When it did not stop raining even on the eve of Navratri in Mumbai, well into the third week of September, worry was writ large for many in the city. When it poured incessantly and voluminously to flood Kolkata on Mahalaya and after, the city struggled to stay afloat.

Virtually every major and other city has seen intense rain, flash floods, cloudbursts and so on this season, bringing in untold devastation, adverse health and economic impacts, and misery to millions. Nearly every country has had unprecedented urban floods this year.

Mumbai, like other cities, has been grappling with flood management plans, climate action plans, and suchlike for about a decade now. The thrust of these, however, has been on engineering and technological solutions to combat floods or drain the rain faster or prevent waterlogging. Water pumps are now de rigueur across the city. The municipal authorities say this approach is working because even if there’s waterlogging from heavy rainfall, it drains out faster than it used to.

Kolkata has seen less of such solutions. Locals say it took hours and days for the rainwater from, say, Dhakuria to ebb away completely. Delhi’s flooding spots are, of course, legendary. So are Pune’s and Bengaluru’s. Every city, really.

This is not only about rainfall patterns shifting in the era of climate change—more intense rainfall over shorter durations has become the norm. Cities are facing the fallout of the unsustainable building model promoted from the West and embraced across the........

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