PROBLEMS OF URBANISATION

PROBLEMS OF URBANISATION

Urban growth may be due to two reasons. (i) Towns form concentrations of population and in each succeeding generation these con­centrations will be prone to out-migration. (ii) Towns constantly increase in population by in-migration-the drift to the towns. The movement of people from rural to urban areas first took place in the now industrialised countries, but at present it is the underdeveloped countries which lead the rates of urban growth. This rapid urban growth in the underdeveloped countries shows some special fea­tures: (i) Rural-urban migration is more important than natural increase as the cause of urban growth. (ii) Rates of natural increase are much higher than what occurred at the peak of.- urban growth in the developed world. (Hi) Industrialisation met the demand for jobs in western Europe and the USA, whe're towns grew as manufacturing centres; but industrial development is unlikely to provide jobs for the majority of people entering Third World cities. People in developing countries have to be content with what livelihood they can get in an 'informal' service sector. (iv) The growth of housing is totally unable to keep pace with demand and people are forced to construct temporary accommodation in slums. (v) The movement of people to the towns is unlikely to slow down in the developing countries, as villages lack in modern amenities and devel­opment.

It may be pointed out, however, that population growth in India, China and Japan may be unevenly distributed, but is more similar to the western pattern, embracing not only the largest cities but also the large and moderate-sized towns. However, in many developing countries, urbanisation means almost exclusive develop­ment of primate cities. A single, uS\lally a capital city, completely dominates the whole country.

Urban growth poses many problems. These may be due to increase in the population or due to the physical expansion of the towns. In many cases the people who come to the towns are unemployed. Standards of housing and health are therefore low. Public services in underde­veloped countries are taxed beyond their powers. A major environmental problem is created by towns growing at the expense of surrounding agricultural land.
The growth of urban population is also on account of natural increase and net migration from rural to urban areas. The sample registration system data suggest that the rate of natural growth changed only marginally in most of the major states during the 1991-2001 decade. This suggests that a slower pace of migration to the urban areas possibly explains the slower overall urban growth. By size and class of towns, slower urban growth is a fairly general phenomenon observed in the big cities as well as the smaller towns.

Nevertheless, there was an increasing concentration of population in the cities (above one lakh population). This does not necessarily imply that the big cities or metropo­lises are growing faster than the small towns. On the contrary, it only suggests that fewer new small towns have sprung up while more of the existing towns have gradu­ated into medium-sized towns and cities. On account of such upward mobility, the number of cities has increased. Their weightage in the country's urban population has also risen accordingly. Under these circumstances, the number of metropolises has also nearly doubled to 27. The new­comers to metropolitan status are Surat, Kochi, Coimbatore, Vadodara, Indore, Patna, Madurai, Bhopal, Visakhapatnam, Varanasi and Ludhiana. The fastest growth rates over the 1981-91 decade were registered by Visakhapatnam, followed by Hyderabad and Ludhiana.

CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS

CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS

Rural - Urban Areas
The Census data on houses, household amenities and assets are presented separately for rural and urban areas. The unit of classification in this regard is 'town' for urban areas and 'village' for rural areas. According to the definition of town by the Census of India 2001, urban area includes:
(a) all places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment
board or notified town area committee, etc.
(b) a place satisfying the following three criteria simul­
taneously:
(i) a minimum population of 5,000;
(ii) at least 75 per cent of male working population
engaged in non-agricultural pursuits; and
(iii) a density of population of at least 400 per sq km
(1,000 per sq. mile).
Apart from these, the outgrowths (OGs) of cities and towns have also been treated as urban under 'Urban Agglom­erations': Examples of OGs are railway colonies, university campuses, port areas, military camps, etc. that may have come up near a statutory town or city but within the revenue limits of a village or villages contiguous to the town or city. Each such individual area by itself may not satisfy the demographic criteria laid down at (b) above to qualify it to be treated as an independent urban unit but may deserve to be clubbed with the towns as a continuous urban spread. Thus, the town level data, wherever presented, also includes the data for OGs of such towns.

City
Towns with population of 1,00,000 and above are called cities.

URBANISATION TRENDS

URBANISATION TRENDS In the Census, an urban area is defined as (a) all places with a municipality, corporation, etc.; and (b) all other places that satisfy the following criteria: (i) minimum population of 5,000, (ii) at least 75 per cent of male working population engaged in non­agricultural pursuits; and (iii) a density of at least 400 persons per sq. km. In 2001, urban population was 27.82 per cent as against 23.34 per cent in 1981 and about 17 per cent in 1951. In absolute terms, this comes to a very large number. From 1961 onwards, the number of towns have increased steadily to more than 5,500 in 2001.

A comparison of the growth trend of urban population and that of towns shows that the population of existing towns has risen significantly, rather than villages having graduated into town status. This stability in structure indicates a resistance to change in the socio-economic structure of the country.
It is in the Class I towns (or cities) that population tends to concentrate, and within cities the maximum concentration of urban population is found in the largest urban centres, especially in the million-plus cities (i.e., cities with population of more than ten lakh each). This is similar to what happens in developed countries. Going by the pattern of urbanisation, the major factor causing accelerated urbanisation is industrialisation.

The higher rate of population growth is in urban areas, and this indicates migration of rural population to urban areas. Class I cities with more than a lakh population accounted for more than 73 per cent of the total urban population mainly because of migration. The non-economic factors could be: seeking an escape from the more rigid
social organisation in rural areas; climatic disasters; modernising impact of radio, television and cinema. But migration is mainly caused by economic factors: seeking work as the subsistence agriculture is not enough to make a living by, and seeking better wages-as urban wages are generally higher compared to rural wages. When some of these people are unable to get absorbed in the urban job sector, they are pushed back towards rural areas, and there is a reverse migration of sorts.
Urban growth has, however, also led to increase in number of urban poor. Population projections postulate that slum growth is expected to surpass the capacity of civic authorities to respond to their health and infrastructure needs.
Migrants to urban areas are generally in the age bracket of 15-24. The young who have spent more years in schools show a greater tendency to migrate to cities. There is also a high percentage of landless unskilled migrants for whom there is hardly any work opportunity in rural areas.

URBAN SETTLEMENT

URBAN SETTLEMENT

As in case of rural settlements, there are different bases of classifying urban settlements, e.g., population size, occupational structure and administration.
SIZE OF POPULATION It is the most important criteria used by almost each country of the world to designate a settlement as urban. However, there are differences among the countries in the exact number that differentiates urban settlements form rural settlement. For example, in Den­mark, Sweden and Finland, all places having more than 250 persons are called urban. In Iceland, Canada, Columbia, Argentina and USA, the minimum size of population for a city is 300,1000,1500,2000 and 2500 persons respectively. In Japan, places having more than 30,000 persons are called urban areas. In India, the lower limit of population for a place to be termed urban is 5,000. In India, besides the size of population, its density is also an additional condition, which is over 400 persons per sq km.

OCCUPATIONAL STRUCTURE Some countries take into account the major economic activities as a criterion for designating a settlement as urban. For example, in Italy, a settlement is urban if more than 50 per cent of its economically productive population are engaged in non­agricultural activities. In India, more than 75 per cent of the work force of the settlement should be engaged in non­agricultural pursuits to be called urban.

ADMINISTRATIVE DECISION The administrative set up is also a criterion for classifying a settlement as urban in some countries. For example, in India, even a settlement with less than 5,000 population is eligible for becoming urban if it has a municipality, cantonment board or a notified area. In Brazil and Bolivia, any administrative centre is called urban irrespective of its size.
GROWTH OF URBANISATION IN INDIA In 1901, only 11% of the total population (2.56 crore) was urbanised. There were 1834 towns and cities. The urban-rural ratio was 1:8.1. By 1951, urban population had grown to 6.16 crore, comprising 17.6% of the total population. Thus, from 1901 to 1951, the growth in urban population was 240%, while that from 1951 to 2001 was about 450°,.{.. The rapid growth in last few decades has been because of rapid industrialisation' and migration to urban areas, 50% of which are from rural areas.

Towns and Cities These are classified in six categories according to their population (see table on growth of urbanisation by class of town). Class-I towns, having a population of 1,00,000 or more, have grown rapidly. There were 24 class I towns in 1901 having a total population of 6.59 million. The number has gone up to over 300 in 2001, accounting for 139.73 million population. The class I towns accounjed for 25.71 per cent of the total urban population, while in 2001, they accounted for 64.89 per cent of the total urban population. Larger towns grow faster because they have the necessary infrastructure for the development of industries.
Smaller towns in classes IV, V and VI, having popu­lation of less than 20,000, are more numerous than towns in classes I, II, and III. But the share of urban population living in towns of smaller size (classes IV, V, and VI) has declined sharply from 47.23 per cent to 10.88 per cent in 1991. The number of towns in classes II and III together declined slightly from 27% to 24.29% during the same period. Thus, we can distinguish three categories of towns according to their growth. While class I towns have shown maximum growth, class II and class III towns have retained their growth rate at the average level. The towns of classes IV, V, and VI have shown a decline in growth rate during the last eighty years.