Urban Growth: Concept and Terminologies

The study of urban geography to a great extent is aimed at explaining the distribution of towns and cities and the similarities and dissimilarities that exist between and within them (Pacione, 2009).

However, if Heraclitus of Ephesos is to be believed, the only thing that endures and is constant in life is change, yet there ought to be some sort of conformity in the character of the urban spaces. The cities contain inherent characteristics unique to each of them but have in common features like commercial and residential areas, transport networks, infrastructure, and a range of services provided to the residents to name a few. The only difference is that all these features vary in terms of degree and their operability across space.

It is a well-noted fact that global urbanization is a recent phenomenon and started mainly in the Western countries of the USA and the UK and the beginning of the last century these countries had close to a quarter of their population living in their urban areas as compared to the meagre 2 to 3 per cent in the developing nations of the world. Ever since all the countries across the world are experiencing growth of urban population in terms of absolute numbers and proportion, a phenomenon christened as urban growth and urbanization respectively.

However, it is quite true that the experiences of individual towns and cities have varied to a great extent in terms of their growth characteristics and have had a close linkage with the prevalent social and economic state of affairs. The urban growth of towns may be addressed from two broad perspectives as follows:

a. A macro-level perspective hints at the growth of the urban population at the global level throwing light on how the urban population have grown over time across the global cities and how the phenomenon of urbanization has occurred in them.

b. A micro-level perspective looks at the individual experiences of towns and cities passing through sequential stages of growth and how much growth is encountered by the differential movement of the population in different zones.

A clear idea of the stages of urban growth requires a systematic revelation of the macro-level perspective and gradually transcends to the micro-level perspective of the growth experiences of individual towns and cities.

Urban Growth from a Macro-lens: Perspectives of the Globe and India

It is a well-established fact that what is urban today was constituted by a handful population in the initial years of the 19th century. However, over the past centuries, the world that had been dominantly rural was getting transformed into an urban space and the situation may be illustrated well through the following table.

Table: Urban Population Distribution Across The Globe, 1970, 1994

	1970	1970	1994	1994
Region	Population in millions	Percentage of urban population	Population in millions	Percentage of urban population
More Developed Region	677	67.5	868	74.7
Australia-New Zealand	13	84.4	18	84.9
Europe	423	64.4	532	73.3
Japan	74	71.2	97	77.5
North America	167	73.8	221	76.1
Less Developed Region	676	25.1	1653	37.0
Africa	84	23.0	240	33.4
Asia*	428	21.0	1062	32.4
Latin America	163	57.4	249	73.7
Oceania*	1	18.0	2	24.0

*Note- Asia excludes Japan and Oceania excludes Australia and New Zealand

Quite evident from the above table is the fact that the increase in urban population has been a global phenomenon as both the more developed world and the less developed world has experienced growth throughout the twentieth century and continues to do the same in the present one. It is clear that there is a distinct numeric divide when it comes to the volume of the urban population in the developed and the developing world where the former has lesser numbers than the latter.

But when it comes to the percentage of the urban population, the former reports to have a higher proportion of the population in their urban counterparts than the latter. The less developed region reports having around 37 per cent of its population in the urban regions as compared to close to two-thirds of the population in the more developed region. Countries of Europe, Australia, Japan and North America have more than 70 per cent of their population in the urban areas compared to a little more than one-third in the developing regions of Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania.

The story of urban growth and the stimulating factors of such growth has been a quite different experience for developing countries and developed ones. India being one of the much-talked-about countries in the developing world, would make the exploration of its urban growth over time an interesting exercise.

For ease of reference, the four top urban agglomerations of India namely Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata have been considered and their growths have been traced from 1901 to the recent most census of 2011. This would in turn help to develop a clear understanding of how the major urban centres in India grew over time. The situation is illustrated in the table.

Table: Population in the Four Major Metros of India between 1901 and 2011.

	Distribution of Population	(In Millions) in Top Four	Urban Agglomerates	of India
Year	Mumbai	Delhi	Chennai	Kolkata
1901	0.8	0.2	0.5	1.5
1911	1.0	0.2	0.6	1.7
1921	1.3	0.3	0.6	1.8
1931	1.3	0.4	0.7	2.1
1941	1.7	0.7	0.9	3.6
1951	3.2	1.4	1.5	4.7
1961	4.5	2.4	1.9	5.4
1971	6.6	3.6	3.1	7.4
1980	9.4	5.8	4.2	9.2
1991	12.6	8.5	5.3	11.0
2001	16.4	12.9	6.6	13.2
2002	18.4	16.3	8.6	14.1

The table contains the population of the major urban agglomerated of Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata and it is revealed that all four metros have experienced a growth in the urban population in the last century. It is clear that Kolkata Urban Agglomeration (KUA) was the only urban agglomerate having more than a million population at the beginning of the twentieth century and continued to grow ever since. Mumbai joined the million-plus league of cities in 1911 and continues to experience staggering growth at a pace which overpowered all the other major three agglomerates of the country. It presently houses the highest urban population of 18.4 million followed closely by Delhi (16.3 million), Kolkata (14.1 million) and Chennai (8.6 million) (Census, 2001, 2011). However, if the growth rates are taken into account, Delhi and Mumbai far supersede the remaining two urban agglomerates in the years of reference between 1901 and 2011.

Urban Growth from a Micro-lens

Having noted the growth of the urban population at the global level, what is essential is to note the changes that come along with urban growth in the morphology and the nomenclature of urban spaces. It is evident that cities and towns acting as nodes of urban growth take different forms in accommodating the ever-increasing urban population. Different agencies across the world have christened urban spaces based on several selected criteria.

The following section will throw light on some of the terminologies that are frequently used when urban spaces are talked of. The Directorate of Census Operations, India, 2001 has defined the term “urban area” or “town” based on the following criteria (Bhusan 2010):

1. All places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area, etc.
2. All other places that satisfy the following criteria:
   1. Minimum population of 5000.
   2. At least 75 % of its male working population engaged in non-agricultural activities and
   3. A density of population of at least 400 persons per square kilometre or 1000 per square mile.

Though the basic criterion for the christening of settlements as towns has remained fixed, certain alterations have been made by the Directorate of the Census Operations in India from time to time since its very inception. However, a synoptic overview of the basic criteria may be provided in the following table.

TABLE: CRITERIA BY THE CENSUS OF INDIA TO BE SELECTED AS TOWN (1891-2001).

CRITERIA

01

91

81

71

61

51

41

31

21

11

1901

1891

Municipal Corporation

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Municipal Area

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Town Committee

*

*

*

*

*

*

**

**

**

**

**

**

Notified Area

*

*

*

*

*

**

**

**

**

**

**

**

Cantonment Board

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

POPULATION DENSITY OF 400 persons/sq.Km. or 1000 persons/sq.mile.

*

*

*

*

*

**

**

**

**

**

**

**

Minimum 5000 people

*

*

*

*

*

**

**

**

**

**

**

**

75 per cent of the male population in non-agricultural activities

*

*

*

*

*

**

**

**

**

**

**

**

All civil lines not included in the municipal limits

**

**

**

**

**

**

*

*

*

*

*

**

**Definition of towns does not abide by the criterion.

*Definition of towns abides by the criterion.

Apart from the above-stated criteria, certain modifications have been made in different years by the Directorate of Census Operations which may be summed up as follows:

1) Any continuous collection of houses inhabited by not less than 500 persons which according to the Directorate of Census Operations of the Superintendent of the state possessed pronounced urban characteristics and amenities could be defined as towns. The criteria were followed in all the census years between 1891 and 1971. However, in making the decision certain considerations were to be kept in mind as

1. The character of the population,
2. Relative density of the dwelling,
3. Importance of trade and historic association to avoid treating the overgrown villages as towns. However, in the case of trade as a criterion, the proportion of trading or industrial population to the total population had to be equal to or more than that of the agricultural population.

2) However, the tests prescribed for distinguishing the towns from the villages in the different states of India were based on the ideas common to all of them but were not applied with meticulous uniformity. In the case of the Princely states, the definition of towns was applied a little indiscriminately.

Certain terminologies come into frequent usage when urban studies are taken up. They may be highlighted in the following discussion.

City

A city has been defined as any town with a population of 1,00,000 at the same time satisfying the other administrative, demographic and economic criteria mentioned above.

Metropolis or Million City

On the other hand, a metropolis or a million city has been defined as an urban area having a population of 1 million and above with a cosmopolitan character and administered by one or more municipal corporations or local bodies.

Urban Agglomeration

Much customarily found in any literature regarding the urban study is the term urban agglomeration which has been defined as a continuous spread constituting a town and its adjoining urban outgrowths (OG’s) or two or more physically contiguous towns along with any OG if present.

In some cases, railway colonies, university campuses, port areas etc. may come up near a city or a statutory town outside its statutory limits but well within the revenue limit of a village or villages contiguous to the town or city. Each individual area by itself may not satisfy the minimum population criteria to qualify to be treated as an individual urban unit but may deserve to be clubbed with the town as a continuous urban spread.

For the delineation of urban agglomeration during Census 2001, the following criteria were taken as a prerequisite:

1. A core town or at least one of the constituent towns of an urban agglomeration should necessarily be a statutory town.
2. The total population of all the constituent towns and outgrowth of an urban agglomeration should not be less than 20,000. With these two basic criteria having been met, the following are the possible situations in which urban agglomeration would be constituted:
   1. A city or town with one or more contiguous outgrowths
   2. Two or more adjoining towns with their outgrowths and
   3. A city with one or more adjoining towns with their outgrowths all of which form a continuous spread

Central Business District

The central business district is the focus of intra-city transport routes having the maximum overall accessibility to most parts of the urban area. It is characterized by peak land values and intense development with high densities. The development is usually more vertical than horizontal (ENVIS, SPA, 2008).

Urban Sprawl

The term Urban sprawl in the way it is presently been used was coined by Earle Draper one of the first city planners in the south-east USA. It refers to the tendency towards lower city density as the city footprints expand (Nechyba and Walsh, 2004). Urban sprawl can take different forms as low-density residential developments or so-called edge cities that give rise to business activity like office buildings, retail and even manufacturing that can take the form of planned communities.

Standard Urban Area (SUA)

The concept of Standard Urban Area (SUA), was developed with the intention of coverage of larger core towns or cities as well as its adjoining areas which might also be rural areas coming under the influence of the core towns (Roy, 1991).

Urban Primacy

Urban Primacy was formally recognized by Jefferson (1939) which denotes a condition where the largest city in a country is superordinated in both size and national influence in comparison to the others. Scholars in various studies have referred to the fact that urbanization manifests itself in particular territories in urban primacy and thereby generates regional imbalances.

Metacities or Hypercities

Similar concepts have been proposed by United Nations to refer to urban centres of various sizes. While megacities for instance are the cities with more than 8 million population, metacities or hypercities are the conurbations with more than 20 million population.

It is interesting to note that the population in some of the hypercities is found to be more than the population in some of the countries of the world. For example, Greater Mumbai in India with a population of 12.4 million in 2011 is said to have a population almost equivalent to the combined population of Norway (5.0 million) and Sweden (9.5 million) in 2011.

The scrutiny of the urban terminologies helps in the identification of the characteristics of the process of urbanization, its manifestations in different regions, its basic problems, recent policy interventions and the related governmental schemes (Kundu et. al., 1999).