Abstract

Cities in India suffer from a lack of evidence based planning and policy, and the dearth of publicly available useable data that research, practice or effected communities could learn from and act upon. It is this lack of information that is leading to unplanned urbanisation processes in many cities, especially the small and medium towns. Despite growing investments in these cities, the growing populations, especially the urban poor, are left in areas with a lack of basic amenities like drinking water, sanitation, public transport and in areas that are vulnerable to flood, storm surges and other hazards. A continuation of this practice can seriously harm the sustainable development prospects of these cities, and India largely.