MODULE 2

Urban Rural Continuum,

Contemporary urban problems: Growth
and changes, overcrowding, slums
Urban Rural Continuum
Definition..
 Continuum means continuity.
 Rural-urban continuum : continuity from the village
to the city.
 One end of this continuous scale is the village: the
other is the city
 Rural-urban continuum : no sharp breaking points
to be found in the degree or quantity of rural urban
differences.
 Rural-urban continuum came into existence because of the fact that a marked difference
between the urban & rural character is not seen in the settlements abutting the city limits.
 They have characteristics of the city because of their closeness to it & they cannot deny their
rural characteristics of largely unplanned development.
 Continuum shows that the development is from the village to the city. Over time, villages are
transformed into towns and cities
Urban Rural Continuum

 Rural-urban as dichotomous categories have differentiated the two at various levels including
o Occupational differences
o Environmental differences
o Differences in the sizes of communities
o Differences in the density of population
o Differences in social mobility and direction of migration
o Differences in social stratification and in the systems of social interaction.
 The rapid process of urbanization, establishment of new technologically developed industries
in rural areas (near to the urban centres) have exercised a great impact on rural life.
 Spread of modem industrial traits has decreased considerably the differences between the
two is not visible. Thus, invisible rural and urban cultural boundaries have made It difficult to
draw a line of distinction.
 Hence, the marginal areas show amalgamation and continuation of cultural traits of both the
societies
Urban Rural Continuum
Causes
 Last three decades - Development of transport and road communication has connected the
remote tribal areas, villages and urban centres rapidly within a very short period of time.
 New occupations and modern educational institutions have attracted the people of rural areas.
 Rural to urban migration has taken place & this reduces the separation between tribal areas,
villages and cities.

 Migration has been thought to be the most

significant factor contributing to the rural-urban
continuum and thus formation of such
settlements
 Cities are the most prominent service providers
in an area - act like nuclei - pull unemployed
people towards the city
Urban Rural Continuum
Causes
 City centers are already crowded & are so expensive that the immigrants can hardly afford it.
 People choose a place that is neither far from the city center nor costly.
 The city fringes provide an ideal location for such intentions.
 Houses come up only on major traffic corridors

 To sustain a large vote-bank, local political leaders with the help of some local goons, arrange
utility services for the area from nowhere else but the city.
 As land becomes more expensive in the urban areas and environmental regulations become
more demanding, companies move their manufacturing plants out of the city and into the rural
areas.
Contemporary urban problems: Growth and changes
Problems of Urban Life...
• Cities consist of very large numbers of people living in a relatively small amount of space.
• Some of these people have a good deal of money, but many people, and in some cities most
people, have very little money.
• Cities must provide many kinds of services for all their residents, and certain additional services
for their poorer residents.
• These basic facts of city life make for common sets of problems affecting cities throughout the
nation
• Some of these problems are:
• Crowding
• Housing shortage
• Growth of Slums
• Conurbation
Contemporary urban problems: Growth and changes

• Urban growth is an increase in the urbanized land cover.

• One possible means of urban growth is by urban extension.
• Urban growth according to spontaneous or unplanned
urban development is called urban sprawl.
• Urban sprawl or real expansion of the cities, both in
population and geographical area, of rapidly growing cities
is the root cause of urban problems.

• Large cities act as magnets and attract large number of immigrants by dint of their employment
opportunities and modern way of life.
• Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, etc. are examples of urban sprawl due to large scale
migration of people from the surrounding areas.
• 3 categories of urban growth:
• Infill
• Extension
• Outlying
Contemporary urban problems: Growth and changes

• The relationship (or distance) to existing developed areas is important for determining what type
of urban growth has occurred.
Infill growth
• It is characterized by a nonurban area that is being converted to urban use and which is
surrounded by at least 40% of existing urban area.
• Development of a small piece of ground mostly surrounded by urban land cover/use
• Infill growth usually occurs where public infrastructures already exist, such as roads, water, or
sewerage networks
• Infill friction as the disappearance of free space and corridors in such built-up areas.
Contemporary urban problems: Growth and changes
Growth by extension
• It is characterized by a nonurban area that is being urbanized and is
surrounded by 50% or less of existing urban area
• It represents an extension of the existing urban area
• This type of development by extension has been called the metropolitan fringe
or urban fringe development
• When urban areas expand in predominantly parallel bands (also called straps or
bangs) with an outer edge, it is called boundary or border development

Outlying growth
• It is characterized by a land change from nonurban to urban that occurs
away from existing urban areas
• Isolated growth is characterized by the urbanization of one or more nonurban
areas at some distance from an existing urban area.
Contemporary urban problems: Housing

• Overcrowding leads to a chronic problem of shortage of houses in urban areas.

• This problem is specifically more acute in those urban areas where there is large influx of
unemployed or underemployed immigrants who have no place to live in when they enter
cities/towns from the surrounding areas.
• An Indian Sample Survey in 1959 indicated that 44 per cent of urban households occupied
one room or less.
• In larger cities the proportion of families occupying one room or less was as high as 67 per
cent. (Roy Turner, 1962).
• Moreover, the current rate of housing construction is very slow which makes the problem
further complicated.
•Much of the urban housing is substandard
• Adequate housing is not affordable for many city residents, as
housing prices in cities can be very high, and usually higher
than in rural areas, and the residents’ incomes are typically
very low.
 Contemporary urban problems: Housing
• Cities thus have a great need for adequate, affordable housing.
• Housing is affordable when a household pays no more than 30 percent of its annual income on
housing.
• Low-income households that must spend more than this benchmark may be unable to afford
clothing, food, health care, and transportation.
•Several factors are responsible for housing problems
faced by the urban people.
• The major factors are
• Shortage of building materials and financial resources
• Inadequate expansion of public utilities into sub-urban
areas
• Poverty and unemployment of urban immigrants
• Strong caste and family ties
• Lack of adequate transportation to sub-urban areas
where most of the vacant land for new construction is
located.
Contemporary urban problems: Overcrowding

• Cities experience many kinds of problems, and crowding is one of them

• Overcrowding is a logical consequence of over-population in urban areas.
• It is naturally expected that cities having a large size of population squeezed in a small space must
suffer from overcrowding. This is well exhibited by almost all the big cities of India.
• For example, Mumbai has one-sixth of an acre open space per thousand populations though four
acre is suggested standard by the Master Plan of Greater Mumbai.
• his leads to tremendous pressure on infrastructural facilities like housing, electricity, water,
transport, employment, etc.
• People experience stress and depression and to engage in
aggressive behavior or be victimized by it.

• Cities are crowded in at least two ways

• Residential crowding
• Household crowding
Contemporary urban problems: Overcrowding
• Residential crowding
• Large numbers of people living in a small amount of space
• City streets are filled with apartment buildings, condominiums, row houses, and other
types of housing, and many people live on any one city block.
• Residential crowding is perhaps the defining feature of any large city.
• Household crowding
• Dwelling units in cities (apartments and houses) are typically small because of lack of
space, and much smaller overall than houses in suburbs or rural areas.
• This forces many people to live in close quarters within a particular dwelling unit,
especially if they are low-income individuals or families.
•Either type of crowding produces higher levels of stress, depression, aggression and crime.
• Household crowding may produce depression in women but not men, and aggression in men but
not women.
Contemporary urban problems: Slums
• Urbanisation, the process by which cities and towns grow and develop, has some ‘by-products’.
One of the most ‘persistent’ among them happens to be the pockets of poverty and neighbourhood
decay, famously called ‘slums’
• As informal (and often illegal) housing, slums are often defined by:
• Unsafe and/or unhealthy homes (e.g. lack of windows, dirt floor, leaky walls and roofs)
• Overcrowded homes
• Limited or no access to basic services: water, toilets, electricity, transportation
• Unstable homes: weak structures are often blown away or destroyed during storms and
earthquakes
• No secure land tenure (i.e. the land rights to live there).
Contemporary urban problems: Slums

• 1880s - Housing Reform movement in England - introduced the idea of ‘slums’ as meaning a
house that is “materially unfit for human habitation”.
• Under-employment and unemployment in rural areas has spurred major migration patterns to
the cities
• Without adequate measures to draw these semi-skilled and unskilled population into the
mainstream formal sector, there remains the growing issue of the urban poor gathering to give
rise to more slum potent neighbourhoods
• In India, slums are one or two-room hutments mostly occupying government and public
lands.
• The houses in slums are built in mud or brick walls, low roofs mostly covered with
corrugated sheets, tins, bamboo mats, polythenes, gunny bags and thatches, devoid of windows
and ventilators and public utility services.
• Slums have practically no drains & Piped water is not available to slum dwellers and they
mainly depend upon shallow hand-pumps for water supply
Contemporary urban problems: Slums

How we can plan for the future

• Slum upgrading, not eviction, is critical as the world
urbanises. This means improving living conditions of informal
settlements in a responsible manner, providing access to
decent housing in the short term and the long term.
• Solid Ground, our global advocacy campaign, is working to
fight forced evictions by securing land rights for slum
dwellers and advocating for policies that improve access to
basic sanitation services.
• Bringing together access to land and security of tenure,
access to credit, and provision of basic services are critical
components of an urban planning framework.
• Because secure land rights are essential for accessing land,
capital, and basic services, assuring tenure security is crucial
for slum upgrading .