Sustainable development means attaining a balance between environmental protection and human economic development and between the present and future needs. It means equity in development and sectoral actions across space and time. It requires an integration of economic, social and environmental approaches towards development. Sustainable urban development refers to attaining social equity and environmental protection in urbanization while minimizing the costs of urbanization. This paper aims at discussing some of the important issues relating to sustainable urban form that would lead to sustainable urban development with possible references to India. The paper is based on available literature and secondary data. The paper is divided in two parts. The first part deals with the concept of sustainable development and its implications for urban areas. First section of this part of the paper explains the concept of sustainable development with special mention of sustainable urban development. This is followed by the second section of this part with a discussion of the role of environment and climate change in sustainable urban development. The second part of the paper discusses sustainable urban development with special reference to India. This part is divided in four sections. The first section deals with urban basic services and sustainable urban development in India. The second section notes the inefficiencies in the land policy of India and its implications for sustainable urban development in India.   The third section leads to possible options of sustainable city form, which may be relevant for India. Here first the study discusses the compact city debate and next it explains the concept and possibilities of multi-modal urban region as a city form. The last and fourth section summarises the discussion and ends with way forward.