UNIT - 1

Urbanization as a process
• Urbanization involves much more than a mere increase in the number of people living and
working in cities and metropolitan regions.

• It is also modified by locally and historically contingent factors such as topography and
natural resources

• At the same time, urbanization results in some important changes in the character and
dynamics of the urban system (the complete set of urban areas regionally, nationally, or
even internationally), and within cities and metropolitan regions, it causes changes in
patterns of land use, in social ecology (the social and demographic composition of
neighborhoods), in the built environment, and in the nature of urbanism (the forms of
social interaction and ways of life that develop in urban settings).
• Urbanisation is one of the important emerging realities of recent decades in
India.

• Consisting of 7933 urban settlements of different population sizes and a

population of 377 million, India has the second largest urban system in the
world.

• India’s urbanisation has been described in multiple ways – rapid, moderate,

slow, hidden and messy.
 Measuring Urban transition
• Absolute increase in urban population

• Percent growth rate of urban population

• Level of urbanisation (percentage of population that lives in settlements designated as

urban)

• Percentage growth rate of urban share of population

• There is often confusion between overall urban population growth and the growth rate of
the share of urban population

• Urban growth is the rate of change in the urban population; the rate of change in the
proportion of population that is urban, measures how fast a country is transitioning from
rural to urban.
• India’s urban transition has passed through phases, where it accelerated
under conditions of low economic growth, and moderated under conditions
of high economic performance.

• Transition shows itself not just in the scale of urban population growth and
rising shares – it has involved sharp increase in the number and population
of cities and towns across city sizes.
• Sociologists define urbanization as the movement of people from villages to town/city
where economic activities are centered around non-agricultural occupations such as trade,
manufacturing industry and management.

• Broadly speaking, in order to explain the process of urbanization we can discuss the
following three aspects:
1. The demographic and spatial aspects
2. Economic aspects and
3. Socio-cultural aspects
• The early growth of cities and the development of urban areas in undivided India, one can trace
their beginnings to about 5,500 years backwards.

• Around 2500 B.C. the cities of Mohenjodaro and Harappa (since 1947 in Pakistan) were
established in the valley of Indus river.

• Archaeologists and historians have pointed out that around 2000 B.C. urbanization in the Harappan
culture exhibited signs of high development in brick technology, geometry, agriculture and
irrigation practices.

• Another important phase of urbanization is said to have begun somewhere around 600 B.C. in
India culminating in the formation of early historical cities.
• During the ancient and medieval periods of Indian history, the kings established
various capital regions which developed into towns.

• For example:
1. Pataliputra (now Patna) developed as town
2. Vaishali developed as town during the Magadh rule around 300 BC.
3. Kanauj was the capital town of Harshavardhana in Uttar Pradesh in 700 AD.
4. Mohammad Tughlaq is noted for shifting his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad
(Devagiri) in the southern region in1300 AD
 Classification of traditional towns
• The Vastu sastra (Treatise on Classical Indian Architecture) has differentiated between several
kinds of towns based on their functional specificity such as trade, commerce, manufacturing,
administration and military marches.

1. Trading and Manufacturing Towns: Places termed as nagar, pattana, nigama etc. belonged to
this category.
Nagar - was an ordinary fortified town with inland trade as an important activity.
Pattana - was a large commercial port situated on the bank of a river or sea.
Nigama - was a market town consisting of the artisans and also serving as a resting place for
“traders and caravans”.
2. Political or Military Town:
Rajdhani - was a distinctively planned political town. It was the royal capital.
Durga - was a fortified town equipped with an arsenal and well - stored with food stuffs.
Senamukha - are also the fortified towns of varied locations and importance.

3. Educational or Pilgrim and Temple Towns:

Matha and Vihara - were the towns based on educational and religious activities.
A classic example of this was Nalanda.
Again, there were temple towns like Dwaraka, Tirupati, Puri etc. and pilgrim centres like
Haridwar, Gaya etc.
 Features of Urbanisation in Ancient and Medieval India

• The process of urbanization in various periods of Indian history had distinctive spatial, economic,
religious, socio-cultural, political features. These features are described here under three broad
headings.

1. Political, Demographic and Spatial Factors

2. Economic factors
3. Religious and socio-cultural
 New features of urbanization in the early colonial period

• Cities grew up in the coastal areas as ports-cum-trading centers. In the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries European trading ports were established initially for trading purposes.

• We find the emergence of new economic and political institutions, new modes of communication
such as telegraph, railways, advanced system of roads and waterways.

• The process of urbanization became smooth and widened the structure of economic opportunity
and widened the social horizons of people.
• The late nineteenth century, however, witnessed a large-scale migration of the rural labour force
especially from Bihar and eastern United Provinces towards the jute mills of Calcutta and other
industrial destinations.

• With the spread of education, the institutional arrangements of the urban centers also changed. The
educated people joined the bureaucracy, and also took up jobs as teachers, journalists, lawyers and
so on.

• The urban centers gradually grew up to be the centers of new social and political ideas, diverse
economic activities and of heterogeneous populations.

• The new process of urbanization presented various economic opportunities and scope for
occupational and social mobility.
 Patterns of urbanization
• The modern urban centers perform diversified functions in terms of economic, administrative,
political, cultural and so on.

• Generally, people classify urban areas on the basis of some prominent socio-economic and political
features.

• For example – Historical cities

- Industrial cities
- Religious cities
- Cities reputed for film making
 Definition of town or city
• In India, the demographic and economic indexes are important in defining specific areas as town or
city.

• The following definition of town adopted in 1901 census was used until 1961.
a) Every municipality, cantonment and all civil lines (not included in a municipality), and
b) Every other continuous collection of houses permanently inhabited by not less than 5,000
persons, which the provincial superintendent of census may decide to treat as a town.
• In 1961 the ‘urban area’ was redefined taking into account the economic characteristics in addition to other
administrative and demographic features.

a) a place which is either a municipal corporation or a municipal area, or under a town committee or a notified
area committee or cantonment board, or

b) any place which satisfies the following criteria of:

i. a minimum of 5,000 persons
ii. at least 75 percent of the working occupations are non-agricultural
iii. a density of not less than 1,000 persons per square mile, and
iv. a place should have certain pronounced urban characteristics and amenities such as newly found
industrial areas, large housing settlements, places of tourist importance and civic amenities
• At the 1961 census, the concept of ‘town group’ was adopted to obtain a broad picture relating to
urban spread.

• This was refined in 1971 with the concept of urban agglomeration to obtain better feed back in
regard to urban continuity, process and trends of urbanization and other related matters.

• This concept without any change or modification has remained operative till 2001 census.

• An urban agglomeration forms a continuous urban spread and normally consists of a town and its
adjoining urban outgrowth or two or more physically contiguous towns together with contiguous
and well organized outgrowths, if any, of such town. (Census Report 2001)
 Classification of cities

Class Range of population

Class I 1,00,000 and more population

Class II 50,000 – 99,999 population

Class III 20,000 – 49,999 population

Class IV 10,000 – 19,999 population

Class V 5000 – 9000 population

Class VI < 5000 population

• In India, urban places with less than 1,00,000 population are referred to as “towns”,

• While urban places with 1,00,000 or more population are referred to as “cities”.

• Urban centers with more than one million population are categorized as metropolitan cities.

• The metropolitan centers are a class by themselves characterized by large-scale consumption, and
large quantum of inflow of people, goods, services and information.
• The current population of India is 1,434,626,288 as of Saturday, December 16, 2023.

• India 2023 population is estimated at 1,428,627,663 people at mid year.

• India population is equivalent to 17.76% of the total world population.

• India ranks number 1 in the list of countries (and dependencies) by population.

• The population density in India is 481 per Km2 (1,244 people per mi2).

• The total land area is 2,973,190 Km2 (1,147,955 sq. miles)

• 36.3 % of the population is urban (518,239,122 people in 2023)

• The median age in India is 28.2 years.

 Population of India (2023 and historical)
Country's
Yearly % Density Urban Urban Share of India
Year Population Change (P/Km²) Pop % Population World Pop World Population Global Rank
2023 1,428,627,663 0.81 % 481 36.3 % 518,239,122 17.76 % 8,045,311,447 1
2022 1,417,173,173 0.68 % 477 35.7 % 506,304,869 17.77 % 7,975,105,156 2
2020 1,396,387,127 0.96 % 470 34.6 % 483,098,640 17.81 % 7,840,952,880 2
2015 1,322,866,505 1.29 % 445 32.4 % 429,069,459 17.81 % 7,426,597,537 2
2010 1,240,613,620 1.45 % 417 30.7 % 380,744,554 17.76 % 6,985,603,105 2
2005 1,154,638,713 1.73 % 388 29.0 % 334,479,406 17.61 % 6,558,176,119 2
2000 1,059,633,675 1.90 % 356 27.5 % 291,350,282 17.23 % 6,148,898,975 2
1995 964,279,129 2.07 % 324 26.5 % 255,558,824 16.79 % 5,743,219,454 2
1990 870,452,165 2.21 % 293 25.5 % 222,296,728 16.37 % 5,316,175,862 2
1985 780,242,084 2.29 % 262 24.4 % 190,321,782 16.05 % 4,861,730,613 2
1980 696,828,385 2.25 % 234 23.1 % 160,941,941 15.68 % 4,444,007,706 2
1975 623,524,219 2.26 % 210 21.3 % 132,533,810 15.32 % 4,069,437,231 2
1970 557,501,301 2.20 % 188 19.6 % 109,388,950 15.09 % 3,695,390,336 2
1965 500,114,346 2.32 % 168 18.7 % 93,493,844 14.99 % 3,337,111,983 2
1960 445,954,579 2.27 % 150 18.1 % 80,565,723 14.77 % 3,019,233,434 2
1955 398,577,992 2.23 % 134 18.1 % 71,958,495 14.51 % 2,746,072,141 2
 Urban Life
• Most Indian cities are very densely populated.

• Congestion, noise, traffic jams, air pollution, and major shortages of key necessities characterize urban life.

• Every major city of India faces the same proliferating problems of grossly inadequate housing, transportation,
sewerage, electric power, water supplies, schools, and hospitals. Slums and jumbles of pavement dwellers'
lean-tos constantly multiply.

• An increasing number of trucks, buses, cars, three-wheel autorickshaws, motorcycles, and motor scooters, all
spewing uncontrolled fumes, surge in sometimes haphazard patterns over city streets jammed with jaywalking
pedestrians, cattle, and goats.

• Accident rates are high.

• Less spectacularly, on a daily basis, uncontrolled pollutants from factories all over India damage the urban
environments in which millions live.
 Urban Spaces

• Urban space is a dynamic system influenced by many factors. It refers to the physical environment
of a city, including its streets, squares, parks, and other public areas.

• Urban public space is an essential element of the urban environment that contributes to the quality
of urban life, providing places of meeting, use, conviviality, and social cohesion.

• Urban open spaces, such as squares, are important "public spaces" that are used for cultural, social,
commercial, or political purposes and contribute to the life of the city.

• Public spaces are useful in successful regeneration policies for creating sustainable communities.

• Green urban spaces provide the breathing places for fresh air to its residents in addition to their
social and aesthetic value.
 Public Space
• Public places are the urban stages where these interactions happen. As for meaning of public space
it can be looked into from a multidisciplinary perspective as given below:
• Public space is a space open to all owned by all and used by all members of the public.

• Different public spaces are defined in relation to the political, social, economic and environmental
background of a certain society at a certain point in time.

• However there are certain general traits that characterize all public places as there are universal
traits that characterize humans. These traits are:
1. Ownership
2. Use
3. Civility
4. Control
5. Physical Design
 Types of urban public places
• Urban public spaces are a crucial issue in social, environmental and economic development.

• User friendliness promotes the use of public spaces and therefore the encounters and exchanges
can occur there. So public spaces contribute to the construction of social equity, they are
comfortable and improve the habitability of cities.

• Types of public spaces include

1. Street (street, avenue, boulevard, roadway, quay etc.)
2. Place (place, square, and so on)
3. Parks ( park, public garden, cemetery, etc.)
 Functions and importance of urban spaces

• Public spaces have a wide variety of functions. Successful public spaces are inclusive, provide
opportunities for social interactions and give users ability to shape what happens there.

• The functions can broadly classified into four categories as given below:
• Common benefits
• Ecological benefits
• Social benefits
• Social interactions
 Common benefits of urban public spaces

1. Recreational
2. Reading
3. Walking
4. Playing
5. Contemplate
6. Restoration to well being
7. Environmental Teaching Space
8. Aesthetics
9. Economic benefits
10. Helps in displaying public art
 Ecological benefits of urban public spaces
1. Green urban public spaces provide a habitat for a variety of birds, fish, animals, insects and other
organisms.

2. Provide corridors and greenways to link habitats

3. Prevent soil erosion

4. Plants in the urban parks help in reducing heat

5. Green urban spaces can also reduce noise pollution

6. Finally green urban public spaces and their inhabitants are good indicators of overall ecological health
of the ecosystem. This is an important measure in judging the ecological sustainability of the
community.
 Social benefits of urban public spaces

1. Fosters community relationships.

2. Helps in the process of socialization by encouraging community relationships.

3. Helps in bringing different people closer and thus helps in developing tolerance.

4. To young people and marginalized group it gives a sense of territorial ownership.

 Social Interactions in Urban Public Spaces

• How do people of different ages, gender, culture and status really interact within public spaces?

• Do different types of space encourage a variety of interactions?

• How do the seasons, day of the week and time of day affect their use?
 Origin of cities and its characteristics
Ancient Cities
• The nature of the city was largely dependent on the causes of its development.

• First of all, most of the cities were ruling centers and hence the cities were army oriented. If there was any trade
practiced, it was to serve the large standing armies by meeting the needs of the army and the state.

• The main responsibility of the social authority was the construction of the walls and buildings and the organization
of the army.

• Favorable climatic conditions were the important reason for the growth of these cities.

• They were the main education centers and the places of learning.

• In India there are approximately 45 towns and cities which have been classified as ancient cities and they have a
historical past. One thing remarkable about these historical cities is that they have a religious and cultural
background.
Medieval Cities
• Medieval cities were basically trade centers and mainly served the interest of the trading
communities like merchants and rich businessmen.

• Its population was well defined and, consisted of trading people and their dependents and
ancillaries.

• The medieval towns and cities were largely dependent on the rural areas for their different needs
and purposes. The political structures of these cities and towns were autocratic in nature.

• During this period the local ruler, who himself was a major landowner, tended to invite merchants,
artisans, administrators, and professionals to settle in his fortress headquarter towns.

• These tradesmen and professionals were landless and dependent on the ruler for protection.

• The towns and cities during this period constituted hinges linking vertically the lower levels of the
settlement hierarchy with the higher ones.
 Growth of Cities
• According to Adna Weber, concentration of people into cities was a product of the economic
forces which were becoming significant with the industrial revolution, which introduced changes
such as steam power, mechanization, and trade and commerce etc.

The political causes of the emergence of cities were as follows:

1. Legislation on promoting freedom of trade.

2. Legislation promoting freedom of migration.

3. Centralized administration with its location of persons in civic centers.

4. Free forms of land tenure politically defended in the city.

The social causes were as follows:

1. Education

2. Amusements

3. Higher standards of living

4. Attraction of intellectual association

5. Habituation of an urban environment

6. Diffusion of knowledge of the values of city life

• Some essential conditions and requirements gave rise to towns and cities in India.

1. The availability of water.

2. The place must offer good possibilities of defense.

3. The essential condition was the easy supply of foodstuffs.

4. Communication lines were also a factor determining the fortune of the city.
 Characteristics of Cities
1. Social Heterogeneity
2. Individuality
3. Unbalanced Personality
4. Moral laxity
5. Social mobility
6. Secondary control
7. Voluntary Associations
8. Lack of community feeling
9. Lack of family unity
10. Social disorganization
11. Artificial life
 Process of urbanization
• Theoretically several models have tried to explain the stages of urban growth (Das and Bhusan,
2014).

• The classic structural change model of Chenery and Syrquin (1979) identified characteristic
features of the development process, such as the shift from agricultural (primary) to industrial
(secondary) production.

• Northam (1979) identified characteristic phases of urbanization on the basis of logistic patterns in
urban growth.

• On the other hand, some models have even tried to phase out urban growth on the basis of GDP
per capita, industrial structure (the proportion of the economy devoted to primary, secondary,
or tertiary industry), employment structure (the proportion of jobs associated with each industrial
sector) and level of urbanization (the proportion of non-farm population in cities) as indicators of
the stage of city development (Wang, Liu, Peng, Chen, Driskell, Zheng, 2011).
• Klassen et.al (1981) and van den Breg (1982) have employed the concept of cyclic urbanization
within individual urban agglomerations and have identified four major stages in which they grow.
The stages may be summed up as

a) Urbanization - certain settlement grow and expand at the cost of their surrounding
countryside.

b) Suburbanization or ex-urbanization - experiences the growth of the peripheral ones of

urban settlements at a higher rate in comparison to the core.

c) Dis-urbanization or counter urbanization - the core experiences a loss of urban

population which far exceeds the rate of population gain at the peripheries resulting in the
overall loss of the urban settlement in terms of population numbers.

d) Re-urbanization - the core starts gaining population where as the ring keeps on loosing
population.
• Geyer and Kontuly (1993) postulated the phases of urban growth in their theory of Generalized
Stages of Differential Urbanization. They identified that the cities grow through the following
stages of

a) Primate city phase - population growth and economic activities are concentrated in the rapidly
growing primate cities. The cities slowly attain their multimodal character through the stages of
early primate city, intermediate primate city phase and advanced primate city phase.

b) Intermediate city phase - is characterized by the slowing down of the growth rate of the primate
city and spatial de-concentration. This phase experiences the growth of intermediate sized cities in
close proximity to the primate city.

c) Small city phase - sees the growth of small urban centers which grow at a much faster rate in
comparison to the primate city and the intermediate cities.
 Kingsley Davis Model on Stages of urbanization
• According to K.Davis the whole process of urbanization is divided into three stages
1. Initial or Beginning stage
2. Acceleration or Movement stage
3. Last or Final stage

• The urbanization curve is a graphical representation of the relationship between the level of
urbanization and economic development.

• It shows how the percentage of people living in urban areas changes as a country’s economy
grows.
Initial Stage
• The percentage of the population living in urban areas is low, usually below 20%.
• This is typical of developing countries, where agriculture is the dominant economic activity, and
the majority of the population lives in rural areas.

Acceleration stage
• It is the rapid urbanization stage, where the percentage of the population living in urban areas increases
rapidly, usually between 20% and 60%.
• This stage is associated with economic growth and structural transformation, as people move from
agriculture to other sectors such as manufacturing and services.

Last stage
• It is the mature urbanization stage, where the percentage of the population living in urban areas levels
off, usually at around 80%.
• This stage is characterized by a slower rate of urbanization, as most of the population has already moved
to urban areas, and the urbanization process is mainly driven by natural increase rather than rural-urban
migration.