|
There are very high levels of diversity in India in almost all spheres of our lives. And the same is true for our cities. So much so that it is difficult to identify commonalities and patterns such that we can easily categorize and fit cities in.
For the researcher interested in neatly categorizing different cities in different groups, this poses a problem, as the only categorization that will work is related to size. For the manager interested in a common approach for her marketing efforts across cities, this poses an even larger problem. It will be difficult to imagine a common strategy for Mumbai and Surat – both among the 10 largest markets in India and only a few hundred kilometers away. This diversity exists not only between cities, but also within cities. Whichever way we see it, India is a heterogeneous country with cities that are also heterogeneous. An appreciation of this heterogeneity needs to be built-in as an integral part of our understanding of cities. Another aspect of Indian cities needs to be appreciated. No one single city dominates any large sphere – true Mumbai dominates the financial sector, Delhi the political ‘sector’, but there is little else. Almost as many movies are made out of Chennai as in Mumbai, the automobile sector is spread around Pune, Delhi, Chennai and many other cities. And though many of the large IT companies are headquartered in Bangalore, cities such as Pune, Hyderabad are rapidly catching up, not to mention the high levels of IT activity in Mumbai and Delhi regions. Whether it is an economic activity, or any other aspect of life, India is fortunate to have a large number of diverse and dynamic cities. Delhi and Mumbai do not dominate India as much as, say, Mexico City dominates Mexico, or Sao Paolo dominates Brazil. The top 100 largest cities only account for roughly 50 to 60 percent of the overall market. So as long as we are thinking of the Indian middle class, or those at the bottom of the pyramid, there is a large chunk spread much more finely in the rest of the 5000 odd cities in India. These masses may not necessarily be from the top educational institutes of India, most may not be English speaking – but many of the highly educated and high income earners are not necessarily only in the top 100 cities. But the glass is half full. These top 100 cities do contain the largest chunk of the Indian urban population and market. For those interested in covering the bulk of India’s urban population and market, concentrating on these 100 cities can yield rapid results provided enough flexibility exists in their strategies to account for the heterogeneity. Partial Transcript - Indicus Analytics, An Economics Research Firm www.indicus.net Laveesh Bhandari., Indicus Analytics, 2006 The Diversity of the Top 100 Cities of India Laveesh Bhandari 1. Background Cities are 24-hour market places where a large group of people reside and trade. The high concentration of people brings with it a variety of tastes, preferences, wants, resources, products and services. People from within the city and outside interact, thereby generating the necessary mass for trade to occur. And so markets and cities are two sides of the same coin. The history of great civilizations is essentially the history of great cities. There is a direct relationship between human progress and dynamic and prosperous cities. India is well endowed with cities spread more or less evenly across the country. Like in other countries, cities in India tend to be located in areas with adequate water and on trade routes. And like in other countries, its cities also contain the bulk of the economic wealth. However, unlike in other countries, modern India does not know much about its cities. Apart from decadal reports from the Census of India, little information is available on cities. The situation is worse where information on the extent of economic and market activity is concerned. However, information from various sources can be put together, trends analyzed, matched with other sources, and analyzed to gain some important insights into cities. The unit for defining a rural area is the “village” while urban areas are classified as either a ‘Town’ or ‘City’. The defining character of a village is its agriculture-based economy. The Census of India lists about 638 thousand villages in the country, though some of these are uninhabited. The definition of a town varies, but the most commonly used in India is that of the Census of India. It considers a town to be that location which has (i) a minimum population of 5,000 (ii) at least 75 per cent of the male working population engaged in non- agricultural pursuits, and (iii) a density of population of at least 400 per square kilometer (1,000 per square mile). Cities are simply larger towns, as per the Census definition towns with a population of greater than 100,000 are cities. There were 5180 cities in 2001. However, there are many large villages that could be considered to be towns but are not for many reasons. Take for instance the 10,000-population benchmark. There were about 1300 towns with a population less than 10,000 in 2001. And there were almost 4000 villages with a population greater than 10,000 in the same year. Urban areas are governed in different ways. Municipalities, Municipal Coporations, Cantonment Boards, Notified Town Area Committee, Nagar Panchayats are some urban local governing bodies (ULBs) but not the only ones. Many times what we consider to be the same city is covered by different ULBs. Delhi for instance has the New Delhi Municipal Corporation and Delhi Municipal Corporation. On the other hand the districts of Mumbai and Suburban Mumbai have the same ULB overseeing their functioning - The Brihanmumbai I
- Indicus Analytics, An Economics Research Firm www.indicus.net Laveesh Bhandari., Indicus Analytics, 2006 Municipal Corporation. In the case of Hyderabad, the ULB oversees the urban area in the whole of Hyderabad district and also some portion of urban areas in Rangareddi. Table 1: Population Concentrations in India Unit Population Interval Number Village <1,000 persons 394,128 Village 1,000-4,999 persons 221,040 Village 5,000-9,999 persons 15,058 Village 10,000 or more persons 3,976 Town <5,000 persons 238 Town 5,000-10,000 persons 1,058 Town 10,000-50,000 persons 2,945 Town 50,000-1,00,000 persons 498 Cities 100,000 or more persons 422 Cities 1,000,000 or more persons 27 UAs 1,000,000 or more persons 35 Source: Census of India 2001 In addition, information at the city level is rarely available at the ULB level. ULBs themselves tend to be poorly run across most of India and are not known for their data and information provision abilities. As a consequence, it becomes quite difficult to categorize, compare and analyze cities. After all, what seems to be a simple enough entity, and intuitively quite apparent as a distinct unit, is not necessarily so administratively. The Census of India has tried to resolve this by coming out with the concept of an ‘Urban Agglomeration’ or UA. The UA is a continuous urban spread constituting a town and its adjoining urban outgrowths (OGs) or two or more physically contiguous towns together. It has brought out data for the 35 largest UAs in India as of 2001 (up from 23 in 1991). For the purpose of delineation of Urban Agglomerations (UAs) during Census of India 2001, following criteria were taken as pre-requisites: a) The core town or at least one of the constituent towns of an urban agglomeration should necessarily be a statutory town, and b) The total population of all the constituents (i.e., towns and outgrowths) of an Urban Agglomeration should not be less than 20,000 as per the 1991 Census. We consider this to be significant improvement over the past. However, even here there is a problem. The first has to do with limiting the data to the largest 35 UAs. There are many more such UAs across the country and for both policy and commercial purposes, no longer II
- Indicus Analytics, An Economics Research Firm www.indicus.net Laveesh Bhandari., Indicus Analytics, 2006 can one limit analysis to only the top 35 urban areas. There are many more UAs, 384 to be precise. However, data on these 384 UAs are not available. The second has to do with other data sources. Apart from the Census, no other urban data is available at the UA level. If the other aggregator-providers of information such as the Reserve Bank of India, Telecom Regulatory Authority, and the various organs of the Central and State governments were to synchronize their efforts with the Census, the quality of analysis of urban India would improve dramatically. For the time being however, we have to work with what is available. To avoid confusion between these definitional differences, and also due the fuzziness of city boundaries, many prefer to use the definition “urban area in a district” as a good enough working definition when studying the larger cities. In most districts where the larger cities are located there is only one major city and a few smaller cities. But the latter are more or less small sub-urban branches of the single large city. For instance, in 9 of every 10 cities that we study, the district is identified so much with the largest city, that the district has the same name as the city.1 We therefore use this as the unit of analysis for the topmost 100 cities in India. However, in some cases we need to aggregate some districts for varying reasons. These and other related issues are discussed next. 2. Topmost Cities in India Note that we do not use the term ‘largest’ but use ‘topmost’ instead. Some sub-urban locations have become important locations on India’s urban landscape. Some of these are still not among the largest in terms of their overall market size or population. But they are important centers in their own right. Gurgaon, Thane and Salt Lake are only some examples. Many think of large cities as those that have a larger population. Since we consider cities as markets, where those living inside or outside interact, the total market size is a better measure of the importance of a city. But the term ‘topmost’ also incorporates other characteristics. If our focus is on where to locate our offices, then other issues become more important, such as presence of government, and also good quality infrastructure. By these criteria all state capitals should be included. If on the other hand, we need to better understand which are the most important emerging urban locations, then we also need to include emerging population concentrations around large cities. We identify the top 100 cities of India in the following manner. First, the top 100 urban areas of districts were sorted on the basis of their market sizes. Next all the capitals of States and Union Territories were substituted at the cost of those cities with the smallest market sizes. In most cases the states and UTs were already among the top 100 cities. Last, the important urban areas in the vicinity of the large metros were identified, and these were also included at the cost of the smallest cities as per the market size. 1 In districts where large cities are not present, there tends to be one city that dominates and also tends to be the district headquarters. III
|
