Mapping India's Urbanization

Book excerpt: India’s urbanization differs markedly from that of the more developed regions.While urban growth in the more developed regions is slowing down, India’surbanization is moving with a speedy pace. India has been facing a serious problemof the rapid rise of population since the last seven decades. The huge size of urbanpopulation population has reached nearly 400 million now, while until the nineteenthcentury no developed country had a population of more than 100 million. Only a few metropolises dominate the remainder of the country so excessivelythat they prevent other parts from developing, causing increasing regionalimbalance. The rapidly increasing population requires a commensurate increasein the number of jobs in urban areas, if this population is not to starve or bereduced to total dependence. The expansion in the industrial sector of the economyhas lagged far behind the population growth. This has resulted in increasingunemployment, slums, deterioration in urban living, crime, political tension, povertyand similar other problems. It appears that India is likely to confront still greaterurban problems in future. With the hasty rise of population the quality of life inbig cities has deteriorated quite significant.