India, May 27 -- The Union government's investment in the development of Amaravati, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, affirms a national interest in promoting the development of new cities, but the pursuit of greenfield urbanisation and its role in national development receives scant public attention. This may partly be the impact of missions and schemes currently at play, which focus on improving the quality of life in existing cities through investment in water and sanitation, energy, housing, transportation, waste management and urban livelihoods. The recently announced Urban Challenge Fund and the "creative redevelopment" approach reinforce commitment to the brownfield. What, then, is the role and status of the greenfield city in India? While 12 fledgling industrial smart cities were announced in 2024, India already has a panoply of greenfield cities and townships at various states of evolution between land acquisition, plan preparation, infrastructure installation and investment promotion. Some, like Aamby Valley, Lavasa and Naya Raipur, have become desolate landscapes of unfulfilled desire. Several seem to only fuel speculation in land values without economic output. Others, like the Sri City special economic zone, continue to attract investment. The Jewar and Navi Mumbai aerotropolises are linked to national infrastructure investments and likely to grow rapidly. All these cities are satellites of older cities but without the tethering plans. A new city is not built in the wilderness. It converts agricultural land belonging to farmers, subsumes their villages and exploits their resources. If villages are integrated with urbanisation, they become partners in progress - as attempted in Amaravati. Unplanned expansion induces a frontier mentality: Drill holes in the ground to suck out water, throw waste anywhere, enjoy subsidies without paying taxes. When the new feeds off the old, it breeds the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) attitude, destroying the civic principle that cities need to survive. The disjunct between two major paradigms of urban development is unsustainable. India must leverage the combined force of emergent greenfield cities and the ever-expanding brownfield. Why a national plan for urbanisation doesn't exist may be explained by the federal factor - the reluctance of the Union government to overstep its boundaries on a subject assigned to the states. However, India cannot afford such hesitation. A comprehensive plan for managing urbanisation across the country - with full participation of the states - can be a galvanising agenda. Several factors suggest that the time is right for ambitious planning. First, the opportunity to replicate models and best practices that we have developed over the past 10 years, constituting a veritable toolkit for making cities inclusive, safe, sustainable and resilient. It is no longer a mystery what this jargon means. Second, the availability of the Gati Shakti platform, which is promised to be available to the private sector soon, will allow a holistic stock-take - across rural and urban geographies, across sectors, across economic disparities and demographic potentials - and targeted intervention. Third, the art of the possible for harnessing regional growth is demonstrated by the National Rurban Mission, the Aspirational Districts Programme and a growing number of regional plans. The fourth reason is the most critical. The daily news is replete with evidence of planning failure and inept management of cities. The public is unaware that cities are difficult to manage, and overgrown and unplanned cities even more so. Our tolerance for peripheral growth, with the region capturing the windfall gains from proximity to the core, imposes the burden of managing expansion on cities unable to sustain even their legacy infrastructure. Like impetuous children unwilling to be disciplined, we refuse to contain the city's growth within manageable limits. We need to increase urban investments eightfold, but our capacity to spend even the money available today, let alone spend it well, is severely limited. This is partly because of confusion about whether to invest in old areas or new ones. Where development authorities exist, they tend to expand plan areas to such an extent that the unplanned sprawl is legitimised, whereas it should be the city's choice whether it will accommodate growth by redevelopment of existing footprints to increase density or by sponsoring a satellite that can accommodate growth. Compact cities with dense agglomerations of urban talent are more efficient than sprawling ones. Spatial regulation is crucial to managing urban systems and maximising economic gains. Targeted urban investment needs a national plan that can be sub-aggregated to the regional and local. The good news is that we have done this before, albeit in a different economic era. The work of the National Commission on Urbanisation established in 1985 is a ready baseline for new thinking. It ought to be an explicit mandate given to the Inter-State Council established under Article 263 of the Constitution of India, to produce such a national plan. A well-planned urban network can be the path to Viksit Bharat, but only if we abandon the duality of greenfield versus brownfield, new cities versus old....