Country reports, with reference to selected countries from all the continents.

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.

This double-volume work focuses on socio-demographics and the use of such data to support strategic resource management and planning initiatives. Papers go beyond explanations of methods, technique and traditional applications to explore new intersections in the dynamic relationship between the utilization and management of resources, and urban development. International authors explore numerous experiences, characteristics of development and decision-making influences from across Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as recounting examples from America and Africa. Papers propound techniques and methods used in geographical research such as support vector machines, socio-economic correlates and travel behaviour analysis. In this volume the contributors examine cutting-edge theories explaining diversity and dynamics in urban development. Topics covered include human vulnerability to hazards, space and urban problematic, assessment and evaluation of regional urban systems and structures and urban transformations as a result of structural change, economic development and underdevelopment. The significance of these topics lie in the pace and volume of change as is happening in geography reflecting continued development within established fields of inquiry and the introduction of significantly new approaches during the last decade. Readers are invited to consider the dynamics of spatial expansion of urban areas and economic development, and to explore conceptual discussion of the innovations in and challenges on urbanization processes, urban spaces themselves and both resource management and environmental management. Together, the two volumes contribute to the interdisciplinary literature on regional resources and urban development by collating recent research with geography at its core. Scholars of urban geography, human geography, urbanism and sustainable development will be particularly interested in this book.