Modernisation in cities is often equated with progress that includes new highways, high-rise buildings, and large-scale infrastructure. This vision is also often associated with marginalising vulnerable communities and reshaping cities to favour the powerful over ordinary citizens. This tension is being experienced as Indian cities modernise and grow at a fast pace. In the mid 20th century, the idea of a city was fiercely debated in the US, between an infrastructure-oriented vision of the city versus people-oriented ideas. The Indian contextIndia is a major and one of the fastest growing economies in the world with a GDP growth of 6.5% in 2024–25. Urbanisation is closely linked with this growth. 36% of India’s population lives in cities at present. This is set to increase to 50% by 2030. However, with a per capita income at purchasing power parity of $14,000 approximately, India is classified as a low middle income country with about 90% workforce engaged in the unorganised sectors of agriculture and allied sectors, domestic work, construction etc. While India’s growth numbers are high, it is still on the path of transitioning to a high-income country.Further, globalisation and technological innovation have resulted in structural changes in the urban economy, such as rise in commercial and service-oriented activities, which have led to increasing ‘informalisation’ of processes, shelter, and livelihoods. While there is rising demand for new commercial spaces such as malls, or high-end offices, there is simultaneous growth of informal labour and slums. Another paradox in Indian cities is emerging resulting from Indian smart cities drawing upon strategies of ‘fast urbanism’ that call for action in the present, using technologies of speed. This has a tendency to leave the urban poor excluded from mobility, digital and physical infrastructures, where simultaneous centralised urban governance through technology is causing the concurrent existence of marginal groups who remain outside the technologies of fast urbanism. Being the most populous country in the world, it is essential to keep ‘people’ at the centre of policy making for India’s growth story to be inclusive so that benefits from urban growth are equitably distributed and people have just access to city infrastructure. Land use Literature on urban land use and development points out the sub-optimal and unproductive utilisation of land in Indian cities. As an example, an argument put forth is that setbacks, open spaces, parking, and low maximum for standards like height, lead to land wastage and limiting usable building space, where cities left twice as much urban land unbuilt as compared to world averages. Apart from fire safety, margins and setbacks are not required, as these spaces encourage illegal encroachment by street vendors, parking and similar unauthorised activities. Further, unlocking urban land can help add jobs, reduce informality, boost business, and make cities more liveable. Thus, reforming and easing land use regulations is a common argument, and rightly so, but perhaps not for the reasons laid out above. Literature often recommends reforms from the standpoint of ‘formal’ planning as it exists in the West, without recognising ‘informality’ as an integral part of Indian cities. Current Indian regulations do not reflect the large informal sector in formal planning maps and documents like master plans and zoning regulations, and ‘informality’ is not acknowledged as representing market dynamics. Reforming without integrating these dynamics will create an artificial constraint on market activities. The conflict between formality and informality, Western planning and local conditions, market dynamics and legal and institutional frameworks is evident. Also read: ‘Quality of Life in Indian Cities Deteriorating Despite Economic Growth’: ReportFor example, street vendors occupy spaces where they find a market for their goods, and serve a market segment that is otherwise unserved. The argument that it is unproductive does not resonate with social equity. It seems the Western conception of ‘informality’ is the basis of perceiving street vending activities as an unproductive use, without taking cognisance of the thriving ‘informal’ economic activity, local spirit and way of life. A government programme called Svamitva provided collateral free working capital loans up to Rs 10,000 of one-year tenure, to approximately 5 million street vendors after the pandemic. This was a positive step towards recognising this group as important stakeholders in a city, but local spatial regulations are yet to align themselves with such policies. While the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, mandates development of vending zones, very few municipal corporations have developed such areas or markets in cities in the past decade. The requirement of informal workers, who comprise mostly low-income population, with respect to space, infrastructure and service delivery has been given little attention.InfrastructureSimilarly, commendable work is being done through major national infrastructure policies like the National Infrastructure Pipeline aim to build ‘world-class’ infrastructure to promote growth with goals of improving project preparation and attracting investments into infrastructure. Another government program, Bharatmala, is a programme for building highways focusing on optimising efficiency of freight and passenger movement across the country to improve connectivity and develop economic corridors. A major project is the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor spanning six states of India, developing 24 investment nodes covering about 200 square kilometres each, and 13 Industrial Areas covering about 100 square kilometres.While these policies offer new opportunities for planned urban and regional development, they are based on place-based development of large scale infrastructure, their scope does not include social and livelihood issues around infrastructure development. Land acquisition is the mandate of the Union and state governments, and the alignment of large scale infrastructure development with people oriented issues is inconsistent, as a result. Laws like the Land Acquisition, Relief and Rehabilitation Act, and other relevant laws, essentially deal with the procedure of aggregating land but not its subsequent equitable use. Another major government programme, the Smart Cities Mission mentions the ‘need to understand the diverse needs of a city’s residents and mentions three pillars – liveability, economic ability and sustainability – that should drive a city’s growth, for a city to work for its people’. This is an important step towards socially just policies but, for now, the Mission doesn’t indicate how.These planning and policy strategies are reminiscent of urban planning that focuses on growth statistics over social and cultural aspects of the place. Present plans should be better suited for diverse and dynamic urban conditions of India. They should not be based on modernist plans in the US, implemented by the likes of Robert Moses in the 1960s and 70s, which emphasised ‘demolishing slums, narrow streets and mixed-use areas’ contributing to ‘spatial and social exclusion, and inequality’. While networks are built to connect people and places, there is a danger that they result only in connecting places, not people.Indian cities should exercise caution against accepting the modernisation model of Western cities, as the de facto method of planning. From historical experience, urban renewal, and in India’s case urban development, it has been seen that ‘the rise of a world city and the decline into urban crisis – were coterminous and mutually dependent’. Cities will end up with grandiose infrastructure projects in a bid to propel them toward becoming global cities whilst continuing to be sites of contestation by the urban poor.Path dependence and entrenched institutions and ideas are difficult to break away from and the present philosophy of urban development has influenced a generation of engineers, architects, and urban planners across the world. However, the cultural fabric of India is centuries old that included other models of urbanisation and land administration. To reconcile this with modern capitalism is challenging but crucial, so that ‘modernisation’ takes place for the benefit of the people and to prevent cities from being a means to accentuate inequalities. Indian policy makers have the opportunity to imagine and develop cities that traverse the spectrum of formal and informal, planned and unplanned, and legal and illegal, and focus on modernising by weaving infrastructure into the social fabric of Indian cities.A mixed approach adapted to the local context is essential to create sustainable and just cities.Suggestions for a mixed approachIndian cities need to extend the notion of infrastructure to people’s activities by anchoring the livelihoods of residents and their transactions with one another. In addition to physical infrastructure, the idea of ‘people as infrastructure’ needs to be part of policy making by becoming familiar with a broad range of spatial, residential, economic, and transactional positions.Street vendors: Maintaining diversity in cities and on its streets will lead to a city using its existing strengths of hustle and economic activity. Unpredictable uses and peculiar scenes in vibrant streets give any city its character and the physical layout of a city, to generate diversity, must include space that serves more than one primary function (Jacobs, 1993). Indian cities have street vendors occupying vacant spaces – sometimes on unbuildable private spaces, or in between sidewalks and roads. While this may cause traffic safety concerns or lead to less space for circulation, the solution should not be to completely eliminate these spaces, displacing thousands of street vendors depriving them of their livelihoods. What is required is reorganizing these spaces as an effective alternative by the street vendor carts facing inward, not opening on the road to prevent traffic congestion, as an example. Vacant spaces under flyovers or underpasses can also be utilised for them, or this space can be used for bicycle lanes or walkways for the thousands of low income people who commute to work. These can be appropriately incorporated in the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014.Informal transport like rickshaws, are an example of production by people, enabling the efficient use of formal transport networks like the metro or State buses by providing the users last mile connectivity. Rickshaws often pick passengers from wherever they are hailed, which needs regulation. However, considering space and resource constraints to build permanent brick and mortar rickshaw stands, spaces should be designated at regular intervals for rickshaw stands and strictly enforced. These spaces should have proper signage, tree cover to provide shade, electronic information display boards. Stopping such activities altogether, would stifle livelihoods and jeopardise the public transit system eco-system. Housing and slum: Migration to cities in search of employment is a common phenomenon, which complements labour demand for building infrastructure. A critical unmet need in the process of urbanisation in India is affordable housing and labour colonies for construction and industrial workers. This leads to unregulated settlements with unmanageable pressure on civic infrastructure. For example, there are numerous slums in Delhi and Mumbai, some as big as housing a million people, where people live in insanitary conditions and squalor despite being in big metropolis. This working class, formal and informal, contribute enormously to the city’s economy without the city providing for their needs except for token responses as they constitute important vote banks.In industrial clusters developed outside urban areas, because of the lack of provision for industrial housing, the adjoining urban spaces or the nearby villages are quickly transformed into slums. Sanjay Colony is one such example in Delhi, located near Okhla Industrial Estate. This equally applies to vegetable vendors or rickshaw drivers, who while serving an important need of connectivity, find themselves excluded from urban planning and provisioning of city infrastructure and space. Delhi is an example of this lopsided approach when the government decided to provide such housing in the far flung areas of the city about 20 kilometres away from city centre – at Jahangirpuri and Mongolpuri – increasing daily transportation burden for the poor also adding congestion on roads. An estimated 5 million people reside in slums in Mumbai, the highest in India, whereas in Delhi, the slum population was around 1.55 million in 2023. Mumbai has 2,400 slums, while Delhi has 675. Meaningful urbanisation cannot happen without accommodating the needs and interest of millions of these citizens who grind the wheel of the city economy. Reforms are urgently required in Indian cities by not only increasing the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) or Floor Space Index (FSI), but ensuring additional building potential is used for affordable housing, and not for profit oriented real estate. In addition, security of tenure through a uniform policy recognising conclusive user rights will allow these communities to harness their productive potential without being anxious about their shelter.Indian land tenure and titling is complex due to its colonial legacy and the contradiction between customary laws superimposed with Western laws. This has contributed to the complicated nature of informal settlements. To solve this, it is critical to accept that the ‘illegal’ nature of informal areas does not negate the residents’ right to the city and its essential services (Bremer and Bhuiyan, 2014). These settlements are closely tied with the economy and history of a city, seeing that even though they started as ephemeral settlements, they have acquired a permanent existence. Slum dwellers are workers in the city and part of the interdependencies in a city’s economy and deserve space in land governance, master planning and micro plans. Redevelopment of slums is being attempted in Mumbai, which has a Slum Rehabilitation Authority to facilitate this. There is a need to build in more incentives for slum dwellers through community equity shareholding that leads to participation in decision making and in profits for the residents who are being rehabilitated. Additionally, recognition by the State will be useful in bringing investment to improve the quality of housing and infrastructure in these settlements. Making slum dwellers stakeholders, and addressing structural issues like land tenure and security instead of piecemeal infrastructure redevelopment projects will be key to equitable modernisation as it includes refurbishment of dilapidated areas and slums resettlement.Conjunction of heterogeneous activities brought about by rickshaw drivers, street vendors, industrial and construction workers and slum dwellers form the realm of how people live and make things, how they use the urban environment and collaborate and negotiate with one another, using their skills and sensitivities. The energy of this network of people cannot be replaced by physical infrastructure. Modernisation through physical infrastructure alone is of limited use if it displaces people, breaks social ties and disrupts livelihoods. The strength of Indian cities is its dynamism and diversity due to the inhabitants. Infrastructure ought to be built to support these strengths and not replace or reinvent it. The minimal infrastructure approach is suitable even in view of resource constraints.Conclusion While physical infrastructure is essential for growth, its pursuit without regard for communities risks widening inequalities and fragmenting cities. India’s rapid urbanisation shows elements of both trajectories, on one hand, large national infrastructure programs and on the other, the persistence of informality, diversity, and street-level dynamism.Infrastructure should function as a means to strengthen economic participation and social cohesion, not as an end in itself. Recognising informal workers, slum dwellers, and street vendors as central to the urban economy, and embedding them within policies and land use regulations offers a pathway toward more equitable modernisation.A reimagined modernisation, centred on people as well as structures, can allow Indian cities to grow without displacing their social foundations. Cities built this way will not only be productive but also just, resilient, and humane. Modernisation can mean building physical infrastructure for the people, not just for an inanimate city. Avny Lavasa is in the Indian Administrative Services and has a Masters in Urban Planning from Harvard University.