UPSC Geography Optional Mains Topic Wise Questions – Settlement

Question : Land use characteristics of the rural-urban fringe in India.

(1995)

Question : Internal structure of an Indian city. (1994)

Urban morphology deals with the physical layout and internal functional structure of an urban area. Indian towns, on the basis of their morphological characteristics, may be classified under two broad categories:

1.Indegenous: These have fully Indian characteristics, such towns are mainly distributed in the areas of northern plains, desert borderlands and Deccan Peninsula and exhibit impact of south-west Asian (Islamic) culture in the form of narrow winding streets.

2.European Type: These include cantonments, civil lines, railway colonies etc. builts during the British rule. Here bungalow type houses are separated by straight and wide roads. These were developed by Europeans as port cities and European colonies.

The general morphology of the Indian cities was initially concentric in nature and was mostly affected by the physical characteristics of the site. During the British period with the development of new mohallas, market places and subwebs it become sectoral (consisting of two or three sectors). In certain port and capital cities it is multi-nuclei depicting the third stage of urban morphological development.

Due to multinucleated development in the Indian cities the CBD is not so developed as in case of Europe and America. It has emerged as a weak centre lacking monocentral concentration. Excessive congestion, population density and intensity also obstruct its growth. The old part of the city is characterised by irregular, narrow and winding street whose two sides are dotted with multistoreyed buildings consisting of old to new modern houses with occasional location of temples and mosques etc. The land use is mixed type which further masticates the urban morphology of the city. That is why it is always difficult to identify cloarfunctional zones in such cities.

On the other hand part of the city (including civil ines, military cantonment, railway colony etc.) developed during the British regime is very much similar to the western cities. After Indepdence many new cities have been built or old cities have been replanned on the western model, here roads are straight and wide well decorated with trees, open lands, parks and gardens. With the growth of population there is increase in the vertical dimension of the houses.

Question : Bring out the salient characteristics of Indian urbanisation with suitable examples. (1994)

Urbanisation is a socio-economic process by which an increasing proportion of the population of an area becomes concentrated into the towns and cities. It is the most significant phenomenon of the 20th century which has almost affected all aspects of the national life in India.

Follwing are the salient characteristics of Indian urbanisation:

1. India’s urban population constitutes a sizeable proportion of the world’s urban population. This can be well corrobortated from the fact that every 12th city dweller of the world and every 7th of the developing countries is the Indian.
2. India has a long tradition of urbanization which has continued since the days of Indus Valley Civilization. The roots of the existing process of urbanisation lie in the western model of factory industries which started developing in the country during the early part of the 20th century.
3. Urbanisation in India during the 20th century is associated with a particular theme in each decade 1901-11 famine and plague; 1911-21 influenza epidemic; 1921-31 agricultural depression; 1931-41 world war; 1941-51 partition; 1951-61 planned development; 1961-71 new urbanisation in backward areas and concentrated urban growth around big cities;1971-81 decentralised urban growth; 1981-91 decelerated rural-urban migration and declining rate of natural incrase.
4. The Indian urbanisation is of subsistence type whereby rural illiterate and semi-literate workers swarm into the cities to seek employment. This badly affects the quality of the urban life crating slums and squatter settlements.
5. The Indian urbanisation has poly-metropolitan effect in which four premier cities-Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Chennai—play dominant role.
6. The big cities of India re experiencing explosive population growth while the small towns are stagnating. While in 1901, 48.73 per cent of the country’s urban population was living in towns having a population of less than 20,000 each, in 1991 only 10.66 per cent of the country’s urban population increased from 22.93 per cent (number 25) in 1901 to 65.1 per cent (number 300) in 1991.
7. The Indian urban system is not integrated both functionally and spatialy. Hence, there are breaks and imbalances in urban hierarchy and rural-urban profile. The apex of the system is copsided, the urban rural sub-standard and the intermediary link through the market town weak.
8. The Indian urban centres are growing more on the basis of tertiary sector rathern than on the basis of secondary sector. It is only in recent years that some efforts are being made to create proper industrial base at the district level.
9. The western and southern parts of the country are more urbanised than their eastern and northern counterparts due to differential resource potential and history of urban development.
10. Suburbanisation has been brought about by the haphazard and unplanned development of the countryside. Mostly, this area is devoid of urban amenities, such as piped water supply and sewarage. This recent phenomenon has been largely aided by increasing connectivity from the city caused due to transportation and communication development.
11. Urban-commercialisation, another characteristic, refers to growth of industrial cities, which have been developed as part of national economic policies. The industrial cities like Rourkela, Durgapur, Bhilai are rooted to localised resources of national importance and have all the characteristics of implanted centres which developed enclave economies. This, they have not been able to diffuse development to their immediate vicinity.
    • Urban-commercialisation is associated with regional clusters of market towns of medium or intermediate size of cities. Commercialisation leads to the creation of surplus goods and retail trade centres. This induces the development of market infrastructure and improvement of transport and communication facilities.

Question : Distinguishing features of an urban slum and its position in metropolitan area. (1993)

‘A slum connotes an extreme condition of blight in which the housing is so unfit as to constitute a menace to the health and morals of the community’. It is a residential area where the dwellings by reason of dilapidation, over crowding, faulty arrangements of design, lack of ventilation, light and sanitary facilities or any combination of factors are deterimental to safety, health and morals. Slums are one or two-room hutments mostly occupying government and public lands, private ahata and old areas in the Indian cities. Here houses are built of mud or brick walls, low roofs mostly covered with old corrugated sheets, tins, bamboo mats, polythings, gunny bags and thatches, devoid of windows and ventilators and public utility services. These squatter setlements provide cheap residential accomodation to low income group and poor people who work in private factories or earn their living as petty vendors, hawkers, porters, construction workers and domestic servants etc.

According to the estimates of the town and country planning organisation about 22.58 per cent of India’s urban population lives in slums. These slums have been caused by the migration of illiterate, semi-literate and unskilled peasants and labourers from rural areas to seek employment in urban centres, mainly mega cities of the country. The following table presents the distribution of such slums in some of the important cities of the country:

About 44 per cent of the total population of Mumbai metropolis lives in its 2,641 slums whose population swelled from 28.3 lakh in 1981 to 54.8 lakh (growth 93.6 per cent) in 1991. Dharavi, located in the central part of the city, is the biggest slum of the Asia. It occupies an area of 4.5 sq. km. with more than 65,000 houses and 3 lakhs of permanent and 1 lakh of loating population.

Question : Explain the Morphology of Indian cities in the background existing Morphological Models. (2006)

Urban morphology deals with the physical layout and internal function structure of an urban area. Here ‘physical layout’means urban structure and may be termed as internal geography of the city. Similarly, functional morphology may be interchanged with urban land use. Various theories have been advanced by urban geographers to analyse the morphology of urban centre which are follows:

1. Concentric Zone Theory: The concentric zone theory of urban landuse was first proposed in 1923 by E.W. Burgess, an urban sociologist, in an attempt to explain the pattern of social areaswithin the city of Chicago. Burgess model is based on the idea that the growth of a city takes place outward from its central area to form a series of concentric zone.
2. The Sector theory: The sector theory was proposed by H. Hoyt in 1939. Sector theory pattern of urban landuse is conditioned by the arrangement of routes radiating out from the city centre with creating a sectoral pattern of land and rental values which in turn influences the urban land-use pattern.
3. The Multiple Nuclei Theory : In 1945 a less rigid model capable of application to a variety of urban patterns was proposed by C. D. Harris and E. L. Ullman. It was suggested that land use pattern in most large cities developed around a number of discrete centres or nuclei rather than a single centre.

Indian towns on the basis of their morphological characteristics may be classified under two broad categories:

1. Indigenous: These have fully Indian characteristics. Such towns are mainly distributed in the areas of northern plain, desert border land and Deccan Peninsula and have influence of South-West Asian culture in the form of narrow winding streets.
2. European Type: These include cantonments, civil lines, railway colonies etc, built during the British rule.

The general morphology of the Indian cities was initially concentric in nature and was mostly affected by the physical characteristics of the site. During the British period with the development of new mohallas, market places and suburbs, it became sectoral. In certain port and capital cities it is multi-nuclei depicting the third stage of urban morphology development.

The study of general functional structure and urban land use of Indian cities shows that there is an absence of clear separation between residential and other areas.

Internal Structure of Indian Cities: The post-indepedence period in India saw rapid growth of large – size towns. This growth was characterised by the following features:

1. Growth of residential colonies along radial rail -road arteries.
2. Absorption of suburbs bytowns.
3. Growth of industries in the intervening spaces.
4. Conversion of old bunglows, built during the colonial period,into government offices and official residence.
5. Planned development of new residential colonies, industrial estates and satellite towns.
6. Growth of slums near city centres in areas which are generally low-lying and prone to flooding. These are also used as work – places.

Thus an Indian city is an amalgamation of structures of various periods and of a variety ofland-uses.

Old Core of Indian Cities: This refer to an old fort, place of worship or, a place, around which a town generally grows. In India these are found to have the following features:

1. There is an intricate maze of lanes and by-lanes often ending in dead ends. This traffic in the core is generally one-way. The buildings are mostly old ones with particular style or architecture but generally have courtyard, balconies, chhajjas. Some of these old buildings have been demolished to raise tall buildings.
2. The old core is fragmented on caste and community lines.
3. The old core generally shows lack of lanes.
4. Some ofthe core areas have wholesale activities. such cores are characterised by traffic jams and congestion.
5. The old cores also develop restaurants and hotels to accommodate the visiting business men.

Cantonments and Railway Colonies: These features also came up during the colonial period and have well-planned rectangular street pattern as large open spaces in the form of race course and parade grounds and various services such as school/college, hospitals, post-office etc are available. In most cases, the contonments gave a separate identity.

Consequence of Rail Network: Another important stage in the process of urbanisation in India was the introduction of railway line. As a consequence of this, the road from station to the city centre gained importance. Shops and hotels came up along this road.

Around the suburban railway stations, housing clusters came up which were occupied mostly by migrants fromoutside. In the intervening spaces, industries, residential cluster or slums came up.

Most Recent Developments: The rapid growth of suburban road transport has become more extensive phenomenon than rail lines.

Today, Indian towns are further classified as:

Administrative Towns and Cities: Towns supporting administrative headquarters of higher order such as Chandigarh, New Delhi, Bhopal, Shillong etc.

Industrial Towns: Industries constitute prime motive force of these cities such as Mumbai, Salem, Coimbator, Modinagar, Jamshedpur, Hugli,
Bhilai etc.

Transport Cities: They may be ports primarily engaged in export and import such as Kandla, Kochi, Kozhikod, Mughal Sarai, Itarasi etc.

Commercial Towns: towns and cities specialising in trade and commerce are kept in this, like Kolkata, Saharanpur etc.

Mining towns: Raniganj, Jharia, Digboi, Singrauli etc.

Cantonment towns: Ambala, Jalandhar, Mhow, Babina, Meerut etc.

Educational towns: Roorkie, Varanasi, Aligarh, Pilani etc.

Religious and Cultural towns: Varanasi, Mathura, Madurai, Tirupati etc.

Tourist towns: Nainital, Mussoorie, Shimla, Panchmarhi, Mount Abu etc.

Within each medium or large city there are specific areas specialising in certain functions or activities like business, industrial, administrative, institutional, transport, residental etc. Business area is often the core and centre of the city.

Question : How do slums develop? Give concrete suggestion for their improvement. (2004)

A slum denotes a residential area where the dwellings by reason of dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty arrangement of design, lack of ventilation, light and sanitary facilities or any combination of factors are detrimental to safety, health and morals. According to the estimates of Town and Country Planning Organization, about 21.2% of India’s urban population lives in slums. This proportion is even higher in metropolitan cities like Kolkata, Mumbai, etc.

The origin and development of slums in the Indian cities is the result of many causes and processes. First of all the growth rate of Indian population is already high, the growth rate of urban population is even higher.

The rural-urban migration contribute significantly to this higher growth of urban population. Several push factors such as poverty, unemployment and lack of other amenities exist in the rural areas due to which people migrate to towns and cities in search of employment, education, etc.

But the growth of civic amenities in the urban areas does not keep pace with the growing population resulting into lack of hourses and residential problems. Poor people, most of which coming from rural areas, are not able to pay high rent of houses in the towns. Hence wherever they find a land, public or private, they start living there in temporary hutments. Later on this place develops into a slum or squatter settlement.

In India the growth rate of metropolititan cities is higher than other towns. This high rate of metropolization has compounded the problem of slums.

In some places the old areas of cities or the old cities, due to their dilapidated houses, uncontrol growth, overcrowding and lack of space, get converted into slums, e.g. the area around Jama Masjid & Chandni Chowk in Delhi. Sometimes the illegal occupation of government land also results in the development of slums.

Suggestions for Improvement:

1. The most important measure for slum’s improvement is to look after their source regions, i.e. rural development so that rural-urban migration can be reduced.
2. Employment generation in small towns also which would lead to well-distributed rural-urban migration.
3. Urban planning for the entire city region and hinterland.
4. Complimentarity and integration between urban planning and regional planning.
5. Re-development of existingh slums.
6. A long term policy for planned and regulated growth of towns and cities.

Question : Discuss the census definition of urban areas in India (2003)

The definition of urban areas presents many conceptual and methodological problems. It is generally accepted that a single criterion is not enough to define an urban place. Census of urban settlement was started in 1891, which was criticised as its definition lacked a precise population size.

Subsequently, 1901 census defined towns as (a) every municipality, (b) all civil lines not included within the municipal limits, (c) every contonment and (d) every other collection of houses inhabited by not less than 5000 persons. Modifications continued in subsequent censuses of 1911 and 1951 and finally a strict definition was given in 1971 census, which has been followed in 1981, 1991 and 2001 census with minor modifications/clarifications. 2001 census adopted the definition of urban areas as follows:

A. All places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee, etc.

B. Other places satisfying all the following criterea.

(i) a minimum population of 5000;

(ii) at least 75% of male working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuit; and

(iii) a density of population of at least 400 persons/km2. Besides the Directors of Census Operation in States/U.Ts were allowed to include some places having distinct urban characteristics as urban.

Although, big towns and cities stand conspicuously, anomalies do arise in the population size band of village 5000 to 10,000 and towns less than 5000 to 20,000. It could be hypothesized that some of the large villages (5000-10,000 size class) are more urban than some of the equally accessible small towns (less than 10,000).

The second criterion of the definition is that 75% of male work-force should be engaged in non-agricultural pursuits. Surprisingly, the census data reveal that about 25% of the census towns have agriculture as dominant activity. Further, it is not clear as to why female workers are not considered here by the census.

The third criterion requires the urban areas to have minimum density of 400 persons per sq. km. This is indeed a low density value in the Indian context. The average density of population in India, according to 2001 census, is 324 persons per sq. km. and seven states have densities well over 400 p.s.k. In the opinion of R. Ramchandran, a much higher value of around 1,000 persons per sq km would be more appropriate in the Indian situation.

Question : Explain with suitable examples and sketch-maps, the distribution of various patterns of rural settlements in India. (1999)

The spatial organisation of houses in a village defines its pattern, i.e. it is the relationship between one house or building to another. Here site attributes along with the layout of the land, configuration of roads and streets play decisive role.

The term ‘pattern of settlement’ deals with compact and semi-compact settlements only as each of the dispersed settlements has its own shape. The rural settlements have different shapes and sizes. Actually the pattern of rural settlement in the outcome of a series of adjustments to the environment which have been going for centuries. Moreover socio-cultural factors like caste-structure of the people living in a village and the functional needs of the people also have a close bearing on its shape and size. In the valleys is mountainous areas, the pattern of settlements is generally linear, while in the fertile plains their shapes may be rectangular; near the lakes and ponds the settlements are of circular or semi-circular types, while at the cross roads, the shape may be rectangular, circular or triangular. In exceptional cases the settlement patterns resembles a nebular form and on the river terraces of the stair case type.

The following rural settlement patterns can be identified from a broad classification of rural settlements:

1. Rectangular pattern
2. Linear pattern
3. Circular and semi-circular pattern
4. Star like pattern
5. Triangular pattern
6. Nebular pattern

1.Rectangular Pattern: This is a common settlement pattern which mainly develop in productive alluvial plains and wide intermontane valleys. This pattern evolves around the rectangular shape of fields, since it is common to find a system of land measurement based on square units. Lanes and paths also follow the rectangular field patterns and run through the village in north-south and east west directions. The rural settlements of the Sutlej-Ganga plains, especially those which developed on the cross-roads, fall in this category.

An interesting variant of the rectangular pattern is the Hollow Rectangular Pattern which develops when there is an open space in the middle. The open space may be a deserted fort, a mound or a pond.

2.Linear Pattern: Linear pattern is the other most important design of settlement. In the linear rural settlements, houses are arranged along either side of a road, railway line, river or canal. Such settlements also evolve along the edge of a valley, above flood level or along the coast. The development of linear settlements in the hilly areas is largely controlled by terrain and topography. These settlements are numerous in the Middle Himalayas, Siwaliks and along the roads in the plains of Ganga-Yamuna Doab.

3.Circular and Semi-Circular Pattern: Large villages in the Upper Doab and trans-Yamuna districts, Malwa, Punjab and Gujrat are characterised by a very high degree of compactness. Their circular and semi-circular form is a heritage of the past – a natural result of maximum aggregation for the purpose of defence, round the mansion of the local Zamindar. Such settlement pattern are also found along salt lakes, freshwater lakes (by salt producers and fishermen) and on the levees of ox-bow lakes.

4.Star Like Pattern: On the sites and places where a number of streets converge on one centre (a pond, temple or even an open space), star-like or RADIAL PATTERN develops. In these patterns houses spread out along the sides of roads in all direction. This pattern is caused mostly by new developments. In Indian such patterns are found in the Sutlej-Yamuna plains.

5.Triangular Pattern: At the confluence of rivers, the triangular pattern of rural settlement generally develops because at one end where rivers meet no lateral expansion of houses is possible. Consequently the settlement acquires a triangular shape.

6.Nebular Pattern: When the shape of a settlement resembles to nebula, it is known as a nebular settlements. The arrangement of roads is almost circular which ends at the central location or the nucleus of the settlement. Generally the size of nebular settlement is small and they develop around the house of the main land lord of the village or around the mosque, temple or church. There are several villages of this pattern is the Ganga-Yamuna Doab.

Apart from these major rural settlement patterns, some other are also frequently found. One such pattern is the ELONGATED VILLAGES. Here natural or cultural factors in the site are such as have either restricted the growth in some direction or fostered its extension in others. For example, in the Ganga plain, the settlement pattern becomes abnormally elongated along the natural levee or between the narrow strip of two rivers.

Another frequent form is the HORSE SHOE PATTERN which is a characteristic of a large number of hill-foot villages in the Peninsular upland. The village built on the side or at the base of the rounded ridges or hillocks line the advantageous side of the hill, forming a girdle round it and the resulting form is like a thick crescent of horse-shoe.

Where some focal point or line is situated at one end of the village, a FAN SHAPED PATTERN is found. A focal object may be a tank, a riverside, a road or even a place of worship. Such patterns are common in the delta regions where the dwellings simply follow the fan shaped profile of the delta, as in the case of delta regions of Mahanadi, Godavari and Krishna. Such patterns are also commonly seen in the Himalayan foothills.

Question : Discuss the environmental impact of the growth of slums in Indian cities. (1999)

A slum is a residential area where the dwellings by reason of dilapidation over-crowding, faulty arrangement of design, Lack of ventilation, light and sanitary facilities and any combination of factors are detrimental to safety health and morals. It connotes a extreme condition of light so as to constitute a menace to the health and morals of the community.

Slums are peculiar to the urban areas and are known as shanty towns, squatter settlements or Jhuggi-Jhopris. The major environmental problems of the slums in India are:

1. Shortage of space: About 77.6% of the urban dwellers in Mumbai reside in one room and lakhs of them sleep on footpaths beneath open sky. The city words near mahim bay in Mumbaiand Yamuna Pushta in Delhi present the terrifying scene of the urban civilization in which human beings are huddled together like beast. About 62% of the house holds of the metropolis reside in these slum area reaches the staggering figure of 2000 persons per hectare.
2. Prone to natural hazards: Slums are often prone to floods , water logging fire, ect. The slumareas of Delhi specially Yamuna-Pushta are affected by flood-water of Yamuna every year. The Katcha houses of slums frequently catch fire during summer reason.
3. Poor living conditions: Apart form shortage of space, the adequate basic amenities are lacking in the slums. There is a lack of toilet facilities and safe drinking water. There is no proper drainage and severage.
4. Health hazards: As a result of poor living conditions and open drains and unsafe drinking water, there is frequent recurrence of water born diseases like cholera, gostro-enteritis and jaundice.
5. Social problems: Majority of the slum dwellers earn very little income leading to wide spread poverty. Violence, drug-addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, and crimes of various nature are the inherent problems of the slum areas.

Question : Hierarchial pattern of Indian towns. (1999)

A hierarchy is a system with grades of status, ranked one above the other in a series, with the ranking usually reflecting a sort of inter-dependence. The hierarchial pattern of Indian towns can be analysed in the following two ways:

1.Structural Pattern: An important aspects of urbanisation all over the world is the uneven pattern of development of small towns and big cities within the system. Every urban system is characterized by the presence of a few large cities and a large number of small towns. The large cities account for larger share of the total urban population, while the small towns, despite their numbers, account for a smaller share. This is true of the Indian urban system and is brought out is the following table:

The million plus cities (metropolitan cities) form the apex of the Indian urban system and account for over one-third of India’s urban population. They are followed closely by class I towns and medium towns. Together these three categories contribute about 90% of total Indian urban population. The small towns which include class IV and V towns and account for more than 45% of the total number of towns, constitute only 10.37% of total urban population. The distributional pattern of the major classes of towns and cities in different states of India show remarkable unevenness.

2.Functional Hierarchy: There exists a hierarchy in the functions provided by the towns. For example, taking administrative function, a mini town at the taluka or subdivisional level is at the lowest level. A district town is at the higher hierachial level under a district collector. Above the district town is the state capital which has the governor state legislature, secretariat and high court. At the top of the hierarchial pattern is the national capital New Delhi where President’s house, Parliament, Central Secretariat and Supreme Court are located.

Likewise other functions such as health and education services, trading, manufacturing etc. are characterized by their own hierarchial pattern in which lower level functions are performed/provided by smaller towns and functions of higher order by larger towns. Each level needs a threshold population to support that particular function. For example, a primary health centre is recommended to serve a population of 30,000 while an upgraded community centre is suggested for a population of 10,000.

Question : Discuss the concept of city region and referring to Indian cities, examine critically functional indicators used for delimiting the city region. (1998)

A city and its surrounding areas are not independent of each other rather they are intricately related with each other. Together they constitute a unified functional region. The fact is that the city and the countryside are mutually interdependent and this relationship covers a wide range of physical, social and economic interactions.

Thus each city wields some influence upon the area surrounding it. The term city region is used to denote the influence of the urban area on a much larger scale.

Though the social distance between urban and rural environment is substantial, India cities today play a major role in changing the social and economic environment of surrounding area. The cities today serve as a focal point for development in education and health and even for rural development. Thus the concept of city region is useful for regional development planning in India.

Distance Decay Effect: The influence of city over the surrounding settlements tend to decline with distance from the city. Apart from the distance decay effect on daily commuters the effect is also seen in the distribution of goods and services, from the city to the surrounding region and vice-versa.

Structure of the City Regions: The city regions is an area around the city over which the city exercises a dominant influence in relation to other neighbouring cities of equal importance. Three notions need to be classified here:

1.Concept of Area of City Influence: The areas of city influence are contiguous areas around a city from where people commute to the city to obtain certain goods. A cinema hall in the city may attract persons from several villages around the city. Likewise various institutions in the city such as hospitals, colleges, schools, etc., have their corresponding areas of influence.

2.Concept of Areas of City Dominance: The areas of influence of neighbouring cities tend to overlap; thus generating a zone of competition in between. In the middle of the zone of competition one can define a boundary which separates the areas of dominance of competing cities, as shown in the figure given below.

The area of dominance of a city is an exclusive area and it is dominant not only with respect to one or two services but with respect to all services of equal importance. Thus the area of dominance is a multi-functional area, while the area of influence is essentially an unifunctional area.

3.Concept of City Region: The areas of city influence and dominance are further complicated by the existence of a hierarchy of cities. The city region may be defined as the area of dominance of a city corresponding to its hierarchial level. However, the same city also performs functions of a lower hierarchial order. As a result, each city may have more than one area of dominance. The city region is the largest of the several areas of dominance around a city.

Functional Indicators Used For Delimitation of the City Region: The delimitation of the areas of influence/dominance of a city is a significant problem and there are many difficulties involved. The interaction between the city and its country side is of dynamic nature which is continuously changing and therefore the functional indicator applied for delimitation one year may not be relevant another year. Moreover owing to the development of transport and communication facilities areas of influence of cities have increased to a great extent.

However it is possible empirically to demarcate areas around the city that are dependent on it for some service or the other. In the case of small towns such services are few in number and there relate to goods and services of ordinary use.

Both cities and its countryside perform various functions for each other. Such functional indicators can be and has been used for the delimitation of city regions. The area of influence of small towns (with population about 20,000 or more) may be delimited on the basis of the data on:

1. Addresses of patients coming to a private allopathic doctor or government dispensary.
2. Addresses of account holders of a local bank
3. Place of residence of customers visiting a local cloth store on selected days.
4. Place of residence of customers coming for cycle repairs.
5. Village from which farmers bring their tractors to the local tractor mechanic.
6. Villages from which students come to the local secondary school or junior college.
7. Village of origin of persons coming to the cinema house in town.

But such functions are not suitable for delimiting the area of influence of a city which has a population of 100,000 or more. Such a city would provide all the services rendered by the small town, but the city will certainly provide a wider range of services. What is required is the selection of those indicators which are appropriate to the level of specialisation and the hierarchial level of the city. For example if the supply of milk is taken as a functional indicator for delimiting the area of influence of a large city, it would provide a distorted picture because milk being a perishable item the area from which the milk supply comes to the city is limited in extent. So other indicators will have to be taken along with it to mark the boundary of a city region more appropriately.

In the Indian context, some suitable functional indicators for a large city may include:

1. Treatment in a specialised hospital (eg. heart care institute etc.)
2. Newspaper circulation
3. College or university education
4. Purchase of high value agricultural or other equipments
5. Purchase of expensive clothing for special occasions
6. Purchase of expensive consumer items
7. Specialised repairing work

Several studies have been done to delimit the city region which include the pioneering work done by R.L. Singh, Manzoor Alam and others. Following figure shows the several functional indicators used for delimiting the city regions of varanasi and Kanpur.

It may be noted that the milk supply zone and the vegetable zone represent areas on which the city is dependent while the education, medical facilities and newspaper circulation areas depend on the city for these services. The bus service area however, delimits the area with which the city interacts both ways.

The bus service area is an appropriate indicator for a number of central place services and is a useful criteria for delimiting area of influence of cities with a population of one lakh or more. The frequency of buses tends to diminish away from the city centre until a point is reached where the buses run more frequently to another neighbouring city. Here again it should be noted that this functional indicator may work for a place where buses are the chief mode for commuting. Where there is predominance of personal vehicles for commuting, this factor is not likely to yield good result.

The criteria used to delimit the area of influence should not only depend on the hierarchial level of the city but also on the nature of city’s functional sepcialisation. For example , for an agricultural marketing centre, the indicator should focus on the catchment area of specific agricultural products for which the city region is known.

Question : Discuss the gegoraphical control of rural settlement patterns in India. (1998)

The spatial organization of houses in a village defines its pattern, i.e. it is the relationship between one house or building to another Geographical controls such as site attributes, terrain characteristics, layout of the land, along with the configuration of roads and streets play a decisive role in determining rural settlement patterns.

Such geographical controls deal with compact and semi compact settlement only as each of the dispersed settlements has its own shape. The pattern of settlement may be identified by reading and observing the topographical maps prepared by the survey of India. This shows the influence of geographical factors on rural settlement patterns.

The rural settlements have different shapes and sizes in different geographical regions of India. Actually the pattern of rural settlement is the outcome of a series of adjustments to the environment which have been going on for centuries. Sociocultural factors like caste-structure of the people living in a village and the functional needs of the people also have a close bearing on its shape and size. In the valleys in mountainous areas, the pattern of settlement is generally linear such as in middle Himalayas and Siwaliks. Along the river banks and seashore the flood and water level influence linear settlements as in Indus-Ganga plain and in coastal areas.

Areas of level topography especially fertile alluvial plains and wide intermontane valleys favour the development of rectangular or square pattern. It confirms well with the systems of house design, ploughing patterns and land measurement (bigha system). Such settlement pattern is common in Indo-Gangetic Plain.

Development of circular or Semi-circular pattern is the natural result of locational factors around a fort, massion temple, pond, lakes and meander banks. Large villages in the Upper Doab, Malwa, Punjab and Gujrat are characterised by a very high degree of compactness and circular or semi-circular pattern. On the sites and places where a number of streets converge on one centre, star like or radial pattern develops. Such settlements are found in the Sutlej-Yamuna plain.

At the confluence of rivers, the triangular pattern of rural settlement develops because at one end where rivers meet no lateral expansion of houses is possible. An elongated pattern results along the natural levees or between the narrow strip of two rivers as found in the Ganga plain. Fan Shaped patterns are common in the delta regions where the dwellings simply follows the fan-shaped profile of the delta, as in the delta regions of Mahanadi, Godavari and Krishna and also in the Himalayan foothills.

Question : Examine the census concept of urban areas in India. (1997)

The term ‘urban’ as opposed to rural, is related to towns or cities, urban settlement is a large nucleated settlement in which the majority of the employed inhabitants are engaged in non-agricultural activities. Urban areas may be defined by national governments according to different criteria; for example, size, population density, occupation of the people, and type of local government. The census of India until 1951 defined an urban settlement. This defination was modified in 1971 census to treat all places satisfying the following conditions as towns.

1. All municipal corporations, municipal boards, cantonments and notified areas.
2. All localities though not in themselves local bodies but forming part of a city or town agglomeration.
3. Other places satisfying all the three undermentioned conditions:

1. Population exceeds 5,000
2. At least 75 per cent of the male working population engages in non-agricultural pursuits, and
3. The density of population exceeds 400 persons per square km. In 1981 census some minor changes were incorporated whereby livestock, forestry, fishing, hunting, plantations, orchard etc. were treated as agricultural activity and places having distinct urban characteristics and physical amenities like industrial area, special project area, large housing colonies, places of tourist interest, railway colonies etc. could be regarded as towns at the discretion of the Director of Census operations in consultation with the concerned state governments.

All towns and urban agglomerations, so identified, are grouped into following six classes according to population-size:

• Class I: Population of 100,000 and above
• Class II: Population of 50,000 to 99,999
• Class III: Population of 20,000 to 49,999
• Class IV: Population of 10,000 to 19,999
• Class V: Population of 5,000 to 9,999
• Class VI: Population of less than 5,000

Any urban place with a population exceeding 1,00,000 is called a city.

Question : Name the million cities of India according to 1991 census and critically examine the factors for unprecedented growth in their population in the last 40 years. (1996)

Metropolis meaning mother city, is a large city which serves as a regional capital. In India a city having one million or more population is called metropolis. According to 1981 census there were 12 metropolitan cities in the country which increased to 23 in 1991 census. These include:

1. Mumbai, 2. Kolkata, 3. Delhi, 4. Chennai, 5. Hyderabad, 6. Bangalore, 7. Ahmedabad, 8. Pune, 9. Kanpur, 10. Lucknow, 11. Nagpur, 12. Surat, 13. Jaipur, 14. Choimbatore, 15. Kochi, 16. Vadodara, 17. Indore, 18. Patna, 19. Madurai, 20. Bhopal, 21. Vishakhapatnam, 22. Varanasi, 23. Ludhiana.

Unprecedented growth in metropolitan population that is (i.e.) metropolitisation has been a trend in the post-independence period. The one-lakh cities and the million cities have shown remarkable growth accounting for over 65% of the urban population today.

Metropolitanisation is essentially a product of the centralisation of administrative, political and economic forces in the country at the national and state capitals, thus inviting a huge influx of migrants. Metropolitanisation is also a product of intense interaction between cities and the integration of the national economy and urban centres into a viable independent system. The metropolitan cities have a cosmopolitan (world citizen) population drawn from different regions differing in terms of language, religion and perception towards the past and present outlook. They differ from their neighbouring towns in terms of their urban ethos and values reflected in their lifestyle.

Factors for metropolitisation in India have been critically examined in the following paras:

1. Market Forces: The development of consumer industry leads to an increase in the importance of market-oriented locations. Towns provide large readymade markets for consumer goods and therefore attract new industries. These new industries need labour supplies and the labourers, in turn, increase the size of the potential market. A snowball effect is set in motion and urban growth becomes self-sustaining. The necessity of links between various industries leads to communication development. This helps the towns to become route centres which further attract assembly-line industries.
2. Growth of Services: As living standard rise, a greater social and economic organisation is needed, trading incrases and tertiary and quaternary industries grow. Many of these services by their very nature, tend to be centralised in towns providing retailing, entertainment, catering and administration. As more and more services are needed, it attracts more and more people and gradually the urban area grows.
3. Improvements in Transport and Communication: A good transport and communication network is essential for the survival and growth of a town. Better transport facilities, besides increasing the mobility of the town’s people encourages the establishment and expansion of towns along the major transport routes. The catchment area of the town also increases as a result of the improvement in transport and communication and migration from the countryside to the town is now faster and easier.
   • Thus, towns expand and grow. Ever since the industrial revolution, the development of railways and road transport has helped urbanisation extend further, causing the dispersla of towns, the spread of suburbs and the transformation of towns into metropolitan settlements.
4. Emergence of towns as socio-cultural centres: Towns have now become as much a centre of socio-cultural activities as industrial and commercial activities. They have emerged more as a centre of entertainment. Towns with such social facilities as cinemas, theaters, art galleries, entertainment parks etc. act as magnets to the surrounding populations. Many people simply enjoy being near the centre of the urban life. Besides, towns also provide better utility services than country areas and this also attracts population.
   • Because of the concentration of many activities and a seat of socio-cultural activity, urban areas have become zones of immense opportunities. People concentrate more and more in urban areas as success in urban areas is more attainable. This again leads to an influx of people from all walks of life into the urban areas.
5. Inmigration: The rapid growth of metropolitan cities has been brought about by the direct migration of rural people to metropolitan cities, in preference to smaller towns and the migration of people from smaller towns to large cities. Widespread unemployment and poverty in the rural areas act as a push factor while better facilities in metropolitan cities act as a pull factor both for rural areas and smaller towns. This has led to unprecedented growth of population of metropolises in India. Natural increase of metropolitan population is also responsible for this growth of population.

Question : Land use characteristics of the rural-urban fringe in India. (1995)

The rural urban fringe is a zone or frontier of discontinuity between city and country in which rural and urbanlanduse are intermixed. The fringe is defined in relation to the city and exists in the agricultural hinterland where landuse is changing.

The fringe consists of an inner fringe which is characterised by land in an advanced stage of trasition from rural to urban landuse. The second area in the fringe is the outer fringe which is an area in which rural landuse continues to dominate the landscape but there is infilteration by those urban landuses which take up too much land to be easily located elsewhere, for example, airports, cremations, sewage works, etc. The fringe area tends to increase along transportation lines. Between such routes, purely rural land may extend cityward.

Landuse characteristics:

1. There is constantly changing pattern of land occupations.
2. Farms are small with intensive crop production
3. Residential expansion is rapid.
4. Services and other public utility facilities are inadequate.
5. Speculative building is common.

The urban fringe is very much like the proper city with residential and commercial centres, but it generally lacks proper city services such as piped water supply, sewerage and garbage disposal facilities. Layout is haphazard and chaotic, streets are narow winding and poorly maintained and ther is proliferation of squatter settlements and slums. In parts, the urban fringe is well organised with posh residential colonies, or industrial townships whose access roads are well maintained and have all the urban amenities. This, however, is an exception and not the rule.

The rural fringe that lies beyond the urban fringe consists of villages that are only partly affected by urbanisation. The degree of urban impact may vary greatly. In some places, all the agricultural land is intact, in other villages there are some isolated blocks of urban landuse, as seen in the development of residential plots in patches along the main roads and scattered industrial establishments outside the village site. Sometimes, portions of agricultural land in a village are acquired by real estate agents for speculative purposes, and these lands remain vacant for long periods of time.

Occasionally, the rural fringe may contain a small town or a number of well established townships, which are designated as inner ring towns or sometimes called suburbs also. Between the city limits and partially urbanised villages there are generally a few villages that are not well-connected for any reason and appear as a discontinuous belt around the city.

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