India's urbanisation is at a crossroads

Urbanisation is the flip side of prosperity. On a 250-year scale, as economies in the West grew their per capita income, their urbanisation rates increased alongside.

- SAURABH MODI

There is a similar journey of growth taking place in India, where its towns are becoming centres of productivity and Indian metropolitans have expanded into megacities. Examining how our cities expand and observing the trends in urbanisation are ways to learn about India's prospects for economic growth.

A Ravindra's book, Governing Urban India, is an urban governor's experience and perspective on doing just that. It can guide the reader to know the character of Indian urbanisation, understand what powers drive it, and where its discontents are.

The structural transformation of an economy is the primary method of development. It is only when individuals transition away from working on land to performing activities where they are more productive that the economy grows. These activities with higher productivity have a large spatial linkage. They occur in agglomerates of high density, where factories and trade gather with close linkages. The definition of urban geography is close to this understanding. In the Indian Census, a region is considered urban when it has a minimum population of 5,000, or a population density of 400 persons per square kilometre, or where at least 75 per cent of its male working population is engaged in non-agricultural pursuits. By this definition, 34 per cent of India lives in urban regions.