India may have ascended to the rank of the world’s fourth-largest economy, yet the dividends of its expansion have scarcely permeated the everyday lives of urban residents, with a new report by non-profits Janaagraha and Jana Urban Space Foundation contending that rapid growth has coincided with a steady erosion of liveability across the country’s metropolitan landscape.
Titled Shaping Urban India: By Design, Not by Default, the report argues that India’s major cities have languished in the lower tiers of global liveability rankings between 2020 and 2024, even as substantial public investment has flowed into urban infrastructure.
Despite an estimated ₹8.36 lakh crore being channelled into cities since 2015, the report attributes the persistence of poor living standards to fragmented governance, uniform planning templates imposed on diverse urban typologies, deficient city-level data, and local governments stripped of meaningful authority.
Housing affordability has deteriorated, commutes have grown longer and more perilous, green spaces have diminished, and recurrent flooding and declining air quality have compounded public health burdens, thereby inflating healthcare costs while simultaneously eroding productivity.
India’s urban population, currently estimated between 522 million and 1.23 billion, is projected to swell dramatically, with at least 723 million residents expected to inhabit cities by 2050; yet this rapid urbanisation, the report warns, is unfolding through unplanned sprawl rather than deliberate design.
The country’s urban footprint has expanded by 2.5 million hectares since 2005-06, while affordable housing in seven major cities has plunged from 40 per cent of new construction in 2019 to 16 per cent in 2024, even as luxury housing surged to dominate the market.
Peripheral areas, often deprived of piped water and critical infrastructure, have consequently evolved into under-serviced extensions, forcing residents to bear higher costs for diminished amenities.
Although cities generate more than 60 per cent of India’s GDP and are expected to produce 70 per cent of new jobs by 2030, the productivity gains remain modest; when an Indian city doubles in size, economic output rises by only 12 per cent on average, underscoring inefficiencies in planning and governance.
Congestion, inadequate mobility systems, and minimal allocation for pedestrian infrastructure further constrain workforce participation, particularly for women, while environmental degradation exacerbates the crisis. Concretisation has erased vegetation and water bodies, intensifying urban heat and flood risks, and air pollution alone is estimated to cost businesses $95 billion annually.
The report concludes that structural reforms in planning, decentralised governance, and state capacity are imperative, arguing that without decisive political commitment, institutional restructuring, and sustained citizen engagement, India’s cities will remain engines of growth that paradoxically diminish the quality of life they are meant to enhance.