Classify urban centres on the basis of their functions
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Classification of Towns
This is because of several reasons. First, the number of towns in India is too large to handle on some viable grounds. The size of towns has a wide span ranging between 5,000 to 10,000,000, and this might not characterize town’s personality by breaking these into subjective or arbitrary classes.
Second, the towns of India have a long historical background and have been under various regimes dating back thousand years from birth of Christ to the present era of democratic set-up. Finally, the data about functions and economy of Indian cities have not yet been standardized because of the absence of a suitable urban agency to deal with these. Under these circumstances classifications and categorization of urban places in India differ from state to state and from author to author.
There may be several methods, ways and means to classify urban centres. Site and situation of towns, population, size and functions, their social and cultural environment, etc., are some of the recognized bases to put them into groups. Out of all the bases of classification, the variable of ‘function of a town’ is widely accepted and reliable too. ‘Reliable’ in the sense that town itself is defined as an unit characterized by non-agricultural activities.
Non-agricultural activities include administrative, industrial, commercial, cultural, etc.
Nearly all towns are supposed to provide various services like health, education, municipal (water, electricity, sanitation), transportational and marketing. Therefore, it is not worthwhile to classify urban places into a single particular function.
Aurousseau’s Attempt:
Here some of the most significant classifications have been discussed. In 1921, M. Aurousseau classified towns into six classes: administrative, defence, culture, production-towns, communication and recreation. His classification though a simple one, however, suffers from the defect of over-generalization. To classify a town into one major category, generally neglects the role of other classes. The cut-off point of one-class is decided by the arbitrary percentage, and therefore it is subjective.
Towns with tidal-limit, fall-line-towns, bridgehead towns point out attribute of location in performance of their function. It is thus doubtful that such towns are exclusively communicational, and not locational. Similarly, pilgrimage centres are cultural towns, but these equally are significant in their geographical location on mountainous terrain, in valleys or on banks of rivers.
University-town is also a misnomer because this type of adjective cannot be its function but only a single quality among its overall urban milieu. But Anuousseau’s classification marks a significant stage and provides a springboard for sophisticated methods. It is actually a comprehensive scheme bringing together polygonal functional urban activities to classify urban centres.
Harris’s Classification:
Chauncy D. Harris remedied the deficiencies of the former subjective and common-sense-judgement-based classifications. He was able to identify quantitatively dominant function out of multifunctional character of cities. He used employment as well as occupational figures reduced to percentages to indicate cut-off points for urban activities varying in importance.
His classification is based on the fact that some activity-groups employ many more persons than others do. For example, USA’s 27 per cent employed persons of the total urban employment are in manufacturing, while wholesale trade has about 4 per cent. Thus, it is obvious that some functions should be assigned higher percentages than others. From analyzes, he was able to set up limits for each of his types as shown in the Table
Howard Nelson’s Classification:
Nelson further removed the shortcomings of the classifications of those of Harris and others by using a stated procedure that could be objectively checked by other workers. He decided to base his method of classification entirely upon major industry groups as listed in the 1950 Census of Population for standard metropolitan areas, urbanized areas and urban places of 10,000 or more population. He omitted the little significance groups like agriculture and construction, and finally, arrived at the nine activity groups.
The problem of city specialization, and also the degree of specialization above the average was solved by giving margins of different degree to different size classes. He did find a definite tendency for the percentages employed in some activities vary with city size. The question – ‘When is a city specialized?’ was solved by using a statistical technique – the Standard Deviation (SD).
Table 9.2 indicates averages and SD in percentages for selected nine activity groups (1950) as developed by Nelson.
This is because of several reasons. First, the number of towns in India is too large to handle on some viable grounds. The size of towns has a wide span ranging between 5,000 to 10,000,000, and this might not characterize town’s personality by breaking these into subjective or arbitrary classes.
Second, the towns of India have a long historical background and have been under various regimes dating back thousand years from birth of Christ to the present era of democratic set-up. Finally, the data about functions and economy of Indian cities have not yet been standardized because of the absence of a suitable urban agency to deal with these. Under these circumstances classifications and categorization of urban places in India differ from state to state and from author to author.
There may be several methods, ways and means to classify urban centres. Site and situation of towns, population, size and functions, their social and cultural environment, etc., are some of the recognized bases to put them into groups. Out of all the bases of classification, the variable of ‘function of a town’ is widely accepted and reliable too. ‘Reliable’ in the sense that town itself is defined as an unit characterized by non-agricultural activities.
Non-agricultural activities include administrative, industrial, commercial, cultural, etc.
Nearly all towns are supposed to provide various services like health, education, municipal (water, electricity, sanitation), transportational and marketing. Therefore, it is not worthwhile to classify urban places into a single particular function.
Aurousseau’s Attempt:
Here some of the most significant classifications have been discussed. In 1921, M. Aurousseau classified towns into six classes: administrative, defence, culture, production-towns, communication and recreation. His classification though a simple one, however, suffers from the defect of over-generalization. To classify a town into one major category, generally neglects the role of other classes. The cut-off point of one-class is decided by the arbitrary percentage, and therefore it is subjective.
Towns with tidal-limit, fall-line-towns, bridgehead towns point out attribute of location in performance of their function. It is thus doubtful that such towns are exclusively communicational, and not locational. Similarly, pilgrimage centres are cultural towns, but these equally are significant in their geographical location on mountainous terrain, in valleys or on banks of rivers.
University-town is also a misnomer because this type of adjective cannot be its function but only a single quality among its overall urban milieu. But Anuousseau’s classification marks a significant stage and provides a springboard for sophisticated methods. It is actually a comprehensive scheme bringing together polygonal functional urban activities to classify urban centres.
Harris’s Classification:
Chauncy D. Harris remedied the deficiencies of the former subjective and common-sense-judgement-based classifications. He was able to identify quantitatively dominant function out of multifunctional character of cities. He used employment as well as occupational figures reduced to percentages to indicate cut-off points for urban activities varying in importance.
His classification is based on the fact that some activity-groups employ many more persons than others do. For example, USA’s 27 per cent employed persons of the total urban employment are in manufacturing, while wholesale trade has about 4 per cent. Thus, it is obvious that some functions should be assigned higher percentages than others. From analyzes, he was able to set up limits for each of his types as shown in the Table
Howard Nelson’s Classification:
Nelson further removed the shortcomings of the classifications of those of Harris and others by using a stated procedure that could be objectively checked by other workers. He decided to base his method of classification entirely upon major industry groups as listed in the 1950 Census of Population for standard metropolitan areas, urbanized areas and urban places of 10,000 or more population. He omitted the little significance groups like agriculture and construction, and finally, arrived at the nine activity groups.
The problem of city specialization, and also the degree of specialization above the average was solved by giving margins of different degree to different size classes. He did find a definite tendency for the percentages employed in some activities vary with city size. The question – ‘When is a city specialized?’ was solved by using a statistical technique – the Standard Deviation (SD).
Table 9.2 indicates averages and SD in percentages for selected nine activity groups (1950) as developed by Nelson.
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