Why India Keeps Its Cities So Short

BANGALORE, India -- Ascend to the top floor of the UB Tower downtown, and you can nearly see the city's full expanse from all sides. The skyscraper, the centerpiece of the five-year-old luxury shopping mall UB City, is one of the city's tallest structures. It stands 420 feet.

More than 100 buildings rise higher in both New York and Hong Kong, though each is less populous. Chengdu, an equally-sized metropolis in China, has some 25 buildings taller than all of Bangalore, and will probably keep soaring faster.

Cities in China and southeast Asia rise high, but Indian ones did not. Most grew like Bangalore: outwards and compact. Their skylines are almost nonexistent. And their urban ills -- millions without housing, millions more facing exorbitant rents and crumbling infrastructure -- are often given the economic prescription to grow up.

It leads to a natural question: Why aren't Indian cities that tall? But there are others who pose a very different query: Why should they be?

S. Vishwanath, an urban planner, lives in Vidyaranyapura, a neighborhood in the city's far northwest with rows of squat, single-family homes and buzzing shops. He would like every neighborhood to resemble his. He and his wife, an architect, use intricate rainwater harvesting and solar systems to generate all their water and energy in the two-story home.