India’s urban footprint expanded by 2.5 million hectares through unplanned sprawl between 2005-06 and 2022-23, Janaagraha’s ‘Shaping Urban India: By Design, Not by Default’ report released on Wednesday stated. CEO of Janaagraha Srikanth Viswanathan, said India’s largest cities have grown into economic powerhouses. (File photo)

By 2050, 723 million people are projected to live in urban India, which is more than the combined population of all ASEAN countries, it added.

During the launch, CEO of Janaagraha Srikanth Viswanathan, said India’s largest cities have grown into economic powerhouses, comparable to middle-income economies in both population and output, driving jobs, GDP and private prosperity.

“Yet, the lived experience of mobility is worsening for citizens every day. At the same time, smaller cities offer cleaner air, more open spaces and a better quality of life, but often fail to provide adequate opportunities for youth to realise their full potential. This dichotomy between growth and liveability is increasingly evident, even though the promise of cities is to deliver both simultaneously,” he said.

Other than the demographic shift, the report states that the future of the Indian economy is tied to the nature of governance in Indian cities, as by 2030, an estimated 70% of new jobs are projected to be created in urban areas.

But it warns that the economic potential of these jobs is being undermined because investments in urban India are failing to deliver a corresponding quality of life. This failure, the report said, is rooted in a systemic governance disconnect as a typical Indian city is overseen by 29 different agencies tasked with handling 11 core urban functions.

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The report said just like the global experience, cities function as the primary engines of national prosperity in India with them generating 60% of the national GDP, with ten cities contributing “a disproportionate 28% GDP while housing just 9% of the population”.

However, it pointed out that India’s cities deliver lower returns from increasing urbanisation.

“...even when an Indian city doubles in size (i.e., 100% increase in urbanisation), its economic productivity only increases by 12% (on average). This is significantly less not just compared to the data model cited above but also less than the 17% increase in some African countries and the 19% increase in China,” it said.

The report said the existing system in India views the city as an aggregate of disparate, uncoordinated infrastructure and services handled by multiple actors, “with no single person or institution accountable to citizens”.

The result is a pattern of poorly managed urban density and unplanned sprawl, which creates a financial toll on residents. “A 10% increase in badly managed urban density costs between USD 26–35 per person annually due to greater congestion, poorer health outcomes, and lower well-being.”

This economic loss is compounded by a dramatic misalignment in how cities prioritise their limited resources. Although the vast majority of urban Indians rely on walking or public transit, a mere 3% to 5% of municipal budgets in the country’s largest metropolitan cities such as Mumbai and Bengaluru, are dedicated to pedestrian infrastructure, the report said.

This neglect of the pedestrian and the commuter has forced a massive reliance on private vehicles, turning city streets into gridlocked corridors. In Bengaluru, this paralysis has reached a point where the average commuter loses 168 hours annually—the equivalent of one full week to traffic congestion.

This congestion not only reduces human productivity but also creates congestion. The report reveals that India is now home to 35 of the world’s 50 most polluted cities. In Delhi, long-term exposure to PM2.5 is estimated to reduce the average resident’s life expectancy by 8.2 years.

The report concludes that these outcomes are the logical result of cities “governing blind,” as reliable and timely data systems to guide planning are effectively missing from the municipal toolkit.

Without granular data on air quality, traffic flows, or housing shortages, decision-makers cannot target the underlying drivers of urban decay because, as the report warns, “cities are effectively governing blind”.

The report also recommended a systemic overhaul of how cities are planned, governed, and funded through five big shifts. First, significant investments in walkability and public transport, including a proposed National Mission for Urban Roads to create high-quality, walkable streets.

“These four big shifts we are proposing are not about waiting for sweeping legislative change—they can be initiated within the current institutional framework if there is administrative will and clarity of purpose,” said Anita Kumar, co-author of this report and director of policy and insights at Janaagraha.

She said these are practical, actionable changes that can significantly improve how cities function and how citizens experience urban life, without the delays that often accompany legislative reform.