Cities That Work

Three targets for a state that maintains what it builds

All three are failures of running things rather than building them: enforcing speed limits and helmet rules, controlling burning and dust, operating sewage plants and connecting homes to them. The targets are anchored on international benchmarks: the UN goal of halving road deaths, WHO’s first interim air-quality target, and treating most of the sewage cities already produce.

India’s towns added 19 crore people in twenty years, and will add many more

India’s urban population rose from 33 crore to 51 crore between 2004 and 2024, yet by official definitions only 35% of Indians are urban, far fewer than in China or Indonesia. Many places that look and function like towns are still governed as villages. As the share rises, the cost of not running cities well rises with it.

Brazil’s cities raise seven times as much as India’s, relative to the economy

Indian municipalities raise and spend about 1% of GDP, a share that has not grown in more than a decade. Brazil’s raise 7.4% and South Africa’s about 6%. The 74th Amendment of 1992 gave cities eighteen functions, from water supply to urban planning; most were never matched with money or staff. Cities that cannot collect property tax cannot pay for sewers, footpaths or traffic police.

Halving road deaths by 2036 means reversing a twenty-year climb

Ten countries, among them Japan, Norway and the UAE, more than halved road deaths between 2010 and 2021. Their tools are known: speed cameras and enforced limits, helmet and seat-belt checks, safe crossings and footpaths, and ambulances that reach the injured within the hour. Two-thirds of India’s road dead are on two wheels or on foot; that is where the first gains lie.

Pedestrians die where streets have no room for them

One in five people killed on Indian roads is a pedestrian; in Mumbai it is nearly half. Even in cities with pedestrian policies, footpaths are missing, broken or occupied. A footpath on every arterial road is a cheap, visible target that a city council can be held to.

Treating 70% of urban sewage means two and a half times today’s treatment

India built plants for 44% of its urban sewage but treats 28%. The quickest gains are in running existing plants fully and connecting homes to them; Delhi has plants for nearly all its sewage but treats only 56% of it to standard. New capacity is needed too: about 30,000 million litres a day more treated to reach 70% at today’s sewage volumes.

Six numbers for cities

Each target can be measured independently: road deaths by hospital and WHO estimates as well as police records, air by public monitors, sewage by river-quality tests, footpaths by a walk down the street.

Three numbers that need a second look