Building the Cities of Tomorrow

The study offers an outline for supporting inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable urban futures, directing on Indian cities in an international setting. It familiarises three interconnected tools: the Urban Sustainability Integration Model (USIM), the Global Sustainability Transferability Index (GSTI), and the Policy Gap Map (PGM). USIM assesses urban performance in inclusivity, safety, resilience, sustainability, and heritage conservation. GSTI observes the flexibility of global best practices like Barcelona's superblocks or Medellín's Metrocables to Indian settings by evaluating governance, socio-economic, technological, and cultural factors. PGM recognises misalignments between policy goals and implementation, particularly in relative to SDG 11. Case studies of Mysuru, Bengaluru, Kochi, Tokyo, Curitiba, and Kigali reveal that Indian cities lag in sustainability, with gaps in inclusivity, climate adaptability, and governance. The study offers an analytical, benchmarking, and flexible toolkit for policymakers.