Why Indian Cities Are Becoming Unlivable | Faye D'Souza

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]So this map has been going viral for the last few days, it shows the country bathed in orange and red for the heat wave that they're currently experiencing. In fact, the heat wave is so bad that on some days 90 out of 100 of the hottest cities in the world are in India right now. It's not even May yet. Imagine we have all of May to go through. So what is going on? Is this a one-time thing? Is it a special climate event? Is it going to happen year on year? Why are India's cities burning up and turning into ovens? That's the question we're answering in this video.

[00:00:31]So before we get to it, please remember to like, share, subscribe, and sign up for our membership where we put out the news on a daily basis curated fact check from across the world in a non-triggering fashion. So it would be really kind if you gifted the membership to your friends and family as well.

[00:00:47]Thank you so much. After that message, let's get to our video. Why are Indian cities burning up? Uh let's take a look at the numbers though. Um across bundel kand yesterday ji was uh 45.2° in Uttar Pradesh uh Agra was 44.4° in uh Maharashtra Amraati was 46.8° 8°.

[00:01:09]So obviously there's a severe heat wave and scientists are telling us two things. One, this has not happened overnight. It's been gathering over the last several years and we've been ignoring all warnings. Two, it's not going to go away immediately because guess what? We're doing everything in our power to make it worse. So not only are India's cities completely unlivable at this point, they're being made worse with every passing day. And this is the reason why. Now there are five reasons why our cities are burning up and turning into hot ovens. This is the first reason and this will seem like u third grade general studies to you but let's say it one more time because obviously the people who run our cities don't believe us. Tree cover. The more trees you cut the hotter it will be.

[00:01:53]There is growing research that shows that if you stand under a tree it's 10° cooler than if you were standing straight on a builtup concrete zone.

[00:02:02]Trees cool through a process called evapot transanspiration. So on one hand water evaporates from the soil from the lakes and turns into vapor. The vapor in the air will actually cool the air. One.

[00:02:15]Point number two, transpiration where plants release water into the air from their leaves and cool. And obviously the third point is shade where the sunlight is actually cut through the leaves and it doesn't hit the ground with as much force and so obviously that area is cooler as well. In fact, there was a study done in Kochi that found that even a small urban park can reduce indoor temperatures enough to cut the use of energy by 13,400 kW annually. So it is possible uh to put all of these processes together by using trees and to move heat away from the ground into the atmosphere cooling the surrounding areas as well. The second point is something called urban heat island effects which are raising temperatures from 2 to 10° in our cities. Now this is the core scientific explanation. In a 2024 review of 400 plus students, it was found that Indian cities experience urban heat islands that make our cities hotter. So concrete actually absorbs heat unlike the trees that uh release uh that actually cool the air. Concrete absorbs heat. Asphalt, which is what our roads are made of, stores it and buildings radiate it back. So studies show that when you combine these three things which is concrete, glass and roads, you worsen the heat, you increase mortality risk and you drive energy consumption. Let's take a look at architecture also and materials. And this is another major reason why our cities are turning into problem areas.

[00:03:44]Traditional Indian materials used to build Indian buildings had mud and stone and lime and brick. These were high thermal mass materials which meant that they would absorb heat slowly during the day and they would release it gradually at night when it was cooler. Modern buildings use glass and steel and concrete materials that heat up very fast and throw heat back out onto the city because they reflect that heat actually increasing the temperature not just inside but also outside. So very high uh you know earlier our architecture would have very high ceilings. We would have courtyards. We would have an we would have cross ventilation. All of this has now changed because modern buildings are built the exact opposite. They trap sunlight. They trap heat. In a lot of our apartment buildings the windows are only on one wall which means that there is no way for the air to actually or the breeze to actually flow through the house. And the worst still is the fact that buildings reflect heat. And glass buildings don't just make the temperature hotter on the inside, they increase outdoor temperatures as well by bouncing that sunlight onto the streets outside of it.

[00:04:53]So they act like mirrors and glass houses. So effectively glass facads or glass buildings are meant for colder countries where they don't get enough sunlight and they want to be able to, you know, sort of trap whatever little sunlight they get. We are the exact opposite. So it's complete tomfully for us in India to be building these glass structures that are actually trapping heat on the inside. So we have to use higher air conditioning in order to cool the buildings. Plus they're reflecting that sunlight onto the street outside making the street even more unlivable.

[00:05:25]Then of course the cities are heating faster than the rest of the country. Now there is data that shows that urban areas are warming 45% faster than the rural regions in India.

[00:05:38]So a projected two 2° Celsius rise in global temperatures will mean 4° inside of our cities. And in India specifically urbanization is accelerating this gap and making it worse. And we're building basically microclimates of extreme heat inside of our cities. The fourth reason is the loss of water bodies. Now satellite and city level studies are mapping this very clearly. Water bodies play a very crucial role in cooling the cities because science thermodynamics water basically has a very high heating capacity. So it takes longer for water to heat up than for land to heat up. So that stabilizes the temperatures during the day. Water evaporates so it absorbs heat and then it cools the environment by adding moisture to the air. Lake, ponds, wetlands also create cooler microclimates around them. The air circulates upwards into the nearby areas and anybody around those bodies actually cool off. But what is actually happening in our cities? We're building draining and building over all of our water areas. So an ISC study in Bengaluru found that Bengaluru has 200 heat islands that are clusters of extreme heat that's caused by the loss of lakes, loss of vegetation and a massive builtup expansion. So the builtup area of Bangalore has jumped 8% uh has jumped from 8% in 1973 to 87% in 2025. So remember that was all green and it was water and now it is entirely concrete.

[00:07:08]So the land surface temperature is touching 48° in some parts of Bangalore.

[00:07:12]And it's not just Bangalore where I grew up where the summers were not so bad. It was 27° 28° tops in the summer. We still complained. Now Hyderabad has lost 2,000 lakes and tanks from its historic number. Chennai has lost 50% of its wetlands. Delhi has lost the Yamuna flood planes. Mumbai mangroves creeks wetlands. Kolkata wetlands. Jaipur stepwells. All of these ancient and natural water bodies were actually keeping our cities cooler. But we have mindlessly drained them and built on them. And that is why you now feel like you're living in an oven. And of course then human activity which adds waste heat. Now what is waste heat? Your vehicles running your industry running your air conditioning running constantly. That's pumping hot air into the city energy use. So it's actually become an evil cycle where the hotter it becomes the more you use your air conditioning. The more you use your air conditioning, the more heat you're pumping out into the rest of the city.

[00:08:09]The more electricity we use, the more fossil fuels we burn. We're running our air conditioning in our cars. Cars are idling on the road. All of this is adding to what is known as waste heat.

[00:08:19]So the bigger picture, all of this put together, losing trees, we're creating traps for heat, we're urbanizing, our water bodies are disappearing, and human activity is adding to the problem. So you're going to sit up and say, "That's great, F. I buy it. What should I do?"

[00:08:33]I'll tell you what we should be doing.

[00:08:34]This is what we should be doing as cities, right? One, we need to be protecting our tree cover like our life depends on it. Because guess what? Our life actually depends on it. And this whole humbug that we're being fed about the fact that, oh, we'll cut this giant 100-y old tree and we plant a little sapling somewhere else and that will make up for it. It will not. You cannot compensate for the loss of a 100-y old tree by any number of saplings because that ecosystem cannot be compensated for. So cities need to now legally protect tree canopies. They need especially around roads and school zones and markets and bus stops. We have to start demanding that we build our roads in such a way that they include trees and not just cars. Cars cannot be our priority. Trees have to be our priority.

[00:09:26]We have to restore our water bodies. We have to restore the lakes, the ponds, the wetlands and the rivers. Uh Delhi's own heat action plan maintains uh actually lists out maintaining water bodies and promoting cool roofs but we don't know how much of that they're actually doing. We have to mandate climate sensitive building uh codes which means that there needs to be a regulation that looks at glass heavy designs in the city and actually asks whether or not they're necessary. There should be more windows, more jollies, more balconies, more verandas, more lime and white coating which seems to have worked in Chennai, natural ventilation, local materials. And we have to find ways to use more cool roofs. We have to redesign, like I said, our streets, our bus stops, our areas. Everywhere there is construction that happens, a new airport, a new metro station, a new flyover, the trees go and concrete comes. We're not thinking about the future and we're not thinking about making the city livable. We have to map heat risk by ward. Heat is unequal in Ahmedabad. Research found that eastern WS had high density and low tree cover.

[00:10:34]So they had the worst heat which means interventions must go to slums to informal settlements to outdoor workers to traffic police to construction sites because it's often the most vulnerable that get hit worst when it comes to heat. And we have to cool buildings fast and find ways to bring in insulation, ventilation, and trees in order to bring down our energy use. Now, you'll say, "These are all jobs for the government to do. What should we be doing?" We must hold our governments accountable.

[00:11:05]Governments are regularly using development as an excuse to cut our trees. It makes no sense to build flyovers for cars for the 5% of the population that actually has cars. Well, the remaining 95% are going to choke and die of dehydration and heat because of that one fly over. We have to hold governments accountable for audited and enforced rules. They have to account for every single tree that they touch. They have to put their plans through proper wedding with the right experts. And over the next 3 to 5 years, if we don't do this, we're going to wind up in deep trouble. And there is a monetary reason for this. For all of you who have bought homes in these unlivable cities, what are you going to do with those homes?

[00:11:52]Just put more and more air conditioning until it reaches a point where the city is completely unlivable. We have to find ways to save our cities, to save our homes, to actually I mean it's it's it's a simple obvious thing. We have to protect the trees. We cannot at this point allow for a single tree to go. And I made a list and it was really interesting. I made a list of all of the projects which will require trees to be cut in our cities right now and it's shocking metro projects across the board. The Mumbai Metro 5,000 trees affected uh 2,200 trees in the metro line 11. The Delhi Metro phase 4,000 trees will be cut. Bengaluru metro expansion 6,800 trees will be cut.

[00:12:43]Indor, Pune, Ahmedabad, Nagpur all have metro work right now. In highways, Delhi, Mumbai expressway, there's going to be forest diversion and tree loss in Haralah and Rajasthan as if we can afford that. Urban flyovers and corridors in Hyderabad, high-tech city road project, 1,900 trees have been marked for cutting. Delhi infrastructure, multiple projects will result in the loss of hundreds of trees.

[00:13:06]In Mumbai, coastal road will result in to the loss of 21,000 trees including the uh mangroves. The bullet train from Mumbai to Ahmedabad will result in the loss of 53,000 trees.

[00:13:21]Mumbai coastal road urban infrastructure Kenbetwa river link river linking project 4.5 million trees will be cut. the great Nicoba mega infrastructure project 10 lakh trees will be cut.

[00:13:38]It just goes on and on. There are elevated corridors. There are dam projects. There's just project after project after project. And we have to ask ourselves at this some point that yes, we need development. But at what cost?

[00:13:52]And what answer will you give the generation that has to live in a completely unlivable city because we made these choices?

[00:14:01]At some point, we're going to have to hold ourselves more responsible. Leave me a comment in the comment se uh section of if you believe that the heat right now is tolerable and if you think we can take more and if this sort of development is actually worth it.