A world wide web: Inside a docu series about ‘twin’ cities

Architect Dikshu Kukreja chases a wealth of hidden links between Bogota and Ahmedabad, Mexico City and Mumbai, Washington DC and New Delhi, among others.

The river is so polluted one can walk across parts of it and not sink. The crime so organised that it’s run by a guild. The disparities so great that the rich and poor never really cross paths.

The episode on New Delhi and Washington DC touches upon how the two cities’ central vistas are no accident. They were planned, and remain protected, by legislation that includes height-cap laws. (HT Archives)

This could be any number of the world’s cities. It is, in fact, Terry Pratchett’s fictional metropolis of Ankh-Morpork.

Anyone who has lived in a major city and read the Discworld books has found themselves shaking their head in recognition and exasperation. What else connects cities in the real world?

That’s a conversation that began, for architect and urban designer Dikshu Kukreja, in February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Born and raised in Delhi, Kukreja has studied and worked in Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Paris and Mumbai, and always felt deeply emotionally connected with cities, he says. He began wondering if there was some way to scratch the surface and trace commonalities between them.

His research has yielded a chat show, Tale of Two Cities, now streaming on YouTube.

The show aims to nudge the viewer to be more curious and more involved.

In conversations with prime ministers, ministers and mayors, Kukreja, 54, chases a wealth of hidden links between eight pairs of cities (one Indian and one international in each pair). Mumbai, for instance, has something surprising in common with Mexico City. The former is, of course, a cross-stitch of seven islands and land reclaimed from the Arabian Sea. The latter, formerly the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, was built on an island in Lake Texcoco, later expanded to a second island, and the lake eventually drained. The city now sprawls across that dry lakebed.

What links Bogota and Ahmedabad? Washington DC and New Delhi? Guests who have appeared on the show to discuss this include Albanian prime minister Edi Rama; mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb; former Colombian president Iván Duque Márquez.

Márquez talks about how “Bogota used to look like Gotham city”, with a high incidence of “crime, despair, traffic”. This has begun to change, he adds, through sustained investment in mass transit systems and road corridors, spaces for art and culture.

Ahmedabad, Kukreja points out on the show, is among the Indian cities that has adopted Bogota’s renowned bus rapid transit system (BRTS), a model that prioritises affordable and convenient mass transit through the use of, among other things, dedicated bus lanes.

Episode 4 explores Kochi and Rotterdam, both seaports at significant risk from rising sea levels. “My city is very vulnerable,” Aboutaleb says on the show. In addition to dikes or sea walls, “we’re creating storage systems of water by building water plazas. We’ve also financed a project outside the city limits where we may collect four million litres of water to prevent Rotterdam from flooding.”

The episode on New Delhi and Washington DC explores how both capitals bear a recognisable visual aesthetic, tied together by administrative power corridors. Both seek to protect the integrity of these iconic cityscapes by placing restrictions on development such as Washington DC’s Height of Buildings Act of 1910.

Kukreja and his team of six, which includes his wife, writer Arunima Kukreja, 47, are now in the midst of research for Season 2. Once again, they will cross-braid parameters that could tie two cities together, for a study in similarities and contrasts. Certain episodes will be shot on location, as those featuring Bogota, Mexico City, San Marino and Tirana were.

Season 2 will zoom into cities from countries in Africa and West and Central Asia as well, Arunima says. The aim, again, will be to nudge the viewer to be more curious about their city, and become more involved.

There will also likely be a greater focus on an aspect that has particularly gripped Dikshu Kukreja: the need for cities to tap back into indigenous methods of urban planning. “It is what can help us adapt to climate change, while keeping our cultural identity intact.”