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Spatial Diversity and Dynamics in Resources and Urban Development pp 39–65Cite as

Recent Studies in Regional Urban Systems in India: Trends, Patterns and Implications

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Abstract

An urban system is defined as a network of towns, cities and its hinterland characterized by exchange and interdependence. These cities and towns are arranged in a hierarchical settlement pattern within the development continuum in which people, goods, services and capital flow in the city system hierarchy. A national urban system comprises regional urban systems (RUSs) which is dominated by a large urban area. The Indian RUS can be delineated into four broad macro-regional urban systems: Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, and Mumbai. Given this background this chapter addresses three questions: (1) What are the broad trends of RUSs research in India? (2) What insights have the various conceptual approaches provided to the understanding of Indian regional urbanization? (3) Is there a new approach that can manifest an alternative insight to Indian RUS? Four observations can be made: (1) Indian cities have grown rapidly followed by polarization reversal, (2) hierarchic studies have sparked an interest in regional service development planning utilizing location-allocation models (3) Indian urbanization is characterized by a lack of national primacy but the presence of state primacy and regional rank-size tendency, and (4) complexity approach is a novel approach to model macro-behavior such as city development or urban sprawl using micro-motives or local interaction such as land use changes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Zipf (1949) postulated the mathematical formulation between size and number of settlements. This relationship can be expressed as: \( \left({P}_r={P}_{1/{r}^q}\right) \) where P r is the population of the ranking city P 1 is the population of the 1st ranking city, r is the rank of the city and q is an exponent which can assume any value. Its value is assumed to be equivalent to 1 implying equality between the forces of diversification and unification. If the value of q is within 0–1 then the decline of population with rank is gradual. Further, if the value of q is larger than 1 there is rapid decline in size of settlements with its rank.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business Administration, California State University, Sacramento, CA, USA

    Sudhir K. Thakur

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  1. Sudhir K. Thakur
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Correspondence to Sudhir K. Thakur .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Planning, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, USA

    Ashok K. Dutt

  2. Department of Geography and Planning, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, USA

    Allen G. Noble

  3. Department of Geography and Planning, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, USA

    Frank J. Costa

  4. Department of Geosciences, Missouri State University, West Plains, Missouri, USA

    Rajiv R. Thakur

  5. College of Business Administration, California State University, Sacramento, California, USA

    Sudhir K. Thakur

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Thakur, S.K. (2016). Recent Studies in Regional Urban Systems in India: Trends, Patterns and Implications. In: Dutt, A., Noble, A., Costa, F., Thakur, R., Thakur, S. (eds) Spatial Diversity and Dynamics in Resources and Urban Development. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9786-3_3

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