India's Growing Urban Population Needs Better Housing

At present, nearly a third of India's population is urban. However, the country will be leading the surge in global urban population growth by 2050, and its urban population growth will also be greater than that of China's. One of the biggest challenges would be housing this large urban population. Among the many steps that the government can take in this direction is to build primary infrastructure in possible areas of urban extension where the private sector is growing much faster than the public sector. The government can also allow greater participation from the private sector to build urban infrastructure. Even though urban land is scarce, urban floor space is not scarce. Like Shanghai did, Indian cities can also allow real estate developers to build higher floor space, allowing people to consume even up to ten times the space they are consuming right now.