Avantika Banerjee

What if the future of urban growth isn’t in city centers at all, but in the places we connect to them?

The World Bank’s recent report, Cities as Growth Hubs, makes a compelling case for how peripheral regions can become thriving economic centers when transit infrastructure and land-use planning move in lockstep. Transit Oriented Development isn’t just about density near stations; it’s about how regions grow together.

What struck me most is how differently this plays out in the United States and India.

In the U.S., TOD has largely evolved through market-driven dynamics. Federal incentives and transit investments create the conditions, and development follows gradually, often in small, station-by-station increments. This organic approach has strengths, but it also runs up against deep automobile dependency and long-term underinvestment in transit infrastructure.

India, by contrast, is pursuing TOD as a deliberate national strategy. Entire metro systems and high-capacity corridors are being built to directly connect emerging satellite cities with urban cores. The scale and speed are striking, though they bring their own challenges, particularly around coordination, public engagement, and equity.

Neither model is perfect, but together they offer important lessons. The real opportunity lies in aligning transit investment, land-use policy, and governance in ways that support affordability, sustainability, and long-term regional growth.

For those of us working in transit and urban mobility, the question isn’t which system is better … it’s what we can learn from each other as cities on both sides of the globe rethink how growth actually happens.

References
World Resources Institute India — Ratification of National TOD Policy and Its Implication for Indian Cities
https://lnkd.in/eHxv2udK
CBRE India — Billions in Transit: Assessing the Impact of TOD on Indian Cities
https://lnkd.in/eYadCRYA
Axis & ThoughtLab — Future-Ready Cities 2024 (eBook)
https://lnkd.in/eJvzq8Gk
Kearney — Global Cities Report 2025
https://lnkd.in/eEp47E6H
World Bank Report: Cities as Growth Hubs https://lnkd.in/eQsZ9BVR