Transitioning To Sustainable Cities And Communities
The everyday practice of building a house as families transform in size, composition, and wealth is becoming a significant planning challenge in rural India. National road and housing development policies, in particular, influence this restructuring. Monthly reports from these policies highlight the number of settlements connected and houses constructed. With each report, India inches closer to fulfilling its commitment to SDG 11.
However, these otherwise siloed policies produce “coupled effects,” such as rapid construction, increased land-use conversion, rising demand for basic infrastructure, an increase in settlement size, and a reduction in built-environment quality—impacts that often go unreported. Selective reporting of policy impacts misrepresents national achievements and jeopardizes the sustainability commitments made by the country.
To illustrate this blind spot, the example of the Bengal region in India is explored through three historical snapshots of the evolving relationship between roads and housing over the past 30 years. Data collected from 197 households surveyed in 2019 on their construction practices reveal three key issues:
- Positively skewed reports fail to capture the differentiation in quality achieved by each economic group.
- The adverse effects of policy coupling on settlement size and built-environment quality.
- The ill-preparedness of local agencies in mitigating these effects.
In this broader context, these unaccounted-for measures undermine the success that India has reported. To address this cognitive blind spot created by selective reporting, it is recommended to interlink standalone indicators for a more reliable assessment.
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