Metropolitan City Growth and Management in Post-liberalized India

Why Delhi cannot plan its ‘new towns’: The case of solid waste management in Noida

“…Meanwhile, affluent and middle class Delhi residents have eagerly moved to these new towns in an effort to escape congestion within the city, and many multinational firms have chosen to locate in greenfield science parks and office complexes (see Chatterji, 2013;Bhattacharya and Sanyal, 2011;Schindler, 2007;Gururani, 2013). As is the case with many of India's new towns, Delhi's new towns suffer from an infrastructural deficit, although they have attracted more investment than most of their counterparts surrounding other Indian metropolises (Shaw, 2012). One factor inhibiting coordinated development of the Delhi metropolitan area is that its new towns lie across state boundaries.…”

“…The Delhi metropolitan area has attracted significant investment in recent years, which has flowed disproportionately into the satellite cities of Faridabad, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad and Noida (Shaw, 2012). The growth of these cities is encouraged by various municipal and state-level governments, whose regional development plan aims to foster a spatial division of labor in which Delhi becomes a ''world-class'' post-industrial city, surrounded by industrialized nodes along major transportation corridors (Ministry of Urban Development, 2006).…”

India’s Unbalanced Urban Growth: An Appraisal of Trends and Policies

“…The effect of information and communication technologies and their agglomeration economies also promoted the growth of new urban corridors like Ahmedabad-Pune, southern urban triangle of Bengaluru-Chennai-Coimbatore, northern region centered upon Delhi, and new hubs of growth in the south focusing on Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam, and Kochi. The remaining urban centers seem to have been neglected thus creating urban and regional disparities (Shaw, 2012). Hence, the skewed nature of urban development was concentrated in a few parts of the country and the IDSMT scheme that was launched mainly for balanced urban regional development never materialized.…”

“…Subsequently, the Mahanalobis model was adopted which was based on the assumptions of a closed economy and stringent regulation of private and foreign companies and this economic model continued until the early 1990s (Becker, Williamson & Mills, 1992). During this period, the economic growth rate of urban centers was slow and investing in urban areas was considered a herculean task due to large unemployment, in-migration to cities, and deteriorating or inadequate urban infrastructure (Batra, 2012;Shaw, 2012).…”

“…These disparities are often exacerbated as high -income states grow faster (Chakraborty, 2012). It has also been found that the new urban corridors and clusters are mainly concentrated around major cities such as Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Pune (Shaw, 2012). Rapid increase in the number and share of small and intermediate towns along such corridors during the last decade with their weak governance and economic bases has become a major concern.…”