Exclusionary Growth, Poverty and India’s Emerging Urban Structure

Abstract

This study argues that India's urban growth is more sluggish than most observers believe and that the developed states and large cities are receiving most of that growth, while backward areas and smaller towns are tending to stagnate. Although adult male migration is considered as an effective mechanism for improving economic well-being and escaping poverty, their net migration into urban areas has not gone up over the past five decades. A slow and topheavy pattern of Indian urbanisation is contributing to persistent inequalities. More importantly, the recent moves for empowerment of local bodies through a new system of urban governance have also contributed to increased spatial inequality. Obvious responses would be more inclusive population policies in the successful and large urban centres or, alternatively, more support for economic growth in smaller urban centres. The first is likely to face political obstacles, as urban elites and the middle class do not want to accommodate a large influx of low-income migrants. The second is also likely to face economic obstacles, as it can be difficult to find good public investment opportunities in smaller urban centres. However, without urban growth, the pursuit of both economic growth and equality will eventually be compromised.

Counter–Urbanisation as the Growth of Small Towns: Is the Capital Region of India Prepared?

“…The declining population growth in large cities is in conformity with Kundu’s () sluggish urbanisation thesis, which postulates the slow growth of large cities. Kundu () claims that exclusionary urbanisation (with regard to the poor) is responsible for sluggish urban growth.…”

“…The higher rates of literacy and non‐agricultural activities in small towns indicate that rural agricultural activities have been replaced by non‐agricultural urban activities in small towns. According to Kundu (), this graduation from rural to urban is desirable for India.…”

“…Most of this classification was associated with small towns, which function as service centres and offer employment opportunities to surrounding villages (Bhagat ; Pradhan ; Mukhopadhyay et al ; Jain ). On the other hand, large cities experienced sluggish growth due to the low birth rates among affluent people and the exclusionary nature of cities (Kundu ). The latter is a result of government reforms aimed at attracting private capital from national and international sources, which have increased opportunities for relatively skilled and affluent people, but have made cities less hospitable and accommodating for the poor.…”

“…Some authors argue that there is a need to strengthen India’s distributed urbanisation (i.e. distribution of different sized towns) with a special focus on small towns (MGI ), especially by rural to urban graduation, which is non‐exclusionary (Kundu ).…”

India’s Emergent Urban Formations

“…The inner areas of these agglomerations have been particularly affected (Parthasarathy 2011;Kundu and Saraswati 2012). Central districts of Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and other major cities have reported the lowest population growth rates in census history (Kundu 2011), and certain parts of Mumbai and Kolkata have even begun to lose population (Shaw 2015).…”