As culmination of the challenge of Greening Bangalore; We organized a Tree Planting Drive which was Spearheaded by our NGO Partner Say Trees and supported by our NGO Partner IYCN.On Sunday the 3rd of October 2010, 35 volunteers from Urban Vision, Say trees and the Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) came together for a tree planting drive near the Madivala Lake. The event took place in an open space adjacent to the Madivala Lake. The BBMP plans to develop this space in to a park eventually. The BBMP backed the event by sponsoring 100 saplings for this event.

Date: 25th August 2010,
Time: 5:00 Pm
Location: Bangalore
As part of one the kick off activities of the Civic Dialogue Bengaluru 2010, The Urban Vision organized the Change Drivers meeting at Jaaga to showcase some of the partner NGO’s and activists who are already working towards making our city a better place to live. The NGO’s Spoke about the following issues

Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Time: 10:00 am – 6:30pm
Location: Mumbai
Summary:
The Urban Vision organized a day-long Mumbai Study tour for the London Delegation of Architects ./ Planners / Infrastructure experts as part of the Mumbai Dialogue initiative organized by The Dialogue Group, London which was initiated to encourage discussion and debate on the key challenges, solutions as well as lessons from London and other global cities about regeneration and renewal and new development.
The Urban Vision Mumbai Study Tour included a visit to a new community development in Northern Mumbai Suburb of Powai and a Slum Redevelopment Project in Tardeo. Participants included Peter Murray, chair of New London Architecture ; Gerald Fox, MJP Architects; Kayvan Karimi, Space Syntax; Mark Ryder, Hoare Lea; Chris Bell, HKR Architects; Dominic Wilkinson, Austin Smith Lord; Iain Wiley, Austin Smith Lord; Chris Williamson, Weston Williamson Architects; Barry Hughes, HOK; Architects Russ Edwards, dRMM ; Ben Derbyshire, HTA architects.

Date: Wednesday , December 9, 2009
Time: 2:00pm – 5:30pm
Location: Bombay Exhibition Center, Mumbai
“The Urban Vision”  and  “Cityscape India” co-hosted a symposium that aimed to create a blueprint to re-envision India’s cities. The Urban Leaders Symposium was held at the Bombay Exhibition Centre on December 9, 2009 alongside the Cityscape  exhibition that took place between 9-12 December , 2009.
India’s 300 million city dwellers make up about one-tenth of the world’s urban population. Today, Many Indian cities are growing so rapidly that even as the census gets completed it is already way out of date. The Symposia addressed ways to deal with this extraordinary pace of urbanization. Academic, industry and social leaders came together to craft a vision framework for a sustainable, economically vibrant and inclusive Urban India.
“Urbanization is where economic growth happens in all countries. It is an inevitable part of the shift to high income status and modernization. Close to 90% of growth in all developing countries over the last 30 years has been in cities. So cities especially mega cities have to be at the heart of the action for any national growth policy” said Patricia Annez , Advisor to the World Bank and  a fellow with the influential Washington DC based Brookings Institute. Ms. Annez also lamented about the state of affairs of India’s urban governance. “No one seems to be in charge of Indian cities .There are multitude of agencies and administrators overlooking the cities functioning; and no one is particularly accountable. In addition, the distorted laws and processes ensure that License raj is well and truly alive in Indian Real-estate.” She added.
Prof. Amita Bhide , Centre for Urban Planning and Governance, Tata Institute of Social Sciences highlighted ideas of building  Socially inclusive cities.   “Slums are an integral part of India’s urbanization. India is going to see an addition of about 300 to 350 million people to the urban population by 2031 with an estimation that 40% of the population in urban areas. A good chunk of this population will be poor. Up till now, we have built our cities for the rich who are a small minority in our cities. India needs to move towards more inclusive planning” said Dr. Bhide. She also went on to add that India needs to also focus on large scale vocational training to empower the poorer segments of the society with skill sets.
Mr. Pradeep Nair, Director of Clinton Climate initiative spoke about the urgent need to address the challenge of Climate change. “Government leaders from different nations are all gathered together in Copenhagen at this point to agree on carbon emission reductions. Cities are actually going to be at the centre of reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Even though cities occupy less than 2 percent of the world land they contribute to over 75% of the GHG emissions. Cities will need to move towards green buildings and mass transit to cut their carbon impacts.” He said.
Leading Real estate Developer Surendra Hiranandani said “ If India wants to be successful in the 21^st century , we will have to fix our cities. “ He had some radical solution for Indian cities including banning private automobiles in cities. “We don’t need to re-invent the wheel. Historic cities are filled with great ideas of good urbanism. We have to basically focus on overall higher densities; mixed-use development; emphasis on public transport and human scale architecture and a walkable urban fabric of streets and public spaces” He added
“Cities represent both the finest and most terrible aspects of humanity today. Today’s Cities are full of poverty and environmental crisis, but they also offer the best way to rise above these challenges. So those are the two paths that India has in front of it as we get set to deal with imminent phase of urbanization. But given the early stage of our Urbanization- we still have the control in our hands. We can take on urbanization head on; and make most of the best components that cities represent and create a future that is inclusive, environmentally friendly and healthy.” Said Prathima Manohar, Founder, The Urban Vision.

Date: Wednesday , November  18, 2009
Time: 9:00 pm – 12:00 pm
Location: Four Seasons, Mumbai
Enrique Peñalosa, a visionary urban thinker, who is in the league of the world’s greatest urbanist’ s met with a small group of leaders in Mumbai today. The meeting organized by “The Urban Vision” in association with ITDP and the Choksey Group saw a diverse set of leaders from the political and business sphere including the likes of  Priya Dutt, Member of Parliament; Neel Raheja ,Group President , K Raheja;  Surendra Hiranandani ,MD, Hiranandani Group; Avnish Bajaj, MD, Matrix Partners ; Prashant Choksey , MD , Choksey Group ; Mayank Gandhi , Remaking of Mumbia Federation;  Prof .Rajeev Mishra – Dean , JJ School of Architecture among others.
Penalosa asked the leaders to envision a society that is egalitarian and emphasized that quality-of-life distribution is more important than income distribution. ” In developing-world cities, most of people don’t have cars, so I will say, when you construct a good sidewalk, you are constructing democracy. A sidewalk is a symbol of equality.” He explained. “Every detail in the city should show respect for human dignity and reflect that everything human is sacred. People behave the way they are treated. And if the city treats them with more respect, they also behave differently. “ Penalosa added.
Priya Dutt shared the details of the successful car-free day initiative in her constituency area of Bandra in Mumbai. The initiative targets one Sunday every two months when people can walk on the streets without choking on pollution or getting stuck in chaotic traffic jams. The movement was led by the citizens of the community she explained.Prof .Rajeev Mishra remarked on the need for Indian cities to empower their institutional structures to be able to make transformational changes in our cities.Surendra Hiranandani concurred with Penalosa when he suggested the need to drastically reduce the number of private cars in our city.” When every other global city is trying to reduce the amount of parking in their buildings; our regulations needs us to increase car parking. There needs to be a mindset shift towards mass transit driven walkable cities and we need to stop thinking about private cars as a way to solve our mobility problems” He said. The Urban Vision’s Founder, Prathima Manohar said that it was important to learn from Penalosa’s work “India is still defining its Urban Agenda and our success in the 21^st century is going to be largely defined by the success of our cities. Penalosa ideas are an inspiration in ensuring cities which are not only socially inclusive but also have a lower ecological footprint. ” She said.