New Delhi, March 31 -- India's cities sit at the heart of its growth story, driving economic activity and promising a better life to citizens. Yet many are buckling under pressure-from choking traffic and unchecked sprawl to worsening air quality.

Despite significant infrastructure spending, weak city systems-fragmented governance, limited planning capacity and poor data use-are holding back both productivity and liveability, according to a recent report, Shaping Urban India: By Design, Not By Default, by Janaagraha, a Bengaluru-based non-profit.

India has urbanized at a fairly steady clip, broadly in line with its G20 peers. But fine feathers don't always make fine birds.

Estimates by the United Nations' Degree of Urbanisation (DegUrb...