Convenor
Sumita Chaudhuri
Commission on Urban Anthropology, IUAES
Abstract
The study of urban growth by size class of towns would help us to understand the nature of urban development in a country. Differential growth rates indicate the extent of rural to urban migration and the changes in the structure of city sizes. The slow growth of small towns and stagnation, decay and declassification of several such towns in a period of rapid urbanization in India is a phenomenon which has not received much attention. The slow growth, stagnation or decay of a large number of small towns is a phenomenon which must be studied historically. The stagnation of small towns and growth of mega cities in the era of planned industrialization and urbanization deserves serious attention from demographers, planners and policy makers.
In 20th Century, urban agglomerations and cities in India have grown faster than the smaller towns and rural areas. Industrialization of cities on large scale due to availability of necessary infrastructure attracted manpower from other small towns and rural areas to the metro and mega cities in India. While jobs were created in cities due to expansion of industries, a part of the demand for additional labour in such expanded or newly established industries particularly in big cities was met from within urban areas. However, supply of additional labour force from within urban areas was inadequate. Therefore, a large portion of working population from rural areas and small towns migrated to cities in search of jobs. The fast growth of mega cities and decline of small towns can be explained in the following way:
(1) the process of urbanization is essentially a city ward migration
(2) the small towns are sending out the people to bigger towns and cities for employment
opportunities
(3) the stagnation of small towns may be linked up with the traditional industries. It is to be seen whether the traditional industries as are not much viable from the point of view of economic opportunities, there is decline in the context of globalization process
(4) in the globalised world, the small towns have failed to develop planned economic development or to receive the adequate attention from planners in spite of the professed objectives of decentralization of industries. This type of migration of population noted not only in India but in many other countries is a major challenge to urban planning and proper urban development and can be examined with cross-cultural data in this panel