India’s urban centres already account for the majority of its economic output and are projected to generate more than 70% of new employment opportunities by 2030. The success stories in waste management from Indore and Ambikapur, alongside the scaling of Ahmedabad’s heat action plan to over 100 cities, illustrates India’s growing resolve to shape cities for a better future.
Nevertheless, growth driven by urbanisation often comes with systemic risks that can undermine its gains. A particularly pressing challenge is the exacerbation of external geopolitical shocks. The global environment for cities has become increasingly volatile, with the Russia-Ukraine conflict, escalating tensions in West Asia, and disruptions in global trade revealing vulnerabilities in interconnected economies. The so-called “triple F” crisis, encompassing food, fuel, and financial instability, has transcended macroeconomic discourse to permeate everyday urban realities. Escalating fuel costs contribute to augmented transportation and construction expenses, while supply chain disruptions elevate food prices, and financial instability constrains infrastructure investments. Indian cities, which are heavily dependent on imported fuel and globally sourced resources, experience urban stress leading to rising project costs, delays in infrastructure development, strained municipal budgets, and increased pressure on housing, transportation, and essential services. For instance, the expansion of piped natural gas networks, intended to transition towards cleaner energy sources and sustainability, also heightens vulnerability to global markets.
Violent conflicts significantly lower a city’s capacity to withstand climate impacts and disaster failures. Conflicts not only erode social capital but also worsen environmental risks and degrade institutional trust. Conflicts are also responsible for the sudden displacement of people into urban areas, overstretching the already fragile facilities of water, sanitation, and hygiene, health care and housing. These sudden and dynamic pressures reinforce natural hazards such as flooding and heatwaves, increasing the risks for destruction.
Thus, conflicts become a force multiplier of climate and public health risks. Further, modern-day conflicts are increasingly urban-centred. Warfare today extends beyond conventional battlefields into cities through hybrid means, involving cyberattacks on critical infrastructure such as energy grids, communication networks, and financial systems. In such a context, cities are no longer distant observers but direct arenas of disruption.
Additionally, the climate crisis has made urban vulnerabilities both urgent and persistent. Flooding, heat stress, and infrastructure failures have become recurring issues increasingly shaping urban life.
Indian cities are becoming tightly interconnected systems. Even small disruptions, such as flooding in 10-20% of road networks, can disturb more than half of urban mobility and trigger failures across different sectors. Further, informal settlements, often located in areas prone to flooding or heat, face significant risks, and access to infrastructure and services remains uneven, fuelling inequality. Economic development often follows uneven paths, with gaps widening before eventually levelling off. Without targeted interventions, urbanisation may worsen inequality even as it promotes growth. Thus, in a world increasingly influenced by the climate crisis, conflict, and commodity shocks, Urban Resilience Assessment (URA) should become a mandatory pillar of smarter and stronger governance. Cities must routinely stress-test their systems against floods, heatwaves and economic shocks.
A gradual shift in infrastructure policy from efficiency to resilience through decentralised energy systems, diversified supply chains, circular economies, and modular networks can withstand disruptions. Urban governance needs to be better aligned with national security and economic strategy, as repeated cyber intrusions into urban infrastructure and shipping disruptions are evident. Equally crucial is the reconfiguration of the fiscal framework, as conflict-induced inflation and uncertainty constrain municipal budgets. Inclusive policies and community-based resilience are vital to prevent social fragmentation .
Finally, URA must evolve into a multi-hazard system incorporating defensive tactics against the twin interacting threats of conflicts and climate change. As a relatively late urbaniser, much of India’s urban future is yet to be developed. This creates a rare opportunity to leapfrog towards resilient systems from scratch rather than retrofitting at a higher cost. The future of urbanisation lies not in smarter cities alone, but in cities that are resilient by design and governed with foresight.
Simrit Kaur is principal,Shri Ram College of Commerce and Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Delhi University, and Kamaldeep Kaur Sarna is assistant professor, SRCC, DU. The views expressed are personal
