Tanzeel Allapur

Project Associate

Some of my most formative moments happened in very ordinary spaces , waiting at a bus stop, walking a street that felt like it wasn't meant for you, noticing how differently people moved through the same city depending on who they were. Studying Politics and Economics gave me a way to make sense of that. An MPhil in Development and Planning at IIT Bombay brought it into sharper focus, and somewhere along the way, the city became the thing I kept coming back to.

The ideas I encountered along the way, segregation by design, transport poverty, hostile architecture, gave shape to something I had long been feeling: that cities are not neutral, and that neglect is rarely accidental. What stayed with me most is that mobility is a measure of freedom. How easily you can move through a city says a lot about whether that city was built with you in mind.

At Parisar, I work on making transport more sustainable, improving first and last mile connectivity around Pune's metro, designing safe school zones, building gender action plans that take women's experience of the city seriously. A lot of this work happens on the ground, through community engagement and bringing multiple stakeholders to the same table. I am particularly interested in behaviour-led interventions, understanding why people make the choices they do in cities, and designing around that rather than against it.

Areas of work:

• Sustainable urban transport
• Gender & city planning
• Transport poverty & accessibility

I believe that a city that works for women and the differently abled works for everyone.

When not working, you will find me doing analog visualisations and looking up for vintage transport memorabilia.