Urbanisation

Urbanisation if movement of people from rural to urban areas and the resulting increase of population in urban areas. It is a social process exhibiting lifestyle associated with cities and the desire to acquire the same. 

Push factors and pull factors lead to urbanisation

• Over-Urbanization
• increased exemplifications of the characters of urbanization in a city or its surrounding rural area
• results from excessive development of urban traits. Due to the expansion of the range of urban activities and occupations, greater influx of secondary functions like industry, increasing and widespread development of an intricate bureaucratic administrative network, the increased sophistication and mechanization of life and the influx of urban characters into the surrounding rural area, over urbanization gradually replaces the rural and traditionalistic traits of a community. Mumbai and Kolkata are two such examples of cities.
• Sub-Urbanization
• When cities get over-crowded by population, it may result in sub-urbanization. Delhi is a typical example. Sub-urbanization means urbanization of rural areas around the cities characterized by the following features:
• a sharp increase in the ‘urban (non-agricultural) uses’ of land
• inclusion of surrounding areas of towns within its municipal limits
• intensive communication of all types between town and its surrounding areas
• Counter-Urbanization- demographic and social process whereby people move from urban areas to rural areas as a reaction to inner-city deprivation and overcrowding. When some large cities reach a point where they stop growing further or actually begin to decrease in size as their population start moving into suburban areas or smaller cities thereby leapfrogging the rural-urban fringe.
• Census Towns- 2011
• differentiate between India's small farming communities and the larger market town-type settlements that are experiencing rapid and haphazard growth. To be classified as a census town, a village must fulfil three criteria;
• it need at least 5,000 inhabitants,
• a density of 400 people per sq. km, and
• at least three quarters of its male working population must be "engaged in non-agricultural pursuits".

Problems of Urbanisation 

• Urban sprawl- unplanned expansion of urban areas both in terms of population and settlement due to massive influx of migrants 
• overcrowding- too many people occupying limited spaces depicted from population density
• housing- chronic shortage of housing, high rental prices and property rates 
• slum and squatter settlement - clustered, dilapidated, poor unhygienic housing conditions
• trash disposal- accumulation of huge garbage mounds on city outskirts. Ghazipur landfill rises up to sky as tall as Qutub minar collapsed in 2017
• sewage treatment and waste management  no proper waste management system. No sewage disposal mechanism and careless attitude of people regarding disposal
• sanitation- overflowing drains, manual scavengers, poor quality of drinking water 
• transport- overcrowding of roads with vehicles traffic congestion and pollution. Delhi Bangalore 
• pollution- from vehicular emissions, industries, ACs, Refrigerators etc 
• urban crimes- rising rate of crimes in urban areas
• urban heat island effect - rise in temperature of urban areas due to high concretisation in comparison to neighbouring areas of about 2 degree Celsius 
• unemployment - large scale informal employment in cities of migrants in construction sites, factories with poor wages and benefits 

Satellite Towns- towns located near a metropolitan area that is neither totally independent of the central city nor restricted in function as a suburb. Eg. Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad are satellite towns of Delhi

Ease of Living Index (EoLI) and Municipal Performance Index (MPI) 2019 by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs are designed to assess the quality of life of citizens in 100 Smart Cities and 14 other Million Plus Cities.

Urban Housing

• Homelessness is on the rise and has been for the past half a century. With demand rising exponentially and increasing migration numbers, the current requirement for shelter stands at 30 lakh units.

Challenges in providing housing

• Ineffective programs 
• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana aims to provide cheaper houses quickly to low-income groups, with substantial interest subsidies on housing loans without much success. State housing boards have similar unachievable goals. Every year, more houses are constructed; yet, every year the demand increases.
• Idea of ownership The provision of shelter is still wracked by the archaic ideal of ownership and still stuck to the impracticality of old space and design ideas.
• The unwillingness of a homeowner to rent out when the legal rights grossly favour tenants. 
• Four factors need to be evaluated in the search for a new model
• put a halt to the growing privatization of the city – do away with more private ownership of land and buildings. The current situation creates unfortunate divides between private colonies, flats and government housing — contributing to insecurity and gated colonies
• Isolating quality of the Indian city has been reinforced by divisions of profession, ethnicity and economic status
• Cities with officially recognized subdivisions — Bengalis in their own enclave (Chittaranjan Park), lawyers in Niti Bagh, Jews in Jewtown and Parsis in Parsi Colony
• Stringent urban land reforms would be the first step in that direction

Solutions 

• Making housing part of city infrastructure projects, the government takes away land and construction from private builders and creates diverse pockets of housing in different parts of the city.
• Ensuring citizens have easy access to subsidized rental housing without legal rights of ownership. Rental units would allow residents to live close to the office and employment, keeping the neighborhood changing and dynamic.
• system of tax incentives and new rental regulations
• imposition of a high un-occupancy tax on buildings that are vacant will help to inhabit them
• Stricter construction restrictions government should see housing as a social service and not a business venture
• Expanding the supply of low-income housing
• smaller multifunctional and compact unit
• Subsidies on efficient space planning, environmental considerations, and design that create shared community spaces should be encouraged and rewarded.
• Civic governance structures need to be separate from politics.
• Brazil’s intervention in its Favelas or slum tenements upgraded individual houses
• Singapore replaced their poorer tenements altogether with basic high rise of low-cost low-income housing

Unless more thoughtfully-designed homes, with newer materials and technologies, and a more egalitarian housing policy become part of future government programs, it is these citadels of waste and decay that will remain the public face of the city.

Counter Magnets 

• towns as alternative centres of growth to attract people moving to cities like Mumbai, delhi Bangalore tc 
• they should not be within 250km of delhi 
• should have their own established roots and potential to growth 
• should be a centre of religious, strategic or environmental importance 
• phase 1 Gwalior, Hisar, Kota, Patiala, Aligarh 
• phase 2- Ambala, Dehradun, Kanpur, Moradabad 

MoH&UA Draft National Urban Policy framework 2018 

• Functional Area
• City planning 
• Urban Economy
• Physical Infrastructure- water, sewage, sanitation etc 
• Social infrastructure- health, education, heritage
• housing and affordability
• transportation and mobility
• urban finance
• urban governance
• urbanization and information system 
• environmental sustainability 
• Philosophical Aspect 
• cities as clusters of human capital
• cities require a sense of place
• not static master plans but evolving ecosystems
• build for density
• public spaces which encourage social interaction
• multi modal public transport as the backbone
• environmental sustainability
• financial self reliance
• clear unified leadership
• cities as engines of regional growth 

MoH&UA- Data Smart Cities Strategy 

• foundational pillars
• people- data governance structure based on integrity, transparency and accountability 
• process - data governance; processes aid decision making and authority
• platform- open data platform; data exchange platform; data marketplace 
• Harness use of data to address urban challenges in smart cities 
• institutionalise a culture of data by formalising collection, management and use by different stakeholders
• data governance by stakeholders to make informed decision 
• enable framing city data policy
• facilitate city data alliance between community, industry, academia for data driven solutions and better planning 
• adopt appropriate data platform with common programming interface, data representation