Changing urban morphology of million plus cities of india
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Answer:
Sridhar, Determinants of City Growth and Output in India 23
million, and over 4,000 towns. In 2001, the number of cities with a million-plus population grew
to 35 (housing 38 percent of the total urban population), with 14 of these 35 cities growing at
higher than average rate during 1991-2001 (Lahiri-Dutt & Samanta 2001). In 2001, the number
of cities in the population size category of 100,000 to one million grew to 388 from only 300 in
1991.
It should be noted that cities in India are not growing just in size but also are gaining
in political influence (see Yeung 2002). The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act of 1992 in
India formally recognized urban local governments as the third tier of government. In addition
to increasing the accountability of urban governments to their residents, the Amendment also
expanded the public service responsibilities of local governments (Rao & Singh 2005). The
Constitution now lists 37 different public services for which urban local governments are
responsible, in some cases in conjunction with state government. Although some municipal
governments were already providing most of the newly listed services, for others the Amendment
has resulted in a substantial increase in public service responsibilities.
Given the fact that India is rapidly growing and urbanizing, and the fact that it has over
5,000 towns that are going to soon become politically influential which contribute to nearly 65
percent of GDP, it is crucial to understand what factors determine city growth in India. Further,
a city may grow in terms of its population, but may or may not grow economically. Examining
this question is the focus of this paper. India is experiencing extensive urban growth. That is, an
increasing number of cities rather than intensive growth—that is, higher growth within existing
cities. If UAs grow at a faster rate than the cities, then it might well be the case that India is
experiencing intensive rather than extensive growth. It was found that the number of towns in
the country grew at 12 percent on average over 1991-2001, whereas growth in the number of
UAs was only 2.4 percent on average.2 Hence there is some support to believe that India is
indeed experiencing more extensive rather than intensive urban growth.
Because of the existence of limits to growth in large cities imposed by regulation such
as rent control in India’s cities, Sridhar (2004) points out that it is likely that a large number
of rural areas are converted to urban areas, rather than more growth of existing urban areas.
Cohen (2004) also argues that most urban growth over the next 25 years will not take place in
mega-cities at all as the UN publication World Urbanization Prospects (2002) predicts, but will
occur in far smaller cities and towns.3
In fact, Cohen (2004) argues that India’s definition of an urban area is so restrictive that it
misses population growth occurring in urban areas just outside of the official city boundary.4
He suggests that if India were to adopt a different definition of an urban area, it would be
transformed from being largely rural to being predominantly urban.
2 The number of towns in the country grew from only 4,615 in 1991 to 5,179 in 2001, and the number of UAs
in the country increased from 375 in 1991 to 384 in 2001, recording growth rates of 12.11 percent and 2.4 percent
respectively.
3 Cohen’s (2004) analysis uses the 2001 revisions of the World Urbanization Prospects. The latest revision is the
2007 revision of this publication. Given Cohen’s (2004) results are robust, the implications from the 2001 revisions may
be assumed to carry over to the 2007 revisions. This is based on personal communications with Barney Cohen.
4 The Census of India defines settlements having the following characteristics as urban areas:
a population of five thousand or more;
a minimum density of 1,000 people per square mile; and
at least seventy five percent of work force outside agriculture.
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C The Applied Regional Science Conference (ARSC)/Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd. 2010