Also: urbanization, urban growth, smart cities, census towns, urban local bodies
Definition
The increase in the share of a country's population living in towns and cities, driven by natural growth, migration from villages and the reclassification of rural areas as urban, along with the economic and social changes that come with it.
Deep-dive lesson:Women, Urbanisation and Globalisation. This page is a quick reference that connects the term across subjects; read the lesson for the full treatment.
Urban life in the Indian subcontinent is ancient, from the planned Harappan cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa to the cities of the Mahajanapadas, medieval capitals and port towns. Colonial rule reshaped urban patterns by developing port cities such as Bombay, Calcutta and Madras as centres of trade and administration, along with hill stations and cantonments, while some older manufacturing towns declined. After independence, planned cities such as Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar and Gandhinagar were built, and industrial towns grew around steel plants and public sector units.
India's urbanisation has been relatively slow compared with many countries, rising from about 17% urban in 1951 to about 31% in 2011. Many scholars argue the official figure understates reality, because many large villages have urban characteristics but are not notified as towns. The Census therefore counts statutory towns, which have a municipal body, and census towns, which meet demographic criteria but are governed as villages. The number of census towns rose sharply between 2001 and 2011, showing a kind of "subaltern urbanisation" outside large cities.
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