Shakespeare once said, “What is the city but the people?” Indeed, cities cannot exist without the people, yet when it comes to shaping and developing them, the people somehow become the least important factor. Their voices remain unheard. Every project claims to serve the people, but who those people are remains unanswered. Who is the city really being built for? Our city, Aligarh, is no exception to this. People who live and ultimately shape the city feel like bystanders in its planning and development.

“Nobody listens to our voices or concerns. It feels like someone else is deciding what our dreams and troubles are” - A Retired School Principal  

Aligarh’s past has left it with deeply rooted social and communal divisions. This segregation that runs through its geography and its institutions can make it feel like the city is at war with itself, it feels as though different parts of the city are moving in separate directions, each imagining a different future. For the newly independent India, Aligarh was imagined as a laboratory of secularism, a place where intellectual culture and civic harmony could coexist and grow. That social contract of harmony and intellectual growth binding every one of us is under constant threat from within and without. But that vision still lives on. The institutions and the people that sustain the intellectual culture and civic harmony still exist.

This document begins from that possibility. It is an attempt to bridge the gap between the people who plan the city and the people who live in the city. It brings together voices that may appear different or even conflicting, but often emerge from similar shared experiences and concerns. It asks if a city really needs to be a paradox of winners and losers, of those who benefit and those who are left behind. It questions how our city can instead become a ground for more equal, inclusive, and shared urban life. Above all, this City Vision Document is an effort to tell the story of Aligarh from within. It is meant to bring forward the voices of the citizens, not just the problems, but also the possibilities and visions they dream about the future of our city. It aims to uphold the social contract that binds all the people of our city together.