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India’s Reluctant Urbanization: Setting the Stage

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India’s Reluctant Urbanization

Abstract

India has been reluctantly urbanizing. The caricature of “urban” in India today is mired in numerous contradictions — both physical and visual — to coalesce in a “landscape of pluralism” (Mehrotra, 2008). Urban migration has added 20 million to cities during the last decade but the charm of big cities is fading away (Pradhan, 2013). This is when only 31 per cent of the country is urbanized, far below other developing countries like China (50.6 per cent). There have been concerted efforts from state and central government to mainstream slums and informal sectors in urban India. Yet there are attempts to clean up Indian cities by ridding streets and public lands of squatters and slums and reclaiming public spaces for the use of “proper citizens”. Even as these public spaces are reclaimed for general use, there is still a proliferation of segregated and protected spaces for elite consumption (Chatterjee, 2004).

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Authors
  1. Piyush Tiwari
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  2. Ranesh Nair
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  3. Pavan Ankinapalli
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  4. Jyoti Rao
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  5. Pritika Hingorani
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  6. Manisha Gulati
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© 2015 Piyush Tiwari, Ranesh Nair, Pavan Ankinapalli, Jyoti Rao, Pritika Hingorani, and Manisha Gulati

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Tiwari, P., Nair, R., Ankinapalli, P., Rao, J., Hingorani, P., Gulati, M. (2015). India’s Reluctant Urbanization: Setting the Stage. In: India’s Reluctant Urbanization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137339751_1

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