India's Point Cities

Where Did the City Go? Escaping the Point‑to‑Point Trap

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Ask anyone who grew up in an Indian town in the 1970s and you’ll hear the same images: grandparents strolling to the bazaar at dusk, children racing marbles on the footpath, hawkers greeting familiar faces along leafy gullies. Streets were places, not just passages.

Backward Development

Life on the street	1970s – ’80s	Today
Trips made on foot	35-45 % of all urban journeys (10-city average) IIHSJSTOR	often < 25 %; falling fastest in large metros
Motor-vehicle ownership	~ 50 vehicles / 1,000 persons (2001)	225 vehicles / 1,000 persons (2019) Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
Children walking to school	Common—even across several kilometres	Parents arrange autos or private vans; walking seen as “unsafe”
Public errands (elderly)	Short walks to local kirana & post office	Avoided after dusk; fear of traffic, poor lighting

India's Point Cities

The tableau has flipped. Where neighbours once mingled, they now hurry from home → vehicle → destination—a hopscotch of sealed “points” on a hostile board.

Scoring the Malaise

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2023 Global Liveability Index places India’s biggest metros firmly in the bottom half of 173 global peers:

City	Score	Rank
Delhi	60.2	141
Mumbai	60.2	141
Chennai	59.9	144
Ahmedabad	58.9	147
Bengaluru	58.7	148

Figure 1 (above) visualises this clustering in the high-50s—evidence that the daily urban experience is consistently under-par.

How We Became Point-Cities

Driver	What Happened	Result
Exploding motorisation	Two decades of cheap loans + flyovers-first road building	Footpaths narrowed or vanished; traffic speeds drop but dominance rises
Zoning & gated enclaves	Segregated land-use and private townships	Longer, car-dependent trips; streets outside gates feel “none of my business”
Project-not-network planning	Malls, IT parks, BRT corridors built as stand-alones	No continuous public realm linking these assets
Encroachment & weak enforcement	Vendors, parking, debris occupy sidewalk space	Pedestrians forced into carriageway; conflicts and accidents rise
Privatisation of leisure	Malls replace maidans; cafés inside compounds	Casual street life withers; social mixing declines

Figure 2 (above) shows motor-vehicle density rocketing from 53 → 225 vehicles/1,000 people between 2001 and 2019 —more than a 4-fold jump in one generation. Ministry of Road Transport and Highways

When the Space Between Turns Perilous

• Pedestrians at risk- Nearly 1 in 5 road-crash deaths in 2022 were pedestrians. SaveLIFE Foundation

• Women after dark A 2024 multi-city poll finds only 48 % of urban women feel safe outdoors at night—despite 82 % feeling “generally safe” by day. Grapevine

Safety fears feed a vicious cycle: fewer eyes on the street → emptier pavements → greater vulnerability. Children lose independent mobility, the elderly stay indoors, and women plan evenings around transport availability rather than leisure.

Middle-Class Squeeze

1. Time & Money Ride-hail bills and car EMIs substitute for free, healthy walks.

2. Health WHO activity targets (150 min/wk) become unreachable when the footpath ends at your gate.

3. Community With no shared outdoor “third place,” neighbourly ties fray.

4. Out-migration Growing numbers of professionals cite quality of life as the deciding factor for moving abroad; HR firms now bundle “liveability briefings” with overseas job offers.

Urban Nightmare for Middle Class

Turning Vision → Reality in leakage prone Cities

A practical roadmap for fixing the “point‑city”

Implementation when Money & Trust Are Low

1. Start with demonstration corridors, not masterplans — stakeholders believe what they can stand on.

2. Modular, pre‑cast elements shrink contractor discretion and speed audits.

3. Ring‑fence small revenue streams (hawker fees, kerb parking, CSR LEDs) so basic O&M doesn’t wait for the next budget vote.

4. Publish “before–after” dashboards weekly; sunlight kills the leakage moss.

5. Reward frontline staff, not just vendors—bonus for PWD engineers whose pilot street passes third‑party QC with < 5 % rework.

   
   

Bottom line: You don’t need a ₹500‑crore mega‑streets programme to chip away at the point‑city problem. Quick, visible fixes build political appetite; tight, transparent processes keep graft in check; and long‑term codes lock the gains for the next generation.

Horizon	What You Can Realistically Deliver	Why It Survives Low Budgets & Leakages
SHORT‑TERM (0 – 2 yrs)   “Paint‑and‑cones” era	Quick, low‑cost wins 1. Tactical footpaths – lime‑wash borders + bollards or tyre‑planters to reclaim 1.8 m on 2–3 priority streets per ward. 2. Pocket lighting audit – replace broken bulbs with LED streetlamps around bus stops & markets; use CSR funds. 3. Weekend street closures – pilot car‑free Sundays on one high‑footfall corridor;	• Requires paint, cones & LED kits—not tenders for concrete. • Pilots run on ward councillor discretionary funds or CSR. • Visible in 100 days—politicians reap quick credit, improving compliance.
MEDIUM‑TERM (3 – 5 yrs)   “Code & corridor” era	Institutionalise the pilots 1. Ward‑level (Neighbourhood Main Street) NMT cell – to replicate tactical footpaths into modular kerb blocks (pre‑cast slabs, easy QA). 2. Vendor zones & night markets – fees ring‑fenced for street cleaning & lighting O&M. 3. Transparent micro‑contracts (< ₹5 cr) – e‑tender on GEM, reverse auction; ward citizens’ group signs completion certificate before payment.	• Pre‑cast modules shorten site work and curb side‑deal kickbacks. • Ring‑fenced user fees create self‑financing street budgets. • GEM + third‑party sign‑off reduces invoice padding.
LONG‑TERM (6 – 15 yrs)   “Network & pricing” era	Systemic transformation 1. Citywide Complete‑Streets By‑law- For right‑of‑way and green buffers. 2. 15‑Minute zoning reform 3. Congestion & parking pricing – RFID gantries + progressive kerb fees, revenue earmarked for sidewalk upkeep. 4. Unified street‑asset GIS – open‑data dashboard tracking lighting uptime, pavement condition, vendor licences—crowd audits flag lapses.

Re-occupy the In-Between

Indian cities did not fall overnight into the point-city trap; they were nudged there by policies that prized speed over stroll. Reclaiming the street is less about grand monuments and more about relentless micro-repair—each continuous footpath slab, every shaded bench, every street lamp that pierces the night.

When the space between points becomes inviting again, families might rediscover the pleasure of walking to the corner store, children might swap back-seat screens for sidewalk games, and the urban middle class might finally feel at home—not just at the start and end of their journeys, but all along the way.