COVID-19 outbreak brings attention back to informal sector

Over 90% of the country’s total workforce is in the informal sector

Free public transport: How Delhi can learn from Luxembourg

The European country, which has made all forms of public transport free, has a solution to India’s traffic jams

The ecological cost of highway to my village

How construction of a road led to economical, cultural shift in my village in Jaunpur 

How do India’s policies and guidelines look at ‘urban lakes’?

The country has come a long way in the fight to protect these bodies of water, but much more needs to be done

Revamping Delhi's 'Gramin Seva' service

The para-transit service started to serve people in Delhi's poor public tranport accessibility areas is deteoriorating; given its importance, it …

India's roads to remain lethal even in 2030: Lancet

Roads in India ignore motorcyclists and cyclists, prioritise car owners, it says

Tales of city-bred trees

An ecological, cultural and culinary tour of the country’s urban trees

Most in Asia-Pacific already in cities; expect 3.5 bln by 2015

Urban boom will be despite declines in Japan, China, Korea

The deficient design of India's streets

The designing of Indian roads, from carriageways to sidewalks, leaves much to be desired

Census 2021: India's Urban-rural conundrum

We urbanise, we celebrate; but is urbanisation providing basic livelihood?

What Nigerian cities can learn from the rest of the world

The rapid rate of urban population growth, fuelled by massive rural to urban migration, has overwhelmed public sector resources in the country

Watch: The best cities to live in and what makes them so

Vienna remained at the top of the Global Liveable Index prepared by Economist Intelligence Unit

Footpaths for pedestrians: Will these hurdles be cleared?

The Supreme Court recently ordered that all footpaths in Delhi be made free of any kind of encroachment. Here are a few ways residents have made …

Deforestation, urbanisation, illegal mining, waste dumping leave Cauvery battered and bruised

Decades of degradation has led to an unprecedented crisis for the 15 million who live on the banks of the river. Down To Earth travels along the …

What commuters want

Rather than a top-bottom framework which assumes what people need, a bottom-up framework involving user perceptions will help in re-designing …

How we lost the art of manipulating microclimate

The current mass housing construction is in contrast from the traditional urban forms of the city, which had smaller shaded spaces, were more …

Floating cities can solve many climate, housing dilemmas

Learn all about how such a city works and what are its benefits here

Wetlands in Kashmir shrinking due to urbanisation: Study

An analysis of land cover data from 2016 shows that the catchment of Narkara wetland in near Srinagar is now predominantly an urban setting, with …

Urban expansion ate into 35 million ha forests between 1992 and 2015: Study

The study argues that urbanisation can cause indirect loss of forest, by encouraging agricultural expansion in forested areas

Increasing protein, dairy intake may help cut diabetes burden: Study

A new study has linked food preferences of individuals to prevalence of diabetes in various states of India

Addis Ababa’s street hustlers helped build the city – now they’re being pushed out

Both the intellectualism of the elites and the street smarts of hustlers and sex workers transformed the neighbourhood of Arada into a social and …

Union Budget 2019-20: Four observations on affordable housing

Reading between the lines of the Budget document on Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana

Urbanisation, changing cropping patterns contribute to temperature rise: Study

Shift from kharif to rabi has led to warming of up to 30 per cent in many regions, says a researcher from IIT Bhubaneswar

Simply put: Land acquisition

UN-Habitat Assembly: 38 countries pledge over $152 mn for sustainable cities

The five-day assembly, with the theme ‘innovation for better quality of life in cities and communities’, began from May 27, 2019 in …

Norwegian Embassy: A case of treading lighter on nature’s resources

A combination of low-capital initiatives by the management, maintenance policies and a clear vision that have made the Norwegian Embassy into a …

Will Indian cities again drown this monsoon?

Even moderate rainfall can lead to major flooding in well-planned urban areas despite the presence of storm water drainage system

As oceans rise, one company is building cities that can swim

Oceanix is building cities not to resist rising water but to float on it

Allahabad HC directs Kanpur authorities to demolish mall, restore park land

The order comes 17 years after a petition was filed against construction of the mall

EPCA comes out with parking management plan for Delhi

In report, agency flags free parking on public land, multiplicity of agencies to be key cause of congestion and parking menace

China's 'Silk Road urbanism' is changing cities from London to Kampala – can locals keep control?

China’s ambition to reshape the world economy has sparked massive infrastructure projects spanning all the way from Western Europe to East …

World Sparrow Day: With wooden nests, this man won a war against extinction

Rabindra Mohan Sahoo's efforts helped increase the bird’s population from 11 to now hundreds in a decade in an Odisha village

Berlin’s grassroots plan to renationalise up to 200,000 ex-council homes from corporate landlords

Go for inclusive growth

As much as the government works to formalise the Indian economy, conditions force people into illegal and informal business