This work is one of the most comprehensive analyses of the extent, as well as the socio-economic and spatial characteristics, of urbanization in Indian. It assesses the nature of the policies and programs required for urban governance and the development and management of urban areas. The study is very relevant in the current context of economic growth and changing structural patterns of the Indian economy. The conclusion provides strong policy suggestions.

This updated volume with an additional chapter on migration and current urban agenda comprehensively analyses the extent and characteristics of urbanization in India. It assesses the nature of the policies and programmes required for urban governance and the development and management of urban areas.

​This volume decentres the view of urbanisation in India from large agglomerations towards smaller urban settlements. It presents the outcomes of original research conducted over three years on subaltern processes of urbanization. The volume is organised in four sections. A first one deals with urbanisation dynamics and systems of cities with chapters on the new census towns, demographic and economic trajectories of cities and employment transformation. The interrelations of land transformation, social and cultural changes form the topic of the “land, society, belonging” section based on ethnographic work in various parts of India (Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu). A third section focuses on public policies, governance and urban services with a set of macro-analysis based papers and specific case studies. Understanding the nature of production and innovation in non-metropolitan contexts closes this volume. Finally, though focused on India, this research raises larger questions with regard to the study of urbanisation and development worldwide.

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the interactions and feedbacks between urbanization and global environmental change. A key focus is the examination of how urbanization influences global environmental change, and how global environmental change in turn influences urbanization processes. It has four thematic foci: Theme 1 addresses the pathways through which urbanization drives global environmental change. Theme 2 addresses the pathways through which global environmental change affects the urban system. Theme 3 addresses the interactions and responses within the urban system in response to global environmental change. Theme 4 centers on critical emerging research.

This substantive and original contribution to the study of urbanization in India critically analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the Indian urban system and provides new insights into contemporary urban problems. The author's perspective of urban development in India interrelates the geographical dimension with historical and socio-economic aspects. The book focuses on the processes of urbanization and the nature of interdependence among urban centres and between urban centres and their hinterlands. The approach is at the macro level. The first chapter provides an overview of studies of urbanization in India, and a detailed chapter on the history of urbanization follows. These provide the necessary background to the chapter on urbanization processes. The locational aspects of urbanization are covered in the next five chapters which discuss the problem of defining an urban place, spatial patterns of urbanization, classification of cities, theories of settlement location and the analysis of settlement systems. The relationships between a city and its surrounding area are then studied at two levels - the larger area of city dominance and the city fringe area. Finally, the author examines the fundamental issues involved in framing a national urbanization policy, and expresses the hope that the development of smaller cities and towns may provide some relief from the problems of overcrowding and unplanned growth.

Looking at patterns of urbanization in India, this book analyses the inequalities between metros and non-metros with regard to poverty, employment, education levels, and services over the last 25 years. It develops a disaggregated database for urban areas, which will be useful for economic analysis and urban policymaking.

This volume brings together papers by well-known scholars that look at various aspects of the urbanization phenomenon in India, including the folk-urban continuum, social stratification, neighbourhood and family, and slum-dwellers and migrants./-//-/This book is one of the Indian Sociological Society: Golden Jubilee Volumes.