Bengaluru Will Stop Flooding if We Start Thinking About Counter-Urbanisation

In the short run, cities need better infrastructure. In the long run, infrastructure itself builds better cities.

Has good weather become a curse for Bengaluru? That is not an easy question to answer but one worth attempting. 

London—where bad weather has historically been a conversation-starter for the famously stiff-upper-lipped English folks—stands in contrast to India's Silicon City now reeling under torrential rains, with rubber rafts out for rescue, parking lots submerged, schools closed, and technology mavens forced into a WFH mode.

You could argue with some imagination that bad weather inspired the British to travel across the planet and raise an empire where the sun never set to make up for the substantial lack of sunshine in its domestic climes.  London became a city richly endowed with infrastructure thanks to imperialist riches.

You just have to turn the whole thing upside down to get the picture for Bengaluru, with some implications for policymakers on how they have to overturn some things to offer help to India's choking and floating cities.