Written From The Elbow

In the global, competitive landscape, cities compete with each other for talent and capital. This talent isn’t just about well-paid PhDs and Engineers. It is about people who come with the will to succeed from every walk of life. The deeper and wider the pool, the more engaged their interaction, and the more broad the experience and skills. The more diverse their backgrounds and engaged their interaction, the greater their likelihood to increase understanding, harmony and collaboration. Individuals, businesses, institutions and governments need to recognise how important diversity is as a building block at every scale, and the role they have to play in encouraging diversity in every sense.  Read more:  http://forbesindia.com/blog/economy-policy/diversity-and-the-global-city/#ixzz2Utgxjbc8

In the race to modernity following independence, the country's planners, architects and engineers made the grievous error of believing that the answer lay outside. They adopted city-building practices from the developed world and ignored the local answers which emerged over centuries...   Women walk past high-rise apartments in DLF Ltd. City in Gurgaon, India (Photo Courtesy: Getty Images) Over the last decade, some Indian cities have been among the fastest growing in the developing world, but they are also the ones facing great challenges in terms of crumbling infrastructure, lack of access to basic services, and endemic corruption. Years of indifference and foot-dragging by administrations of all stripes have done little to address these issues. They are worthy of being written about. But in this post, I will focus on the topic of identity – the one defining and associative attribute that a city’s denizens can subscribe to, and own. Aldo van Eyck , who was a famous architect...