Cities of Urban India

Urbanization In India “Today, 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% by 2050.”- United Nation. Urbanization is a dynamic process with a highly irreversible form of land transformation occurring globally. The focus of this research is to understand the urban morphology of the selected cities of India. India is a country with 1.3 billion population and out of which 35% of the population is dwelling in urban areas. From the last 30 years, unpredictable urbanization is occurring in India.

With having a unique socio-economic context, India has a dynamic urban growth pattern and rate. History of urbanization in India started as far as back about five thousand years with the Indus Valley civilization. Indus Valley civilization had adopted very strategic urban planning policies with the many well planned, beautiful, and big cities. But as with moving forward, these planning schemes started to change with the circumstances. The urban tradition of the various cities was the result of the cultural, political, Industrial, and socio-economic phenomenon. In ancient times, urban planning strategies rose on the bases of the cultural phenomenon. But right after, it became a political agenda due to the rise and fall of many dynasties and kingdoms. But today, with the status of the developing country, major urbanization is happening due to industrialization and socio-economic phenomena in the Indian cities.

“Urbanization is a Progressive concentration of population in the urban unit”-Kingsley Davis. In developing countries, the rate and pattern of urbanization are still unfolding. So, the urbanization depends on the Economic, Demographic, Political, and Social-Cultural factors. Additionally, the morphology of the cities helps us understand the impact of these factors at that time in history. As growth is most prominent in the large cities of the Indian subcontinent, here, I have chosen four megacities Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, and one upcoming megacity Ahmedabad for the study of urban morphology. With the urbanization, cities tend to expand their boundaries beyond the core and the immediate suburban areas. With time, these expanding suburban and peri-urban areas require unique urban policies, which cannot be managed by the local government. The dissimilarities in political boundaries and urbanized areas become the cause of the different urban morphology. Here, I have studied the core and the immediate suburb of the chosen five cities to understand how the urban pattern is modifying, under the changing policies, governance, and rising requirements of that time.