India’s biggest urban problem might not be potholes. It could be us

Indian cities pour substantial funds into infrastructure — roads, flyovers, metro networks, beautification drives, and waste-management systems. And yet, many of the most glaring urban problems stem not from a lack of infrastructure, but from everyday human behavior.Overflowing bins spew garbage, cars are parked on sidewalks, motorists drive on the wrong side, public walls are used as dumping and spitting grounds and traffic rules are often considered optional. The result is a weird paradox: citizens demand better cities while also often being part of the disarray they complain about.It’s not always an infrastructure issueBroken footpath needs to be repaired. But the use of footpath as parking space is a civic failure. It is the duty of a municipal body to see that garbage is collected properly, but throwing a food packet on the road because a bin is few meters away is a citizen’s choice.Poor road design can cause traffic chaos but jumping signals, driving against traffic or blocking intersections can't always be blamed on infrastructure. The distinction matters because cities can’t address behavior-driven problems by simply building more infrastructure.The challenge is very much apparent from India’s cleanliness programme itself. The latest completed Swachh Survekshan, conducted for 2024-25, involved extensive citizen participation in assessing urban cleanliness and civic services.The exercise covered multiple parameters and indicators and drew feedback from crores of citizens and more than 11 lakh households. The scale of participation underlines an important point: keeping cities clean is not merely a municipal responsibility; it also depends on how citizens use and treat public spaces.Civic sense is turning into a safety issue on roadTraffic behavior is probably the best example. Driving on the wrong side, running signals, dangerous overtaking, illegal parking and failing to give way are not merely annoying habits. They can kill. In 2025, Gurgaon recorded a staggering 2,03,936 cases of wrong-side driving. By 2026, the police had begun registering FIRs against offenders in response. In 2025, Delhi saw 1,617 road deaths, with police citing speeding, wrong-way driving, drunken driving, distraction and traffic-rule violations among the causes.The story is no different in Pune. In 2025, the city recorded 19.87 lakh violation of traffic rules including around five lakh violations of one-way, 43,949 cases of wrong side driving, 1.71 lakh cases of jumping signals and 9,600 cases of driving on footpaths. Technology and enforcement can identify offenders, but the numbers suggest that policing alone is not enough to instill road discipline. In the end, a city is safer if rules are a social habit and not something people do when there’s a traffic camera watching.Clean houses, dirty streetsThere’s a cultural contradiction at play, too. Most Indians are very particular about keeping their homes clean, but this same concern often disappears as soon as they walk out the front door. A plastic cup, a cigarette packet, a tissue or a food wrapper can all of a sudden become someone else's problem. Public spaces are frequently thought of as unowned spaces, yet it is the taxpayer who ultimately pays for their upkeep.The problem is that Indians are not able to keep their surroundings clean. However, multiple Indian cities have exhibited the contrary. The Swachh Survekshan 2024-25 recognized cities like Indore, Surat and Navi Mumbai in its Super Swachh League and Ahmedabad, Bhopal and Lucknow emerged as new leaders in clean cities. The lesson is important: urban cleanliness gets better when municipal systems, enforcement and citizen behavior work together.Public property is nobody's propertyYou can see the same attitude in the trash. The newly painted walls are covered with posters. Public toilets are vandalized or badly maintained. Footpaths are invaded. Road dividers are wrecked, parks littered and public infrastructure sometimes misused within days of being installed. Yes, authorities have a duty to design, maintain and protect public assets but citizens also need to recognize that public property is ultimately their property.Recent examples show why the problem cannot be reduced to municipal failure. This year, the municipal corporation collected waste of about 8,000 tons from the ghats and mela areas during Kanwar Yatra in Haridwar. Of course, such events generate huge temporary waste loads, but the scale also shows how quickly public spaces can be overwhelmed when consumption, disposal and civic responsibility don’t go hand in hand.Civic sense can’t be created by fines aloneThe answer is not to just fine everybody. Enforcement is important, especially for behavior that threatens public safety. But punishment works best when it is combined with awareness, good infrastructure and social pressure. Children must be taught that crossing at a designated place, standing in a queue, not littering and respecting public spaces are not signs of weakness or inconvenience. These are the basic responsibilities of living in a crowded city.This will be even more important for the urban future of India. As cities become denser and more people share roads, public transport, footpaths, parks and civic infrastructure, individual behavior has a much greater collective impact. One person parking badly may be a minor inconvenience; hundreds doing it can bring a road to a standstill. The littering of one person may seem small, but the littering of thousands of people can turn a neighborhood into a garbage hotspot.The city we want begins with the citizen we areIndia has potholes, bad drainage, broken footpaths, poor waste collection, weak enforcement. Governments cannot wash their hands of these failures. Yet the debate over civic sense is important precisely because infrastructure alone cannot change urban life. A perfectly resurfaced road can be blocked by illegal parking. A new footpath can still be a car park. A clean street can be soiled again in a matter of hours.So the real test of India’s urban transformation is not just how many kilometers of roads are built or how many garbage trucks are deployed. It is whether citizens start to treat the road, footpath, park, public toilet, neighborhood as an extension of their own home. India is building smarter cities. The bigger challenge is, can we all become smarter citizens.