Even as we demand more from our cities, we must also pause to acknowledge the distance we have already travelled. For decades after Independence, India’s urban spaces were an afterthought. Jawaharlal Nehru’s fascination with Soviet-style centralisation gave us the likes of Shastri Bhavan and Udyog Bhavan, concrete monoliths already crumbling by the 1990s, monuments to bureaucracy rather than service. By the 2010s, central Delhi presented a dismal sight: Potholed avenues, drab and leaking government buildings, and peripheral roads in the national capital region (NCR) that were hopelessly jammed. Expressways were scarce, metros were confined to a handful of cities, and civic infrastructure was visibly decaying. A country aspiring to global leadership had a capital city that reflected neglect.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi changed that trajectory. He placed cities at the heart of the national development agenda, treating them not as burdens to be managed but as engines of growth and symbols of pride. The transformation is visible everywhere. The Central Vista redevelopment turned Kartavya Path into a people’s space, the new Parliament building into a future-ready institution, and Kartavya Bhawan into a streamlined hub for governance. Where once there was decay, there is now ambition and confidence.

The scale of this change is backed by numbers. Between 2004 and 2014, cumulative central investment in India’s urban sector was around ₹1.57 lakh crore. Since 2014, that figure has risen to nearly ₹28.5 lakh crore, a 16-fold increase This unprecedented financial commitment is reshaping the urban fabric at a pace India had never seen........

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