is being
given to mitigate the adverse impact
caused by rapid and uncontrolled
growth of building industry. Thus
building, as a sector, would require
focus, close scrutiny and monitoring,
for effecting overall economy in the
levels of energy consumption and
making cities sustainable.
Experience and studies have shown that adopting an integrated approach to design can reduce
energy implications of buildings. Integrated approach to building design would essentially
revolve round, rational site planning, shape and size of the buildings, built form, surface to
volume ratio; promoting building efficiency ,rationalising ratio between length and depth of
the building, using simple techniques of building structure, efficient structural design;
adopting principles of solar passive techniques , using energy efficient equipment,

9. controlling lighting, heating, ventilation ; using solar energy/air movement, reduced use of
transportation energy, low energy components; minimising waste, using local materials,
optimising landscaping etc. Orientation remains the most critical factor which needs to be
effectively leveraged in all building designs in order to achieve energy efficient building
design by making use of solar and wind energy. However, requirements of building design
would vary from region to region, state to state and within regions and states. Accordingly,
buildings with regard to sun and wind will have to be oriented differently in different regions.
In order to ensure that buildings make best use of solar and wind energy, it would be essential
that majority of buildings would have the site advantage of having best orientation where
such buildings are to be constructed. Accordingly, town planners have important role cast for
themselves for ensuring that while preparing the layout plan of the area, maximum number of
plots have the advantage of best orientation. Once this is ensured at the planning level, it
would be much easier for the Architects to evolve a design which would be energy efficient.
Further, planners should ensure that ratio of plot width and depth is fixed in such a manner
that the entire depth of built up area permitted on a plot should have access to natural light
during the day, minimizing the requirement of artificial lighting. This would be particularly
important in case of row housing where plots have the option to draw light from front and the
rear only.Green buildings offer best option to make cities sustainable, because such buildings
have genesis in using practices and processes that are environmentally responsible and
resource efficient throughout the building’s life-cycle. These buildings are known for their
capacity to minimise negative impacts on climate and environment besides conserving
natural environment . Designing with nature and using panch mahabhutas; making best use
of site climate, existing natural elements/sources and vegetation, offers the best option of
creating green buildings. In order to ensure that buildings are designed as energy efficient,
they must be designed to conform to the defined norms and
standards defined. In addition, promoting retrofitting of
existing buildings would go a long way to make cities
energy efficient. Singapore has already drawn a master plan
to make all the existing buildings green through a
collaborative policy framework involving residents, property
owners and the government. Retrofitting of Empire State
Building of New York has led to achieving reduction of
electricity load for the building to the tune of 3.5 MW and
reduction of green house gas emissions by 1,00,000 tonnes
over a 15 years period. The payback/recovery period for the
$13.1 million spent on retrofitting of building, was placed at
merely 3.5 years due to saving of energy.
PROMOTING RURALISATION
If India, as a nation, has the distinction of being second largest global urban system, it also
holds the same rank among nations in rural settlements after China ( One million ) . Rural
settlements remain critical for the rational growth and development of India with 6,40,867
villages holding 69.9% of 1.21 billion population( 2011 Census), providing basic essentials
for human survival ; making fair contribution to national economy, providing large

10. employment; holding large reservoir of manpower and providing raw material for industries.
Villages are likely to dominate Indian scenario in terms of population, food and promoting
industry. Despite distinct advantages, rural areas are fast losing to urban counterpart,
primarily due to improved agricultural technologies, ever changing industrial technologies
and desire to improve the economic status, which are leading to exodus of rural population to
urban areas.Looking at the urban context, it can be seen that most of the urban problems in
India have their genesis in the neglect of the rural settlements. Rural-Urban migration
contributed one fifth (21%) of urban population growth (Census2011). Growth of slums in
Urban India, has its genesis in rural poverty migrating to urban areas. In India, cities can
never become sustainable, rational, and orderly or slum free, unless planning and
development of villages is taken on priority and put on a fast track. Outlining the role and
importance of villages in the national development, Mahatma Gandhi, father of nation, had
stated ‘India lives in villages, if village grow India will grow, If villages perish, India will
perish too’.
Rural settlements are also known to have enormous capacity to reduce the carbon and
ecological footprints besides promoting sustainable urban development because of their small
size; small population; compact development and low transportation needs besides lower
energy and resource consumption. Villages live with nature, using natural resources causing
minimum damage to air, water, environment and ecology. The distinct advantages offered by
villages must be leveraged to minimize the climate change and reducing ill effects of
urbanization. This would require a new approach and policy framework, providing dedicated
support to development of villages by creating synergies between urban and rural settlements
and physically/ spatially connecting all villages with adjoining urban settlements besides
creating access to urban infrastructures by eliminating existing disconnect between cities and
villages. Where not feasible, large villages should be identified as growth centres where
urban amenities could be provided for the benefit of adjoining smaller villages by adopting a
cluster approach. 4681 villages with more than 10,000 population and 14,799 villages with
population of 5000(2001) and above, can be taken up for development and provision of
infrastructure on the pattern of urban areas .Considering large number of existing villages,
India also needs to prioritize the rural, with preference going to states having low
urbanization; large number of villages; high poverty rate; large unemployment with
maximum share in national rural-urban migration. States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya
Pradesh, Rajasthan and Orissa, with more than half of total villages and large share of out-
migration, needs to be taken in the first stage to reduce migration and make urban growth
more rational and sustainable. India has already launched , NATIONAL RURBAN
MISSION( NRuM) by the name, Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission (SPMRM), for
development of villages based on the Cluster Approach in September 2015. Mission aims at
strengthening rural areas by provisioning of economic, social and physical infrastructure
facilities. 300 rural growth clusters across the country are scheduled to be taken up for
development.
In addition to adopting state centric and cluster approach, villages at individual level have to
be planned and developed to make them self-sufficient , sustainable and independent
economic entities in terms of employment, basic infrastructure, services and day-to-day

11. needs. Every village should be provided with infrastructure to take care of their basic needs,
healthcare and education . Rural industries should be promoted to make value addition to
agricultural produce besides connecting villages with the formal marketing system to receive
optimum returns of the agricultural produce by eliminating middle men. All village activities
need to be managed through a co-operative system with employment, income and resources
provided to all. Technical institutions should be actively involved to create skilled manpower
for capacity building in rural areas.
CONCLUSION
UN Habitat Report states, ‘The effects of urbanization and climate change are converging in
dangerous ways. Cities are major contributors to climate change: although they cover less
than 2 per cent of the earth’s surface, cities consume 78 per cent of the world’s energy and
produce more than 60% of all carbon dioxide and significant amounts of other greenhouse
gas emissions. Considering vital role of urban areas in promoting global sustainability, it
becomes important that the entire gamut of urban planning, development and management in
the Indian context is, critically and objectively, looked at and new agenda for development
put in place on priority to promote urban sustainability. Indian strategy to promote urban
sustainability should essentially revolve around, adopting state of art urban planning; making
cities compact; creating green buildings and retrofitting existing buildings; redefining order
of mobility with focus on planning for people not for vehicles and promoting ruralisation by
creating synergies between rural and urban settlements. For making urban sustainability a
distinct reality, India has to put in place appropriate policy, legal and institutional framework,
duly supported by dedicated manpower and resources involving all the stakeholders
Biblography
 McKinsey Global Institute: India’s Urban Awakening: Building Inclusive Cities,
Sustaining Economic Growth, Report April, 2010.
 United Nations, New York : World Urbanization Prospects- The 2014 Revision, 2014
 Government of India, Census Report. 2011 :
 United Nations : Urbanisation and climate change;unhabitat.org/urban-
themes/climate-change/2012
 Government of India, MHUPA: Report of the Working Group on Migration, January
,2017
 Government of India, MRD:, Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission, 2015
 Gupta Jit Kumar; Indian Options for Managing Global Warming Through
Ruralisation and Rationalising Urbanisation; unpublished paper
Author;
*Jit Kumar Gupta
Former Director, College of Architecture, IET Bhaddal
#344, Sector 40-A, Chandigarh-160036
Email -- jit.kumar1944@gmail.com

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