Every aspect of a city, from economic development and population diversity to social interactions, is impacted by Urban Planning. Interdepartmental cooperation regarding city development is imperative as economic growth, traffic and road planning, healthcare related infrastructure, variations in demographics and education go hand-in-hand.

Urban planning intervention at the right time can help manage city growth using either the preventive approach of Curitiba (which in anticipation of future growth steered its population towards peripheral areas to decongest the city core); or the curative strategy of Cairo (which built new towns in the desert as population density and growth in the city became unmanageable). The success of urban planning intervention hinges on the ability of the local authority to build economic and physical infrastructure within the settlements along with the necessary connectivity to the city centre and to similar other peripheral settlements. This has, unlike the case in Cairo, been successfully demonstrated by cities like Curitiba & closer to home, in Hyderabad. While in the case of Curitiba land-use and transport planning were linked directly with outward urban growth, in the case of Hyderabad, the creation of a high tech peripheral city Cyberabad led to the channelization of growth in a desired direction.