Urbanisation, Slum Improvement & Urban Transport

Urbanisation

Urbanisation is the increase in the proportion of a population living in urban areas, together with the growth of towns and cities and the spread of urban ways of life.

Urban areas in the Census of India

1. Statutory towns — all places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee.
2. Census towns — places satisfying all of the following:
   • A minimum population of 5000;
   • At least 75% of the male main working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits;
   • A population density of at least 400 persons per km².

Urban agglomeration (UA) — a continuous urban spread of a town and its adjoining outgrowths or two or more contiguous towns. Cities with population of one million and above are million-plus cities/UAs.

Trends

• According to Census 2011, about 31.2% of India's population lived in urban areas (377 million people), and there were 53 million-plus urban agglomerations.
• Urban growth is concentrated in large metropolitan regions and their peripheries; many small and medium towns are also growing rapidly.

Causes of urbanisation

• Natural increase of urban population.
• Rural-to-urban migration — pull factors (jobs, education, health care, amenities) and push factors (agricultural distress, lack of employment, landlessness, disasters).
• Reclassification of rural settlements as urban and expansion of city boundaries.
• Industrialisation and growth of services.

Problems of rapid urbanisation

Urban local bodies

The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992 gave constitutional status to urban local bodies (ULBs):

• Three types: municipal corporations (larger urban areas), municipal councils (smaller urban areas) and nagar panchayats (areas in transition from rural to urban).
• Regular elections, reservation of seats, State Finance Commissions, State Election Commissions, ward committees, District Planning Committees and Metropolitan Planning Committees.
• The Twelfth Schedule lists 18 functions for ULBs, including urban planning, regulation of land use, roads and bridges, water supply, public health and sanitation, slum improvement and upgradation, urban poverty alleviation, and urban forestry.

Slums

Definition

The Census of India (2011) recognised notified slums (declared under state laws), recognised slums (by state/local authorities) and identified slums — a compact area of at least 300 population or about 60–70 households of poorly built congested tenements in an unhygienic environment, usually with inadequate infrastructure and lacking proper sanitary and drinking water facilities. Census 2011 recorded about 65 million people living in slums.

Characteristics and causes

• Characteristics: overcrowding, poor-quality structures, insecure land tenure, lack of water, toilets, drainage and waste collection, health hazards, social exclusion.
• Causes: migration, poverty, shortage of affordable housing, high land prices, lack of planned low-income housing near jobs, weak enforcement of land use.

Approaches to slum improvement

National programmes (urban)

• Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM, 2005–2014) — urban infrastructure and governance, with Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) and Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP).
• Rajiv Awas Yojana — aimed at slum-free cities (later subsumed).
• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana — Urban (PMAY-U, 2015) — housing for all with verticals such as in-situ slum redevelopment, credit-linked subsidy, affordable housing in partnership and beneficiary-led construction; followed by PMAY-U 2.0.
• AMRUT (2015) — water supply, sewerage, drainage, green spaces, non-motorised transport; AMRUT 2.0 (2021).
• Smart Cities Mission (2015) — area-based development and technology-based solutions in 100 selected cities.
• Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) (2014) and SBM-U 2.0 (2021) — sanitation and solid waste management.
• HRIDAY (2015) — heritage city development.
• Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM) and PM SVANidhi (2020, credit for street vendors).

Programme details change over time; check the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for current status.

Town planning

Objectives

Healthy and orderly development; efficient land use; adequate housing, infrastructure and amenities; convenient transport and circulation; pleasant environment with open spaces; economic growth; conservation of heritage and natural resources; equity.

Surveys and planning process

Civic survey — Patrick Geddes advocated the sequence Survey → Analysis → Plan. Surveys include physical (topography, land use, soil, climate), demographic, economic, social, housing, traffic and transport, infrastructure and environmental data.

Master plan (development plan)

A long-term (commonly about 20 years) statutory plan guiding the physical development of a city:

• Contents: existing conditions, population projections, proposed land use plan (residential, commercial, industrial, public and semi-public, recreational/green, transport, utilities), road network and transport plan, infrastructure plans, zoning and development control regulations, phasing and financing.
• Stages: surveys and studies → analysis and projections → draft plan → public objections and suggestions → approval → implementation through zonal plans, local area plans and projects → monitoring and review.
• National guidance: Urban and Regional Development Plans Formulation and Implementation (URDPFI) Guidelines, 2015.

Zoning and development controls

• Zoning — dividing a city into zones with regulations on land use, height, bulk, density and ground coverage.
• Floor area ratio (FAR) / floor space index (FSI):

• Ground coverage — percentage of plot area covered by the building at ground level.
• Setbacks — open spaces required around buildings.
• Density — gross residential density (persons or dwelling units per hectare of total residential area including roads and open spaces) and net residential density (per hectare of residential plots only).
• Transferable Development Rights (TDR) — development rights transferred from a plot (e.g. surrendered for public use or heritage) to another location.
• Land pooling / town planning schemes — landowners pool land; the authority develops infrastructure and returns reconstituted serviced plots (Gujarat town planning schemes are a notable example).

Planning concepts

Urban transport

Problems

Congestion and delays; rapid growth of private vehicles; inadequate and overcrowded public transport; road accidents; air and noise pollution; lack of safe facilities for pedestrians and cyclists; parking shortages; poor integration between modes.

Modes

Policies and planning tools

• National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP), 2006 (revised 2014) — focuses on "moving people, not vehicles": priority to public transport and non-motorised transport, equitable allocation of road space, integrated land use and transport planning, parking management, and institutional reforms.
• Unified Metropolitan Transport Authorities (UMTA) — to coordinate transport planning and operations across agencies.
• Comprehensive Mobility Plans (CMPs) — long-term city mobility plans prepared by cities.
• Metro Rail Policy, 2017 — emphasises alternatives analysis, last-mile connectivity, TOD and value capture financing.
• National TOD Policy (2017), parking policies, FAME schemes for electric mobility and electric buses.

Urban transport planning — four-stage model

1. Trip generation — number of trips produced by and attracted to each zone (regression or category analysis based on population, income, vehicle ownership, employment).
2. Trip distribution — linking productions and attractions between zones:
   • Growth factor methods — uniform, average, Fratar methods.
   • Gravity model:

$T_{ij}$ = trips from zone $i$ to $j$; $P_i$ = trips produced in $i$; $A_j$ = trips attracted to $j$; $F_{ij}$ = friction (travel impedance) factor, e.g. $1/t_{ij}^n$; $K_{ij}$ = socio-economic adjustment factor. 3. Modal split — share of trips by each mode (e.g. logit models based on travel time, cost, comfort). 4. Traffic assignment — assigning trips to routes of the network: all-or-nothing, capacity restraint, user equilibrium (Wardrop's first principle — no traveller can reduce travel time by changing route), system optimum.