In the globalized world, cities and their region compete to attract both investments and talent. City-regions in India have not yet taken the advantage of proactively planning for economic development, while many of the global city regions have taken such planning approaches.

This session leveraged the findings of WRI India’s 2023 report Morphology of Delhi- National Capital Region’s Economic Geography and its Implications for Planning” to inform about Delhi NCR’s economic and spatial transition post liberalization, assessment framework to understand the economic geography of mega city-regions and economic development planning to better target investments, plan and manage the region.

This session brought together a panel of experts to deliberate on various challenges in the current economic development approaches and way forwards to transform mega-city regions into regional and global gateways to propel the nation into economic prominence in the global investment system.