Components of urban growth
Topic: Human Settlements and Urbanisation in India · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 9 "Geographical Perspective on Selected Issues and Problems"
Meaning
Urban population grows in three ways. These are the components of urban growth. The first is natural increase, when births in towns outnumber deaths. The second is net in-migration, when more people move into towns than leave them. The third is reclassification, when villages grow enough to be counted as towns. Knowing the mix helps planners see whether a city grows through its own people, through newcomers, or through new definitions.
Example
In India, rural-urban migration gave about 29% of urban growth after 1961. Reclassification mattered a lot in 2001-11: census towns rose from 1,362 to 3,894. In that decade, for the first time, India's urban increase (about 9.1 crore) was larger than its rural increase.
Don't confuse with
- Urbanisation (level): this is the share of people living in urban areas, such as 31.14% in India in 2011. The components explain how that number changes.