Page 309 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes The demographic-spatial aspects of urbanisation deal with shift of people from rural to urban areas,
population density in urban areas and change in the pattern of land use from agriculture to non-
agricultural activities. Economic aspects of urbanisation relate to the change from agricultural to
non-agricultural occupations. As cities have been the centers of diverse economic opportunities, they
attract people from rural areas. This attraction pulls a significant section of the rural population to
the urban areas. Rural poverty, backwardness of agricultural economy and the destruction of cottage
and small industries also push villagers to urban areas. These pull and push factors of migration
play an important role in the process of urbanisation.
The socio-cultural aspects of urbanisation highlight the emerging heterogeneity in urban areas. The
city has generally been the meeting point of races and cultures.
Patterns of urbanisation.

There are following patterns of urbanisation:
1. Demographic Aspect: In India, population concentration has been one of the key features of
urbanisation. The percentage of urban population has been little more than doubled from 10.8
per cent in 1901 to 23.3 per cent in 1981. And this has been almost tripled by 2001, when it has
been recorded to be 27.8 per cent. The urban population of India as per the 1991 census is
217,177,625 and this accounts for 25.72 per cent of the total population. So far urban population
of the country is concerned, only 25.85 million lived in towns in 1901 and by 1991 it increased
by more than 8 times to 217.18 million. Out of the total population of 1027 million as on 1st
March 2001, 285 million lived in urban areas. The net addition of population in urban areas
during 1991-2001 has been to the tune of 68 million where as during the decade 1981-1991 it
was 61 million. Urban population has significantly increased in the post Independence period.
For the forty years period from 1901 to 1941 the increase of urban population from 25.85 to
44.15 million has been quite modest compared to the 62.44 million of the next decade. There has
been an increase of 115.05 million in urban population from 1941 to 1981. Note that 64.8 per
cent of this population has grown in the two decades between 1961 and 1981. Similarly the
urban population has almost doubled in the decades 1971 (109.11 million) to 1991 (217.18 million).
There was a slow growth (and also decline in 1911) in the proportion of urban to total population
in the early decades (1901-21). This is mostly because of natural disasters and slow rate of
industrial and economic development.
The rapid growth of urban population during 1941-51 has been mostly due to partition of the
country and other political reasons, which led to refugee migration in the urban areas. The
steady increase in the urban population in the decades prior to 1981 came about not so much
because of planned economic development and industrialisation, but due to imbalanced
agricultural development. The annual rate of growth of urban population declined from 3.83
per cent during 1971-1981 to 3.09 per cent during 1981-1991. During the decade 1971-1981 the
level of urbanisation increased by 3.43 per cent points. During 1981-1991 decade the increase
has been only 2.38 per cent. The increase in the urbanisation further declined to 2.1 per cent
points during the decade 1991-2001. As a consequence the annual rate of gain in percentage of
urban population has also declined from 1.72 to 1.02 during the decade 1981-1991. This indicates
that the tempo of urbanisation in India has slowed down since 1981.
2. Spatial Pattern: Spatial disparities have marked the Indian urban scenario. These disparities
emerged mainly due to regional disparities, imbalanced population concentration and sometimes
because of the change in the census definition of “urban areas”, to mention about two concepts,
namely over urbanisation and sub-urbanisation.
Over-urbanisation
Towns or urban areas have certain limitations in accommodating population, providing civic
amenities or catering to such needs as schooling, hospitals etc. Beyond certain optimum capacities,
it becomes difficult for the town administration to provide facilities for the increasing population.
Mumbai and Kolkata are two such examples of cities (among others) which have urban population
growth beyond their capacities to manage. This feature refers to over-urbanisation.

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