A study on Emerging Trends in Demographic Features of Size Class of Cities and Towns in India

Urbanization is closely linked to modernization, industrialization, and the sociological process of rationalization. It can describe a specific condition at a set time, i.e. the proportion of total population or area in cities or towns, or the term can describe the increase of this proportion over time. Urbanization is not merely a modern phenomenon, but a rapid and historic transformation of human social roots on a global scale, whereby predominantly rural culture is being rapidly replaced by predominantly urban culture. Village culture is characterized by common bloodlines, intimate relationships, and communal behavior whereas urban culture is characterized by distant bloodlines, unfamiliar relations, and competitive behavior. Further, urbanization is a Socio-Economic phenomenon, plays a significant and dynamic role in changing the ways of life of the people. It transforms the human societies into civilized as well as modernized ones, serves as a significant agent in patterning and organizing the social processes in space. The growths of any urban center are of two types-natural growth and migration. The consequences of rapid urbanization are numerous and varied. Apart from the problems of poverty, unemployment, food supply and nutrition, water supply, sewage and solid waste disposal, transport and communication, power supply, pollution control, there are fiscal problems resulting from financing of public services such as health and education. Further, rapid urban growth has created serious shortages of shelter and thereby led to proliferation of slums and squatter settlements. Thus, the phenomenon of rapid population growth in urban areas is related to the cascading effect of one activity upon another. Moreover, the imbalance growth of population by towns and cities in recent decades has received attention in different views. Hence, the paper aims at examining the emerging pattern of urban population growth in towns and cities of India during eleven decades (1901-2011) based on census data and policy issues are suggested for balanced growth of urban population in all towns and cities.