India's cities are on a breakneck path to growth. Cities are engines of prosperity and promise, but also concentrations of pollution, stress, and disease. Episodes of flood, drought, heat waves, and smog tell us why we must begin to think ecologically about our urban future in Indian cities. Bengaluru is an unusual landscape – despite having been populated for millennia, it is in a semi-arid region with limited rainfall, and no perennial rivers or year-round sources of water. The original landscape was open, with thorny bushes and wildlife, and not a place that we could imagine as a magnet for people. Yet over tens of centuries the human population has grown and transformed the ecology of the city beyond recognition. From planting trees and creating lakes, to felling trees and filling in lakes, we seem to have come full circle today. How can we look ecologically at Bengaluru’s past, and re-imagine the city’s future?
