Responsive Urban Planning: Covid-19 a Turning Point for Real Change in Indian Cities

Published: Jun 30, 2020

SCIENCE, HEALTH
Responsive Urban Planning: Covid-19 a Turning Point for Real Change in Indian Cities

Photo courtesy: Richard Cordones

In the context of developing countries, densification of compact cities in an already overloaded, overcrowded area with a lack of public and green open spaces, seems paradoxical.

Abstract: The global challenge of COVID-19 is still unfurling. States are grappling to control its remorseless spread with varied success and its impact both on long and short-term scales are still being understood. However, a distinct urban bias in its spread across the globe and universal response of lockdown and social distancing for its control has brought pertinent questions to the fore. Urban planning and the future of our cities in terms of urban life and city form therefore needs to be revisited. In India, the exodus of migrant workers from its large cities has added yet another dimension to this challenge.

The author is an Urban Planner in the Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited (HUDCO), a Government of India Enterprise, New Delhi. basu71@gmail.com. The article should be cited as Basu K., 2020. Towards Responsive Urban Planning, Geography and You, 20(146): 26-31