From cities to habitats.
2009 → 2029
Twenty years of quiet convening
The Habitat Summit is the dialogue layer of MY Urban Impact, a long and patient convening that has, since 2009, gathered people thinking carefully about Indian urban life.
It is a slow gathering of practitioners, researchers, civic stewards and neighbourhood thinkers, held often enough to compound and quietly enough to stay honest.
By 2029, the Summit will mark twenty years of asking the same patient question: what does it take to make an Indian city, and the neighbourhoods inside it, feel like a habitat for the people who live there?
Twenty years inside India's urban question.
The Summit has tracked, and tried to listen carefully to, a country urbanising faster than almost any other in history, from the first conversations at IHC in 2009 to the road to 2029.
- 2008–2009
India's urban population ~340M.
The Urban Habitats Forum convenes; the first Habitat Summit at IHC, Delhi, asks how Indian cities can become more liveable and sustainable.
- 2014–2019
Cities cross 400M; smart-cities era.
The conversation moves from infrastructure to neighbourhoods. The texture of public life, streets, markets and civic trust, enters the dialogue.
- 2024–2026
~500M urban Indians; ~70% of GDP.
From cities to habitats. A bridge year at the World Cities Summit, Singapore, on India's next cities in policy, capital and delivery.
- 2029 →
On the way to ~600M urban; 68 million-plus cities by 2030.
Habitat Summit 2.0, IHC Delhi. A twenty-year reckoning, and a next urban agenda: cities as habitats for life, climate, care, creativity, civic imagination.
सुंदर · सफल · रेहनशील शहरA civic aspiration, three ways in.
सुंदर
Sundar Cities
Beauty as dignity, atmosphere, neighbourhood texture and public life.
सफल
Safal Neighbourhoods
Liveability as the route to durable success: economic vitality, public trust, long-term resilience.
रेहनशील
Rehensheel Urban Futures
Lived experience, walkability, stewardship and civic wellbeing, the philosophical centre.
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