Most of the discussion about cities, their problems, the solutions and progress has focused on them as places; particular territories with infrastructure penetration, economic output, built-up areas, crime rates, air pollution, and so on to be compared, commented on, and somehow governed more effectively.

These metrics ignore the bigger picture: how what happens in these places interacts with processes unfolding elsewhere around the world. A territory’s achievements can be measured based on what happens within its boundaries. A catalyst’s effectiveness is judged by how it interacts with its surroundings; what larger reactions and dynamics it enables. We can’t expect our cities to be catalysts for national and global development if we continue to evaluate them as particular sites severed from the context of the rest of India.

If we want our cities to be innovation hubs, for example, we cannot just count the number of maker spaces, universities, incubators and start-ups. The impact of these developments depends on the flows of people and information between these interchanges and the rest of the world, including rural India.

If we want our cities to be “opportunity generators,” “engines of growth,” “poverty digesters,” and “flywheels” for social, economic, and political change—to borrow some terms from the urban conference circuit—we cannot just count up the people and jobs within the administrative boundaries. We have to look at how urban economies fit into larger economic, infrastructure and resource networks. We have to understand the dimensions, dynamics and larger reach of cities’ ambient populations—the people who pass through and the people who stay. We have to track the infrastructure that allows information and objects to enter and exit in addition to upgrades that enable these raw materials to be transformed on site.

If we want our cities to pioneer new, more sustainable relationships between our species and the rest of the environment, we need to institutionalize attention to how the ecosystems within their boundaries connect to the watersheds and airsheds outside their jurisdictions. We need to track the indirect energy and resource use drawn from outside the boundaries as well as direct use within the boundaries.

The current focus on cities and the conditions within their territorial boundaries also distorts the politics of urban investments. It turns a discussion about a critical element in overall national development into a zero-sum struggle for allocation of limited attention and public investment.