The heat this summer is not just uncomfortable. It is a warning. Step outside for a few minutes and the city feels harder to endure. A short walk drains you. Waiting in the open feels longer. Stepping out itself becomes a decision.

For many, there is no escape. Those of us who move between air-conditioned homes, offices, cars, and gyms are insulated from this reality. And it has distanced us from how the majority actually experiences the city.

The delivery rider waiting in the sun, the security guard at the gate, the street vendor under a sheet, the construction worker on exposed concrete, and civic workers who keep the city running. They are not the margins of the city. They are the city.

Planning failures and rising heat

Air conditioners have become substitutes for planning. Gated spaces have become substitutes for public quality. We have adjusted individually instead of insisting collectively.

In our cities, we have treated land as a commodity and climate as an inconvenience. Over the past two decades, Mumbai has expanded its built footprint dramatically while losing a significant share of its green cover. Dense areas trap heat and routinely feel several degrees hotter than greener pockets. This is the urban heat island effect in lived form.

We use the word ‘sustainable’ often. We practise it rarely. Planting saplings is not sustainability. Protecting mature trees is. Announcing projects is not sustainability. Maintaining them is. Calling a development green does not make it so. Building systems that actually cool........

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