Urban Development: Issues, Challenges and Policy Responses | UGC NET Economics – Notes

Introduction

• Cities around the world are playing an ever increasing role in creating wealth, enhancing social development, attracting investment and harnessing both human and technical resources for achieving unprecedented gains in productivity and competitiveness. At the same time, cities play a critical role in driving the transition to sustainable development and promise better access to improved social amenities (health, education, culture and recreation among others) and a range of civic services (water, power, sewerage, sanitation, roads and transportation etc.) to upgrade the quality of life of inhabitants.

• As countries develop, cities and urban settlements account for a larger share of the national income and often generate a disproportionate share of gross domestic product (GDP) and provide huge opportunities for investment and employment.

• However in reality, cities, particularly in developing countries, are often plagued with severe shortcomings. Displaying a differentiated pattern, they contain centres of affluence as well as concentrations of abject poverty and neglect.

• While they offer some of the best social services (including world class education and health facilities), cities are also host to a great many social ills – chronic poverty, poor sanitation, crime, environmental pollution and social unrest.

India’s Urbanisation: Basic Features and Pattern

• Although India is less urbanized compared to many Asian countries including China, Indonesia and South Korea, nevertheless with nearly a third of the population – in absolute numbers about 286 million urban inhabitants in 2001 – India had the second largest urban population in the world, next only to China.

• Given current trends in population growth and migration, estimates of the United Nations indicate that India is witnessing an ‘urban explosion’ with India’s urban population likely to reach 575 million by 2030 (40.90 percent of total population).

• The importance of India’s urban sector is indisputable. The urban sector’s contribution to India’s net domestic product is estimated at between 50–52%, while at the same time, 64.7% of employment in trade, commerce, and financial services; 65% in manufacturing; and 68% in the transport sector are concentrated in urban areas.

• Basic feature of urbanization in India can be highlighted as:

  • 1) Skewed and lopsided urbanization.

  • 2) Urbanisation occurs without industrialization and strong economic base.

  • 3) Urbanisation is mainly a product of demographic explosion and poverty induced rural-urban migration.

  • 4) Rapid urbanization leads to massive growth of slum followed by misery, poverty, unemployment, exploitation, inequalities, degradation in the quality of urban life.

  • 5) Poor quality of rural-urban migration leads to poor quality of urbanization.

• The pattern of urbanization in India is characterized by continuous concentration of population and activities in large cities. Urbanisation process is not mainly “migration lead” but a product of demographic explosion due to natural increase.

• India’s urbanization is followed by some basic problems in the field of:

  1. housing.

  2. slums.

  3. transport.

  4. water supply and sanitation.

  5. water pollution and air pollution.

  6. inadequate provision for social infrastructure (school, hospital, etc.).

• Indian urbanization is involuted not evoluted. Poverty induced migration occurs due to rural push. Megacities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore grow in urban population not in urban prosperity. Hence it is urbanization without urban functional characteristics.

• These mega cities are subject to increasing slum and inadequate shelter, drinking water, electricity and sanitation. Urbanisation is degenerating social and economic inequalities which warrant social conflicts, crimes and anti-social activities.

• Lopsided and uncontrolled urbanization leads to environmental degradation and degradation in the quality of urban life, i.e. pollution in sound, air, water, created by disposal of hazardous waste.